Sunday Feb 10th Big Group in China Camp

Two Sundays ago was one of those warm sunny days we rarely get during these winter days. So everybody was out that day on their bikes to enjoy the weather and celebrate my birthday. Different people started gathering around 1:30 pm, some heard of the ride through my emails, some others through other friends, and some others through the Mike's Bikes website.

Here are some pictures of the bike caravan climbing to the top of China Camp. Here is me first, not because I was the fastest rider but because it was my b-day! followed by Mike, Allie, Danilo and others I can't recognize because I was going so fast!Dan is the first one in this picture below, followed by Justin, Jim and Cowboy.And here below is Fuzzy, Steve and Eddie warming up on the climb.
At the top of China Camp by the Nike site, we were a group of 23 riders. You can see 21 of them in the picture below since Dana and Steve were a bit late that day. From left to right in the back row you can see: Allie, Steve, Rex, Jim, Fuzzy, Cowboy, Justin, Julio, Kristy, Jason, Alan, Brian, Mike, Joe, Hannah, Dan and Eddie. From left to right seating in the front row: Danilo, Celia, Dan and Chad. What a group of handsome people! You can click on the picture for a bigger image to admire our beauty.
While we were waiting for Dana and Steve (a new Steve), some of us were rolling down the round platform doing the steep shoots. Some have been riding them for a while and some others took the challenge and did it for the first time that day. Stay tuned for the story on how Dana and Celia were able to defeat the fear and roll those shoots. I finally got the pictures so the next blog will be about that and hopefully I will inspire others to take the adrenaline challenge and do it!

After that big gathering the group splitted, and the coolest people stay with me of course to do my route. As part of the fun we had Celia's b-day Slow Race where Fuzzy demonstrated his falling skills after being defeated, and Chad demonstrated his incredible balancing skills leaving the rest of us with not a chance to win. You can enjoy the my b-day Slow Race in the video below:

Back in the cars when the ride was over, we went to Marin Brew some for beers and some for dinner, but all of them to celebrate my b-day! My friends Mike, Steve, Joe, Eddie, Cowboy, Kristy, Chad, Alan, Julio, Dana, Steve (the new Steve), Jim (another aquarius who invited me to days earlier to celebrate his b-day with a fun Calistoga ride) and Dan covered for my beer and also for Sally's beer. Yeah.. Sally almost always manages to crash our after ride beer celebrations and I love it! Thank you everyone!