We had 20 people show up for this challenging ride.  We ended up with 57 miles and 8500' of elevation for the day.  Congratulations to Robina and Karen as this was the most elevation they have ever done in one ride and there might have been a few more in the group also.  We had three guests.   Jens from Calistoga, Lorenzo brought Martin from the bay area, and Phil and Christine brought Don from Colorado.  

As usual we rode at our social pace and the group spread out once in the hills but never to far apart for the most part.  Quite a few folks hadn't had the privilege of going the opposite direction on Hauser Bridge and that is quite a climb right after the bridge starting up the hill towards Tin Barn and King Ridge I think the gamins were clicking in around 19%.  At the intersection of Tin Barn and Hauser our Garmins were reading 20 miles and a little over 4,000' of elevation. We then headed out Tin Barn to Skaggs after a brief regroup and got to enjoy those wonderful descents down Skaggs to the coast. We had a great lunch break at Stewards Point and a wonderful tail wind as we went the twelve miles down the coast to Timber Cove Rd.  We broke up into 4 group of 5 for pace lines so the cars could easily get by us on HWY 1 and Jens pulled the first group the whole way(he is quite a strong rider and rode down to our level throughout the day).  The climb up Timber Cove was a bit of work with two different sections one at the bottom and one at the top at around 19% as we have gone down Timber Cove a number of times on our way to climb Ft. Ross Rd. from the coast.

After we finished the climb up Timber Cove about 1/2 the group regrouped at Seaview right at the intersection of Timber Cove and Seaview and mentioned the tough climbs we had in for the day so far and decided to just spin/grind our way back into Cazadero.  Jens showed back up and checked in on the back group and gave Karen a salt tab as she was struggling on the ride and low and behold she caught her second wind and took off with Chris Jones never to be seen at the back of the pack again that day! :-.

I think Steve Piazzo got the most distance of the day as he rode from his house in Occidental and probably had around 90 miles yesterday.  We had a few others riding in from Monte Rio and Duncan Mills.

Afterwards 10 of us had dinner(it was around 4'30 when we finished the ride) at Northwoods lodge and a well deserved beer.  Christine said that ride was as tough if not tougher than a lot of the climbs she has done in the Alps.  I haven't ever been to the Alps but I don't doubt that we have that type of climbing here in Sonoma County.

Enjoy the day,

Dennis