A perfect day for climbing in the Santa Monica Mountains. Cool, but not cold. I was pretty happy with my peddling today, but I needed to leave about 10 minutes later in order to break 5 hours on this ride. They lead all the riders down Potrero and a safe and sane speed (i.e., S L O W), and then stop in the fields of Camarillo for a moment of silence before getting underway. I started about 5 minutes after the huge group left, and I caught them at the top of the Potrero descent. Strange, but I have never seen so many flat tires as I have on this ride, both last year and this. At the stop for the moment of silence, a lot of riders near the back hiked their bike around the group by going into the dirt at the side of the road, or the adjacent field, and someone told me that there were goatheads out there, but that could not account for all the flats I saw even before we got there, or once we hit Pt Mugu. I think maybe all these racers are using really light, flimsy tires. I also have never been passed by so many people. I think it is the racer mentality again. They all seem to stop at the rest stops, which I bypassed, and then pass me once they get going again. Some are faster climbing, others faster on the flats. It all added up to me being passed a lot, even while I was passing many people, and I'm sure I was just trading back and forth with a fair number of riders that were of similar, average speed. Rode solo today, although I was in the general neighborhood of Kim's friend, Dennis, much of the later part of the ride. Saw Kim at the top of Deer Creek. Saw Pink Karen and her boyfriend down in the fields of Camarillo. I saw a guy and gal wearing an Adobo kit at the finish, but I had changed out of mine and they ignored me when I said "hi". I strangely did not see many people I knew today, but there were a LOT of people out there.