I don't think I would've ridden as much road this year if we hadn't marked this date to do a double century at the beginning of the year. It definitely gave me extra motivation to get out the door to ride. This was Melinda and Michael's first double. Inspired by a longer, climbier route Bob put together, I did a lot of last minute tweaks to try and make sure we made it home at a reasonable time when we had a good idea of how fast we'd probably be going, As it was I returned home after when I woke up the day before for the ride. I got about 3 hours of sleep the night before - standard for a double century. I can never get to bed early enough and you usually have to get up really early to do a double anyway. We got started pretty much on time. It was much colder than we all expected. I was going to "be bold, start cold" knowing it would get hot during the day but it was so cold I went back to the car for a jacket. SO glad I did that because it saved me. Both in the morning, where it was overcast and didn't really warm up until some 60 miles into the ride, and definitely at the end where we spent a lot of time in the dark where I probably would've gotten too cold to continue and had to call it. A couple blocks into the ride, going over some Muni tracks, I felt the clunk of my rims hitting a hard edge. Somehow I was a few PSI low, which doesn't normally happen. The whole ride, it was in the back of my mind to be mindful of potholes. I didn't want to flat or destroy a rim. Other than that very specific type of hit to avoid, the ride was silky smooth on those tire pressures. On paper, I really liked the idea of circling the whole Bay, and we mostly did that. There were a lot of new roads I'd never done before and areas I've never been too. In reality, there was way more riding near traffic. I was surprised at how much traffic there was through Marin to Petaluma. And then from Petaluma to Napa on the 116 and 12 - woof! Just the cacophany of noise and big rigs rumbling closely by was so annoying. Even when we stopped for snacks, we couldn't hear each other because of the noise. So annoying and really had me missing riding dirt. We had one incident on the descent down to Petaluma where I was about to pass Melinda just as I saw headlights that appeared to be in our lane up ahead. This idiot was passing cars across a double yellow and nearly took us out. We were both SO mad!!! Shout out to Alice for the route change suggestion to take Ramal Rd./Duhig Rd. instead. It was like being in another world - both because it was instantly more peaceful, with sounds of birds chirping instead of trucks rumbling, and also because it was so beautiful - like we were in Tuscany. Unfortunately, that was short-lived. It wasn't really until after the Benicia-Martinez Bridge that we were on quieter roads again. I had worked out a pretty good nutrition plan. I had to strap on the extra bottle cages on the fork to carry all the Skratch Labs Superfuel I brought. Between the snacking and food stops, I never really felt hungry or low energy. In fact my legs felt surprisingly great throughout and even at the end I was still climbing great with just a small drop in avg. power. Our first stop was at the Coffee Roastery right as they opened. Our second stop for food was in Petaluma, where we were a little ahead of schedule. We ended up a Peet's Coffee where I really have to mention how incompetent they were. I ordered a Turkey Sausage Breakfast Burrito after Michael order his vegetarian item. He got his and I just waited and waited at the counter for mine. Eventually I saw the woman that took my order throw a sandwich in the oven. I was expecting to see her pull mine out but she didn't pull anything out. So I asked the woman at the counter about it and she gave me the excuse that it was in the oven - it was not. She went to tell someone to get my burrito going. At the same time I watched one of the other guys try and get a sandwich ready for the oven and dropping it on the counter and having it fall apart, put it back together, then put it in the oven after taking the previous order the women made and hand delivering it to a guy waiting that ordered after I did. Meanwhile my burrito just sat there on the counter as it got skipped. This is when I got really upset and I think the woman at the counter saw because she told the guy to take the "crumbling" sandwich out and put mine in. When he put it on the counter, he cheerfully announced something about a veggie wrap. When I told him I order a turkey sausage breakfast burrito, he then said, "then that's what that is." It was not. It was a veggie burrito. SO INCOMPETENT!!! In Martinez, I grabbed a lamb souvlaki wrap from Troy (Greek Food) that was pretty good. It's so hard to find good Greek food in the Bay Area. My only gripe was some of the lamb was tough but the flavors were good. The stretch from Martinez to Castro Valley was mostly really nice. The Lafayette-Moraga Trail was a welcome shaded oasis from the heat after lunch. Needs more bathrooms and fountains though. There was also a weird navigation moment for the last part of the trail before getting onto Pinehurst to Redwood Rd. where the Garmin showed a straight path through but we found