'Gin & Juice' takes on Best of Bay

This past Saturday, my riding buddies, RQ, CS, MB, and I road the Best of Bay (Bob) century. Put on by the Cherry City Cyclists, parts of this route were included in Stage 2 of the 2006 Tour of California.There was 102 miles and 8000' of elevation gain, beautiful scenery through the Oakland Hills, Fremont, Orinda. The ride began in the East Bay, and we were able to take BART (train) to/from the start.

Gin & Juice (w/o Mike Mix-a Lot) touring the Oakland Hills

The day was absolutely beautiful; sunny and in the 70's. We were some of the youngest riders, or that we saw anyway. We were some of the last riders of the entire group (we started later!), so we helped "close" all the rest stops on our way through. Every 25 miles or so, there was a rest stop with water, food, restrooms. Lunch was served in Sunol at mile 75-ish.The course had a few tough climbs, but for the most part, it seemed we had a lot of down-hill, which was fun!

To entertain ourselves, we decided we needed rapper-names (like 90's hip hop singers)--maybe out of boredom of sitting on a bike for 7 hours or lack of electrolytes! Either way, 'Gin and Juice' was born. Q-Funk, Mike Mix-a-Lot, DJ Cooleo, and me, The Professor--yeah, we're pretty hard-core. We made it a rule that anyone else riding with us also had to come up with his/her own rapper-name. We didn't try to rap though...that may have been embarrassing, but very entertaining!

It was a fun day. The company was great. Rides like this help break up the monotony of long training rides.