Whatever doesn't kill you...

A lesson learned from the AToC:
According to eyewitnesses, after Stage One was canceled, Teams Sky and Liquigas stayed on their bikes and rode to Squaw. The rest of the peleton hopped daintily into their luxury RVs and spent the afternoon in hotel rooms, spinning trainers and watching Jersey Shore. It comes as no surprise, that the next day, Sky and Liquigas got their sprinters to the front on the rain slicked roads of Sacramento.

So, Ft3 embraced the wintry mix, rolling through some beautiful spring snow and getting really drenched.

WE assembled in the swelling storm. Cappy, being the last ready darted out into Ride Leader. He turned away from the EID kiosk secretary and headed out Cappy's backdoor trail to the FS fire station; and dropped to B's chin crossing, which was at an exciting but easy high water. Around there B and NoHandle switched bikes. Almost immediately following, B blew apart NH's chain, the pin pulling out a chunk of the plate. Sportingly, NH allowed B to remain on his ride, after a quick link was installed. We climbed out past the dams and headed up Chiquita.

We headed for the Lip, with Xteric grumbling about subtleties in route selection. The lip gripped well and rolled fast. The new ladder gave NH a bit of a scare and lesser riders carried their bikes over. There were also greater riders. At some point Bambi and Cap'n started singing Sex Pistols. We rolled the lake, laughing at the wind. We finished with a hard sprint up the entrance road. Everyone's two or three layers, were well saturated and temps were dropping.

They were happy to see us at the Knothole, had the place to ourselves -table for seven and crank up the heater. Tacos were delicious and the TB remembered everyone's handles.
Important discussions batted around the table. BMX on thursday nights, Happy Valley Cross ASAP, first over night adventure ride by the end of july.

The name Drop Tail (i had to have it explained, and it's pretty good) was proposed for the new rider who earned her man card last night. New handles were also proposed for a few riders earning Peter cards.