ourselves in a dead end cul-de-sac of just hillside with no apparent way out but to back track. It looked like maybe there was a path next to the fence of a house. Turns out that was the way to go but it was not obvious. Shortly after that the path ended at a fenced trailhead that said the trail was closed. We had to climb over it so I guess we actually did a gravel ride. :) Up on the ridge, on Redwood Rd. we rode passed a really strange accident in a bend in the road. An older Camry was 45 degrees in the oncoming lane, pointing in towards the mountainside. The front end was smashed and the couple, looked like college aged, were on the phone telling whoever about what just happened and that the car was on fire. As we passed you could see flames in the engine bay. In our lane, just passed the Camry, was the Sprinter van that had passed us only minutes before. The driver side headlight assembly was hanging down and the passenger side front corner was smashed. I have no idea how this damage was caused or how they ended up colliding. After we passed two on-coming cars were approaching the accident that was hidden around the blind corner. One slowed down right when I gestured to them the. The second was speeding and didn't slow down when I gestured emphatically so I yelled as loudly as I could into his open window, "ACCIDENT!!!". He sort of slowed down after that but was still going quite fast. As we descended, tons of emergency vehicles were flying up the road to the accident that was basically blocking both lanes. I lost count of the number of fire vehicles that went up. From Castro Valley to Niles was not great. Rush hour traffic and Melinda and Michael were hungry. Weirdly, I was not. Although Mission Blvd was pretty hectic at first and sketched them out a bit, I was enjoying the fact that it was a bit downhill. I was cruising and got to spin my legs out. They felt better from that point until the end than Martinez to Castro Valley where my right hamstring felt a little inflamed. I had kept our original last food stop in Niles. When there weren't any food places that Melinda could go to, the look on her face was so heartbreaking. I wanted to take picture of sad she was but I could bear to do it. She was in dire need of real food and unable to stomach any of the snacks she had brought anymore. On top of all this, Melinda was already tired from lack of sleep starting from about the lunch stop in Martinez. This was probably the inevitable low point of any ride this length when tiredness and frustration can set in. We got out the phones and searched for places to go, jumped on the gravel trail, where Melinda took off hangry, dropping Michael, who isn't that comfortable on gravel, leading to him getting a little upset. I joked that it was all part of my plan to get in some extra miles so I would feel hungry too. We got our food and everyone was happy again but by then the sun was setting and it was getting cold and we still had ~50mi. to go. It was dark by the time we were back on the Peninsula. Surprisingly, the bike path around Facebook, where your usually fighting a fierce headwind heading north, wasn't bad at all. In fact the whole way back, there wasn't much of a headwind at all. So grateful. One concern was whether Sawyer Camp Trail might be closed after sunset which lead to a debate about what route to take home. In the end I felt like the safest/best way back was still Skyline. As we were crossing the Dumbarton Bridge, we could see the bank of fog blanketing the mountains. As we got to Sawyer Camp Trail, we started getting misted on from that fog. Amazingly we got there and it was open! I guess it stays open normally? Riding through, I was kinda hoping to see a mountain lion. I had to run my lights on low since I was unsure how much battery life I had left. Eventually I just shut off my light and rode between Michael and Melinda so I could conserve battery for the last part of the ride where I thought I would need my lights more. The final stretch, I was feeling great, probably descending faster than I should given how little I could see with what little light I had. It was just so peaceful and surreal compared to the traffic earlier in the day. We all made it back in one piece with only one flat tire. We had a lot of fun but I will say the inner Bay loop we did last year, which on paper seemed like it would be as nice since you'd be going through a lot of urban and industrial areas, ended up being nicer than this loop that takes you out to the countryside more. Last year's loop had that gem of gravel trail south of Alameda and just some nice bay views away from traffic. The traffic noise for the northern and south East Bay parts of this ride were a huge detriment. And the fact that it was gray and gloomy through the North Bay really hurt it for me too. When the suns out, everything just looks more cheery. Still, glad we did it and huge congrats to Melinda and Michael for completing there longest rides-to-date given Melinda's lack of training leading up to this and Michael coming from Buffalo where it's much flatter and crushing all the climbing that we did. This ride also basically got me back on track for my annual mileage goal all in one go. :)