Johan is looking at the map - it’s about 8:30 in the morning. The bikes are all lined up shiny, and ready to go. I walk up and say, “Hey, what’s the route today to Ojai?” “ We go the same as yesterday.” “What, are you kidding?” “No,” he says with a twinkle in his eye, “We’ll do Gibralter again today.”

Jeez, Max had my car washed and waxed last evening, as a thank you for borrowing it! Now I’m gonna have two inches of dust and mud on it again! No whining, at least I’ll be driving a car and not riding a bike up Gibralter - dust, potholes, mud and construction equipment. Plus a couple of switchbacks that look like they are about 18% grade.

There were slides everywhere we were today. I am just amazed at how much earth has slid away along even the residential roads - we went thru a lot of closed roads today, even went thru a creek running swiftly across a paved road. Dust, thick dust, everywhere we went - all the way.

As we were heading up toward Lake Casitas, three guys joined the ride. They were pretty good riders. But they soon were struggling on the climbs, which our guys headed up real fast. I gave two of the guys a hitch on the side of my car. I looked up ahead and saw the third guy hanging on to George’s jersey! What the Hell? He clutched the back of that jersey and hung on to it like a little kid, and George was just pulling him along. Next thing, he was hanging on to George’s seat post! I couldn’t stand it so I cruised up to see what was going on.... The guy was Dylan Casey, an old teammate on the Posties squad. No wonder George was goofing off and towing him along. I said, “Hey, George, do you know that guy?” George just grinned and winked. I guess Dylan hasn’t been doing much riding since he retired. But he did real fine on his own...