16 August 2008

Saturday harbor ride

It was cool and there was thick fog in the morning. At the start, there was an unusual crowd of people due to a outrigger canoe club or something. There was also people making chalk marks on the road for a run or a walk.

On San Andreas, I was at the back of the pack, but the pace was relatively slow, so the pack was all bunched up. At one time, I saw one guy off the front. Approaching Buena Vista, there were two guys off the front. After Buena Vista, the pace picked up a little, but not that much, so the pack was still pretty bunched up.

At Watsonville, a big bunch headed off for the long route. A good sized bunch went for the shorter routes, with a decent size group of at least 20 doing Hazel Dell. On Casserly, the pace was slow at first. The latter part of Casserly had been pretty recently chip-sealed, so there was loose gravel on the side of the road. The pace picked up and strung out the group single file. The group bunched back up on the shallow climbing of Mt Madonna, then split up when it got steeper.

At the start of Hazel Dell, the sky was clearing. When the climbing started, I fell back from the lead group. At the summit, it was sunny. I was in a group of 4 and hung onto their wheels on the descent. A couple more riders caught us before we got to Corralitos.

After Corralitos, I continued solo over Hames, Day Valley, Valencia, and Trout Gulch to Aptos, then Soquel back to town. From Main St in Soquel all the way Ocean St, I had the worst luck with traffic lights. All except for 2 were red and a number of them changed to yellow as I was approaching. It was now sunny where it had been foggy in the morning.