RAMPS AND RAINDROPS



There's a bike tour company called 'Adventure Cycling'. That name was also somewhat applicable to our first Saturday VCRR Group Ride of March – or maybe it should be 'Attrition Cycling'. Starting from a base count of 13, we lost two wannabe riders who canceled because of NWS's last minute updates to the weather. Our friend DaveM came to the start, but the suspension unit on his BikeE died on his ride down, and he elected to head back home before we rolled away. He may also have been motivated by his cold stiffened fingers.

The remaining group did a tour of the new (to me) bikepaths crossing San Francisquito Creek at Newhall Ranch Road as we waited for our last late arrival. Finally ten of us rode up the creek, passing through an odd series of varied air masses, some fairly mild, but others bone-chillingly cold and wet. These varying 'air pockets' continued through the day. We haven't had any serious issues with flat tires on our group rides for weeks, but that changed today. We made our first two quick stops for tire trouble and a photo op before crossing the creek on Copper Hill Road.

We rolled back down to a quick pit stop at Bridgeport Park, where we revisited the tire issue. Then things went pretty well as we crossed the river and cruised over to the South Fork Trail. We made an unplanned detour to Peter's house before continuing to Wiley Canyon Road. During yet another immersion into quirkily damp and chilly air, short-sleeved Stephen opted to head somewhere much warmer before his skin turned blue. Chicago escorted him to avoid wrong turns, and Peter left with them to go to work.

We rode around the first set of paseos, making another pit stop on Lyons and dealing with a second tire problem. Our tandem team separated before we entered the second set of paseos, avoiding the ramps and zigzag speed gates of the street overpasses. We were now down to only five riders, and a SERIOUS struggle with a bewildering flat tire was going to make us late to meet Chicago for lunch.

Our odd weather changed to a light drizzle as we worked on the tire, which continued while we were popping up and over the six bridges on our way to the Westfield Valencia mall. We barely made it to the Lazy Dog restaurant before their 2PM cutoff for brunch. Since the patio wasn't a popular choice for seating with the off-and-on drizzly weather, we jumped ahead of the twenty or so diners in their waiting line. Lunch was good, but the rain became a little heavier before we finished eating.

We plopped back onto soggy seats, and then got even damper as we exited the mall and popped over the last two street overcrossings. Surprisingly, the sky cleared to bright blue with open sunlight once we were back on the river trail. We were all mystified as we kept getting hit by sparse but big ploppy raindrops, with no clouds within miles of us. Finally it was sunny and dry, with everyone wearing big grins as we loaded our cycles and drove home.