Santa Cruz Hills Ride

January 19, 2003

by Jimil:

Woke up Sunday morning and looked out the window. Couldn't see more than 20 feet. It was super foggy and everything was wet pretty cold too. Looks like its gonna be another great day of riding...yeah right.

Waited for Rich and then headed to the meet spot. The She...I mean the 76 Gas station at the bottom of Hwy 9 in Saratoga. I thought it was gonna be just Rich and I, but to my pleasant surprise, I see Jeff, Cary (oh my gawd, Cary???!!! Out on a ride?), Megan, Luan, Brad Fell, and Greg Fuse. I haven't seen Brad on ride in awhile, but I was even more surprised to see Greg there. I guess he's making it an annual thing. 1 ride a year....hahaha.

We BS abit and all decide to get something to eat and let this fog burn off a bit. So we head over to this mom and pops place on Sunnyvale-Saratoga called Bobbi's. Good food! Since we were a large group we had to eat at their outdoor tables so we kept them busy refilling our hot chocolate and coffee mugs. Megan gets a call from Glen (I had forgotten my cel and apparently Glen left a few messages to meet him up at the 4 corners) and Glen says its nice, sunny, and dry up at 4 corners. Yeah right.....Glen shows up later on as we were finishing so we there we a total of 9 riders. Good turn out considering the weather was jacked up where we were.

The fog was slowly burning off but not as fast as we'd liked. A quick stop at the 76 station again to let Glen gas up. Some guy in a pickup wanted to video tape us on the way up. Ok. Don't get mad if you can't keep up. We all headed up Hwy 9 which was we near the bottom but as we got above the fog/cloud cover it dried up and it was sunny without a cloud to be seen. Sweet!!! We then made the right at 4 corners to head north towards Alice's. Certain sections of 35 were ground up with these weird grooves that ran parallel to the road. It made the bikes feel all squirrely but I thought it was pretty fun to ride on. We all get to Alices without any incident. The truck shows up about 3 minutes later....he got stuck behind some other cages.

From Alices we headed down 84 towards the coast. Our next stop was the San Gregorio store and Stage Road. I lead out and was riding really mellow cause some parts of the road were still wet being in the shade. At the beginning of the ride, Jeff mentions that he doesn't want to take lead cause last time he got a ticket. Well as soon as the roads were dry he blasts past me and and sets up for a left. He was almost knee down when a sheriff pops out heading the other way. I was thinking oh shit...he's gonna get it...again hahaha....I checked my mirrors but he kept going, no lights no nothing, Rich mentioned that he got an evil stare from him though.

After regrouping at San Gregorio we take Stage Road out to Pescadero. Some people like this road (me, Glen, Cous) some guys don't (Brad, Luan). Its a goat trail but its still fun. We hit the little town of Pescadero and regroup. We then took Pescadero road towards Alpine. Pescadero is a very shady road and it was wet in most places so we took it pretty easy. Then we hit Alpine. You thought Stage was a goat trail, Brad mentioned that he thought even goats couldn't get through on Alpine. Alpine eventually t-bones into 35. Brad takes off from there and the rest of us head to 4 corners (9/35) From here Greg takes off and the rest of us head down the backside of 9 and turn around at the high school and head back up to 4 corners. Megan is getting better and better and she can totally keep up with the guys now. I was very impressed.

We all headed down the front side of 9. Lots of traffic so it was slow and painful. At the bottom we split up.

It was a great ride despite the fact that we didn't get to do all the roads we planned.

Thanks guys for coming out! Especially Cary, Brad, and Greg.

Jimil