It finally worked out that Ali could ride with us. We were originally going to ride Mt. Diablo/Morgan Territory, which also has never done, but she needed to be on the Peninsula in the evening so this just made more sense. We were originally going to do Zayante and Redwood Gulch - double steep whammies for Ali but we haven't climbed 9 from below RWG in many years and when we got to Boulder Creek, we realized we didn't have time to do Zayante, so she missed out on both. Climbing Pierce on the way to 9, everyone was behind me and I heard Bob shout, "Left! LEFT!!!" I thought I'd missed a turn and turned around but it was actually that Sonny and Bob were riding side-by-side and Sonny got too close and instead of moving to his left when Bob told him, I had a processing error and moved closer to Bob. It's a lot longer on 9 from Pierce to RWG than I thought. I started the ride off feeling tired and I was already tired of climbing before we got to RWG. On the way up, above RWG, we started seeing cyclists descending. I saw a lot of AV jerseys so I assumed it was their ride. I wondered whether I'd see Kira and sure enough I did. I was surprised when she called out my name before me because I was kind of hidden behind Bob. I also so Robin in a tuck shortly after but there were cars between us as we passed each other. It was a weird day where we'd go through warm and cold pockets that weren't that big. I was joking in Boulder Creek, some houses must have the heat on while their neighbors had the A/C on, the pockets were so small. Big Basin was pretty as always but more cars than normal. It had been warm from Saratoga until we hit some cold pockets in the basin - the start of the quick back and forth that lasted until we started climbing Bear Creek. Today we weren't as cohesive a group as we normally are. Bob was feeling frisky and randomly attacking, Sonny was feeling tired, especially towards the end. Ali doesn't descend as fast as we do so there seemed to be someone off the back more than normal. The closer we got to Boulder Creek, there were cars passing way too close, unnecessarily because the were no cars coming and a fully empty lane, or cars honking at us, again for no reason. Death Penalty! At the beginning of the ride, I was worried about how tired I felt but my legs felt better than usual up Bear Creek and climbing Skyline which is not normally the case. We roller coastered the rollers on Skyline and then I had a clean run down 9 and RWG. It was a pretty good day all-in-all.