Today started out much like yesterday, clear with sunshine in Antioch, and a fog bank as I descended the hill into Concord but clearing before I got to McGuire's. We had 23 bikes show up for the ride to the coast today and after our pre-ride briefing we were on the road.
We took 680 south toward San Jose and the traffic was fairly light considering this was in the middle of a three day weekend. Our ride down to Pleasanton was under sunny skies, but as we rode up the Sunol Grade we could feel the temperature drop five or ten degrees as we rode under the cloud cover. I think this layer of clouds was the lifting fog bank as we could feel the moisture in the air, which made the already cool air seem a little colder somehow. We continued down 680 to south San Jose and merged onto Hwy 101 toward Gilroy. The cloud cover persisted until we neared Gilroy where we finally rode back into the sunlight. We took the Leavesley Rd (Hwy 152) exit to the west and pulled into the Chevron station for our scheduled stop.
We took this opportunity to use the facilities and get some refreshments as we warmed up in the sun. Then it was time to move on. We continued down Leavesley to Monterey Hwy where we turned left and then after a couple of short blocks we turned right onto 1st street, which turns into Hecker Pass Hwy. We rode up and over Hecker Pass, in and out of the sunshine that filtered through the trees. We crested the top of the hill and could see the coastline below as we descended the west side of the hill. We rode past Mt Madona Inn and I noted that there were only a couple of cages in the parking lot there. It seems that this place is never crowded and I wonder how they manage to stay in business. Maybe, since this is also a restaurant, they have a good dinner crowd. We rode on through Watsonville and turned south on Hwy 1. The lights in Watsonville broke our group up so we waited for the others to catch up before proceeding down Hwy 1 to the Whole Enchilada. We pulled into the parking lot and those that wanted to eat here parked while the rest of us continued south to Castroville to eat at the Central Texan BBQ.
The Central Texan is an interesting place with lots of seating, wood tables and benches, and sawdust on the floor. And the food was good, plentiful and reasonably priced. We ate and talked our way through lunch and then it was time to head for home.
We rode over to the Chevron station a couple of blocks away and refueled before turning north on Hwy 1. Most of our trip home was under an overcast sky and somewhat cooler than it had been. As we rode past the Whole Enchilada we saw the other part of our group waiting for a break in traffic to pull out onto Hwy 1. Because of the heavy traffic this is the last we saw of that group. We continued up Hwy 1, through Santa Cruz and up to Pescadero where we turned east. As usual, the traffic in Santa Cruz was heavy and our group was split up yet again and we didn't get back together till we stopped at Alice's for a break.
We took a short break and then were back on the road, homeward bound. We rode up Skyline, where we encountered some more fog, to Hwy 92 and took that all the way into Hayward where we began splitting off for different routes home. Our group of five bikes continued through Hayward, up Crow Canyon Rd to 680 and home.
What a great day! The weather, while chilly, was good, the ride was fun, and the people were great. What more could you ask for ....
