Happy Birthday Vic (and Jenny tomorrow)!!! Originally I wasn't going to be able to make it but plans changed. It was good motivation to get the tires installed on the new wheels. It was cloudy and a little chilly today. Not nearly as nice as yesterday. There were even some small drops of rain during the ride. Zack had told me it was going to be a chill ride and that I could ride my MTB (instead of installing the new tires). I didn't believe him until I found out Zack and Vic were up for Huffmaster yesterday so today was going to be a nice recovery ride. Over 100 people showed up! Zack was still feeling yesterday's race so we hung out towards the back and just chilled which was nice. Or at least we thought we were near the back but when we got to the turnaround point we were waiting for a quite a bit for the back of the group. On the way to the turnaround, I was riding with Ben for a bit and he rode through a muddy patch that ended up having a puddle in it. I had slowed down to let him take the line and when he hit the puddle, there was this splash that seemed to fan out in slow motion before getting me good! It was pretty funny. This ride would've been roadbikeable if the gravel wasn't so deep. It needs to be packed down. We didn't do the full route as parts of it were muddy or submerged in water. I think it was more of a loop last time they did this ride. On the way back, we were chilling towards the back again when Zack noticed Vic up ahead riding by himself. So I caught up to him to ride with him but I reached him at a gate bottleneck so we were right behind the A group. Once we all got through it kicked off and all of a sudden I was riding Huffmaster! We had a headwind back too so it was either try to hang on to the group or be caught out in no man's land. They kept surging and slowing down so eventually I popped off of Vic's wheel. I found another group to paceline back to the brewery. We did a pretty good job rotating through. At the brewery the food tent was out of all their burgers from the day before so all that was left were some expensive tacos that left everyone hungry. During the ride, Zack let me know it was Vic's birthday today. I replied, "Oh, he has the same birthday as my bikes!" :) Today is the Aethos and Stumpjumper's 3rd birthday but I celebrated it on my Thesis! :) When I was putting on my shoes, I have to admit, I thought about going to Fort Ord instead as the two rides would've been about the same time to get to. I hadn't seen everyone in a while though so it was a no-brainer.