Drove down to Paso Robles to participate in the San Luis Obispo Bicycle Club’s Wildflower ride. This is a ride I’ve wanted to try for many years so finally made the commitment. The weather predictors said it would rain but only .04 inches. Well…instead of riding the metric century, I quit at mile 45. I was drenched and it didn’t seem like a smart move to ride with wet shoes, socks, gloves etc. Fortunately the rest stop at mile 45 was also the start/finish for all the rides which made it easy to quit. And there weren’t very many wildflowers!
After eating my lunch, I drove back to the motel and stood for a long time under the hot shower.
The rain quit about the same time I did. The afternoon was clear and sunny. So, I got some rags from the motel staff and started cleaning my bike. Well I couldn’t get the rear wheel off. I just didn’t have the oomph to loosen the skewer. What to do, what to do? Oh, take it to the local bike shop…except they are out of business.
OK, my phone said there’s a motorcycle shop nearby. I’ll go there. Couldn’t find them but did find an ATV dealer so went in to see if they could help. Just needed someone with a strong thumb. You know, a man! He loosened it and I was good to go.
So the bike is cleaner and I plan to do a short ride tomorrow before heading home.
Some folks from the SF bay area and others from SoCal also came to do the ride. We were going to meet for dinner last night at the house the NorCal folks rented. Partially due to very poor directions from the owner of the house, it didn’t go as planned. But I got to meet and get to know some new (to me) folks.
The next plan to go awry was meeting in Creston at 7:30 this morning. I was running late and forgot my phone. So I tried to determine if the others had already taken off. After hanging out for a bit, I decided to go ahead and ride. Later I found out they were behind schedule too so they left about a half an hour after me.
Alls well that ends well. This evening we all got together for the spaghetti dinner we were supposed to have had last night. It was delicious and we got to share stories, drink wine and just enjoy our time together.
thecyclingdiva 