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Each year my bike club, Almaden Cycle Touring Club, puts on the Tierra Bella Bicycle Tour, yesterday being the 45th annual version. The weather around here has been superb lately, springlike and sunny. Until yesterday, when Mother Nature decided to have cold rain all day. I was volunteering at the Gilroy Hot Springs rest stop, which CalFire lets us put on at their fire station way up on Gilroy Hot Springs Road. This remote stop is reached only by riders who do either the 74 mile (120 km) or 100 mile (161 km) routes. As we were setting up in the rain in the early morning, I thought to myself this was an exercise in futility as we would probably have no customers! I couldn’t have been more wrong, as at least 50 intrepid souls fought their way out our way in the pouring rain. Fortunately we had propane heaters and hot drinks, and they could warm themselves for a while before having to go back out into it. We gave out a lot of plastic gloves because their bicycling rain gloves were no match for this weather. I was inspired by the display of toughness by all these men and women, and delighted to be able to help out a little.
This shows the setting. Near the corner where the porta-potties are is where I had my crash last October.
This was probably at our peak. We also had a bike repair set up in the back. Mostly it was changing punctured tubes, although our volunteer mechanic Tony also tuned someones gears for a couple of riders- your don’t want to be pedalling in the rain in these steep hills with your gears not working properly.More riders outside arriving, looking at bit miserable