I got to City Hall early enough. I tried taking a catwalk picture of the assembling group.

People were casually getting ready for the start. Many were just wandering around gossiping.

     

Katie was the only pink "Team Beat Katie" shirt. Just so they all knew who they wanted to outrun.

This was everybody that was at the start at the witching hour. That photo op was pretty much the end of the relaxing time.

  

  

At first it was almost like a bike party. A full lane of traffic with a snake of bikes two blocks long. We moved at a respectable clip.

It wasn't long before the traffic lights started breaking up the group. If someone got a flat mostly they fell back while they fixed it. As time passed the pack moving forward together got smaller and smaller. I stayed with them for something like 25 miles before falling behind for some reason. Then I rode alone for a while before catching up with Anthony.

     

I forget if it was mile 42 or mile 47. Anyhow, somewhere around there Anthony started having trouble with his bottom bracket. He had to bail at the hotdog stand.

Kurt knew about the hotdog stand from rolling through the area with a bicycling club. He said they had great condiments. It was the only roadside attraction we'd seen. It was literally right there where we turned. No waiting. Great spot to stop. Plenty of good saurkraut. I'd go back for sure. Turns out the guy is only there Thursday through Sunday or something like that. Lucky us!

A narrow shoulder and a white stripe instead of a bike lane. We all hugged the stripe single file. Often enough another car would whiz by. Riding conditions were comfortable. It was a great day to be out in the foothills.

See that light gray gavel above the bushes on the left? That's where the shore is supposed to be this time of year.

We were working with the same general pace so we ended up riding together for a long time. Many times I had to go hit the pedestrian walk button to make the light change. I took this picture at one of those moments.

Rolling in the shade of those trees was very nice.

By this time I was quite tired. Tired of sitting in the saddle. Tired of pedaling all the time. Tired of constantly having to refill my water bottle. Tired of holding the handle bars. Grateful for the chance to use a real bathroom.

  

We loped along at a decent pace. Ryan led for a long time. I'd almost keep up with him. A few yards back those guys were yammering. Had a nice tone, but I just had no clue what they were saying.

Lloyd was there to document our finisher status for bike party. Thank you sir!

We were the last batch of finishers. Not long after this picture was taken the sun went down. We'd missed the afterparty so we just went our separate ways.