We woke up this morning to the pleasant surprise that our ride to Pleasanton was actually a 58 mile ride and not a 90+ mile ride. We had packed up our host, had a great breakfast, and we're on the road all by around 7:00ish. My new breaks were rubbing a bit so my group was a bit late to leave. We ended up leaving last before sweeps with my discs rubbing but less than before at least.
Josh, Dave, Benji, Brian, Tom, and I headed out and we're hitting it strong. We were loving the flat land and we're having a blast going fast. We ended up passing a few groups pretty quickly as they hadn't been so far ahead of us. We then some how came to the decision we wanted today to just be a fast say as a big group since we almost never ride in groups of six, I may have only once or twice all summer, and some how our group could all handle the speed. We also knew we were going to a great host, an alumni's family, and we wanted to enjoy the amenities as soon as possible.
Not to long after that decision we started to hit some medium head winds and went into a solid pace line. From the back it truly looked like we were a snake and you couldn't see anyone except for the person ahead of you, unless you pulled out of the line.
We continued like that for a little while, eventually hitting some traffics lights that slowed us before heavier winds took over on that front. As the winds picked up we approached the one area that looked like some climb. As we got closer we realized the hills were covered with wind farms and our 20-26 mph speed we'd been going at all morning slowed to a 8-10 mph rate. However, the pace line was doing its job and we rotated taking turns of taking the wind for the group.
We reached lunch and has a quick break as we all still wanted to get to the host for a swim and what we would told would be good beer and food. So after a break we hit the road again and we're making good time, we rode out of the wind farms and into what was king wine country followed by flat wine country. It wasn't Sonoma but it was definitely some pretty vineyards and we were tempted to stop but didn't.
We then arrived at the Weinberg's house and as we were first, plus Mr. Weinberg was out picking up lunch for us we just sat outside enjoying the California weather. When he returned we helped set s few things up before enjoying subs and Lagubitas beer that he had managed to DM for us to enjoy. It was an incredible second lunch, followed by pool and hot tub time, as well as time with their two dogs. Random part that may only be being mentioned due to the photo below is that Emily, Natalie, and I did some pretty solid belly flopping for some reason. Ohh and as per usual a lot of people napped.
Following the wonderful afternoon we continued our relaxed chilling/napping and cleaned ourselves up for a nice grilled dinner. It was delicious and just more of a wonderful day. We also enjoyed a great cake they had gotten for us as well as ample other snacks.
The evening consisted of more of the same. It's sad that the trip is coming to a close but clear that everyone just wants to spend quality time together which is making for phenomenal days. We all are clearly treasuring the last few days of our trip.