Well, I'm a little late in my report, but retirement seems to have me busier (with things I want to do) than ever. So now let me see if, at my advanced age, I can remember what happened on Sunday.

Fortunately, only a half dozen people showed up, so right away names become easier to recall. Rod, Dean, Andy, Mike and I, along with the person formerly known as Reuben, but who now wants to be known only as a guest rider--the 6 of us left the East Coast Bagel parking lot heading for the Los Robles Trail. The weather was cool at the start but as we pedaled, we warmed up as did the air temperature which never got too hot. Traversing the initial fireroad we decided, much to the chagrin of the guest rider, to take the right fork that led us to the beautiful Los Padres Trail. It was here that we had the only crash of the day. The photo below shows the location of the mishap.

Now you might be thinking, oh my gosh, someone was going too fast and did an endo off the bridge or skidded off the bridge. But no, it was not that spectacular. In fact, what happened was that I had gone down to the bottom of the creek bed in order to take some pictures of riders as they came across. But as they approached, I slipped on the rocky bottom and did an ass-plant. Not only was it embarassing, but I am still nursing a bruised and sore butt. I identify with the guy in this cartoon but at least I did not have to travel so far.

The end of the trail brought us to pavement near Moorpark Road. After a little pedaling on blacktop, we were back on the dirt for the climb up the switchbacks of Los Robles ST.

At the top of the switchbacks we stopped to rest, refuel, yenta and, as it were, regroup. Three other riders who were neighbors of Reuben came upon the scene from the opposite direction and ended up rescuing Reuben from the RCYs (or the other way around). Anyway, as Reuben rode back down the switchbacks with the other riders, the 5 remaining RCYers headed along the trail towards our turn-around point at the bench at the top of Rosewood ST.

At the bench we turned around and headed back from whence we came, enjoying the downhill of the Los Robles switchbacks. After doing the short whoop-de-doo section we arrived back at the pavement which we took back to the cars. The 5 of us then enjoyed some food and drink and conversation before heading for home and life away from the trails.