Brief recap of yesterday's populaire

[Rob Hawks]

At one point we had 87 riders signed up for the ride. At the start, we had 45 riders leave the bridge at or about 7am yesterday. At that point there were still a very few gaps in the clouds and the sun even poked through a lattice work of clouds as we crossed the bridge. The winds were picking up and blowing generally from the south and south west and by the time we reached the bike path through Bothin Marsh we had are first drops of rain and could clearly see the first of the showers to hit us. By the time most riders reached Fairfax, there had been one or two downpours but from there the rain settled into a more steady shower pattern that gradually tapered off as the first riders reached Point Reyes.

Personally, I rode in a group all the way to the outskirts of Point Reyes where I was beaten in the city limit sign spring by Bill Monsen, and while I did chat with a few riders in town, Ieft alone and was passed by one rider before reaching the purple bridge. I was passed by 5 or 6 riders as I dealt with flat tire near the southern end of the reservoir and just as I finished my repair I heard some (mild) cursing that was *not* an echo of my own when I got my flat. It was a changing of the guard at that spot as I rode off and French began to deal with his own repair.

The rain began to stop by the time I reached Fairfax and over the last 20 miles the rain and complete overcast turned into clear, sunny skies  by the time I crossed the bridge. Barb and Jim G greeted the returning riders at Crissy Field.

In all, 39 riders finished the ride with two riders in at 2:39 and one rider finishing at 2:40:999999999999999999998999999999999999

A final word about info controls on SFR events. Sometimes people think way too hard about the questions and sometimes people are lead far astray by 'helpful' locals. The question I posed was list the number of windows on the front of Druid's Hall. The answer I wanted was 4. A large number of riders who also stopped at the store in Nicasio had correctly written 4 in their brevet card, but the crossed it off when the proprietor told them emphatically that it was 2 windows. It also turns out that Druids are perhaps not fond of attention and someone in the Hall asked 'Can I help you' in a way that clearly indicated they had no intention of doing so. Maybe that is the last time I'll use Druid's Hall as the source of an info question.

I used a VDO 1.0 cycle computer and got 3570' of elevation gain for the route.

rob hawks

sfr rba

[Ely Rodriguez]

Thanks to all of the volunteers at the start and the finish control. It was really nice to have hot coffee and hot instant soup. 

Despite my two flats, I had fun chasing hard up Sir Francis Drake to get back on to my group. The weather really was wonderful after Pt. Reyes.

There were a lot of new riders and I had the pleasure of riding with most of them at one point or another. 

The funniest part of the day was sitting in front of Druids Hall with a whole bunch of other riders and voting on how many windows there were. The official answer was 4(5). 

For the first time, I was glad there were a bunch of tourists hovering around the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, as one of them caught me in her arms when the wind blew me off of my bike. 

I'll never curse tourists again.

-Ely

[Ty Smith]

I did my own attempt at a recap of the populaire.

http://thecrazyrandonneur.wordpress.com/

Blogging is a new thing for me. Feedback is welcome!

Ty

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