Weekend's Ride: 6/25 - Revenge of the tubes!

Another Saturday, another ride!  Today we headed out for a quick 35 mile loop of the city with a little hill work thrown in (route here).  Most of us met early at O'Neill's in a surprising overcast morning that was lightly sprinkling on everyone at the ride start.  It was a great crew for the morning rides: Andrea, Ashley, Ryan, Alba, Olga, Maria, David B., Snookums, Andrew, John M., Trey, Celeste, and Evil Gary.  We wound our way through the southern edge of the city toward our first rally point at the Smith's at Tramway and Central, where we picked up a few more riders (Jason, Rob, Jason's Friend, Peggy, Greg).

Heading east

So a total of18 riders strong headed north on Tramway uphill all the way.  Somewhere around Tramway and Menaul, the first tube had it's revenge.  Andrew's front tire wasn't holding air.  The main group headed out, as Andrew and I quickly changed the tire a few times.  The first tube had a faulty valve core, the second a tiny hole.  At that point Andrew called it a day and called for a pickup. I then headed onward and caught up with most of the riders heading up toward the base of the tram.

At the top of the Tram!

Just before I got to the top, there was another rider waylaid by a rebelling tube.  An unfortunate stroke of luck for Ashley, but luckily for her, grand master Jeff (Mr. Miyagi) was there to help out. Unfortunately, 3 tubes couldn't get the tire to be okay.  So Ashley called for a backup, and Jeff stayed behind to make sure she was okay before heading off to do some interval training.

So now we were down to 13, after another 2 headed off to different destinations. Comparatively. the rest of the ride was smooth sailing.  First the long 8 mile descent back down to the valley, then a jaunt south to pick up the diversion channel on the way back to Nob Hill.  We pulled into the parking lot at 10 am, just in time for brunch, where 5 of us had a quick breakfast for going home for recovery and naps.  Another great ride!