I had not planned on going since we had our epic Santa Cruz century ride yesterday and was not going to wake up early again the following day. I just naturally woke up at 7 something rather than sleeping in so I checked to see how long it would take to drive over. It looked like, even though I didn't do any prep, I could make it for the start of the ride. There was a couple times while I was prepping when I thought it was a bad idea and almost didn't go. I knew we were going to be doing some steep climbing but I didn't know how my legs would feel. Fortunately my legs felt pretty good. Unfortunately, the climbing was even steeper than I thought it would be - and more technical too. I don't know how I survived without cracking but I rode pretty well from start to finish all things considered. It was sunny when I left the house but as I was crossing the Bay Bridge, it was getting foggy and all I saw ahead of me was gray. The closer I got, the darker the clouds got. I was once again thinking this was a mistake. I ended up getting to the start point a few minutes before they were set to leave. Despite the gray weather, it wasn't cold at least. We had a nice warm up on the bike path to get to the north end of Wildcat Canyon. The climb up starts on the steeper side and then the fire road just gets stupid steep. Towards the top of the first climb the sweat was running down my face like tears. Maybe I was just tired and grumpy from yesterday but I was cursing Zack and Mike for this route. After that the climb up to Vollmer Peak was even harder. It was as steep and steeper while also being really rocky. Mike wasn't on the ride at the beginning but on the way, we actually caught him. I didn't realize I'd passed him on one of the rocky descents. There were some rocky roller coaster sections on the way. On one of them I carried a lot of speed from the descent. I saw the wall of rocks in front of me and just full sent it. I was impressed at how the bike just floated over the rocks and I glided up the climb. There were some fun road descents and some fun dirt descents but I would've like more of the latter. Just before we got to lunch, we had to make a right turn where there was a Prius already there waiting to turn right as well after the pedestrians crossed. Well the group crept up and mobbed the car instead of waiting our turn. The elderly driver got confused, maybe checking for other cyclists as he started to turn but completely failed to notice new pedestrians crossing. He came really close to hitting one of them. Everyone was in the wrong here. I don't think our group should've cut. Those pedestrians, I don't care if they have the right of way, can't just walk without paying attention to the driver, who was clearly not looking at them. And the driver who's probably too old to be driving. Luckily, no one was hurt and we made it to Headlands Brewery. Their Double Down double smash burger was pretty good but they didn't mention that it had onions. I also forgot to ask and tell them not to put any on. It was all amongst the sauce and melted cheese otherwise I would've removed. I think it would've been a great smash burger if the onions hadn't ruined it for me. It was a great day out and it was nice to see Zack and Vic and everyone else.