March 14, 2009: After forecast sunny weather and increasing
temperatures in the early part of the week, we awoke to overcast
skies, 30 seconds of sun and cool temperatures for our tour.
But,,,,,, that did not stop our intrepid T Types. Eleven T’s,
one TT and one ’32 Chevy showed up for the tour. We gathered
at Rancho shopping center and then took the short hop to Mike
Camicia’s house for the inspection portion of the tour.
We had 5 Gunn HS students who paired up with some of we old hands
and 5 cars were inspected. Few little odds and ends were found,
loose steering wheel nut, gas leaks here and there, some loose
spokes and a few missing cotter pins. Good experience for the
kids.
And then, after loading the students in various cars, off we
went for a leisurely 25 mile loop out through Los Altos Hills
and Portola Valley and back on Juniperro Serra Blvd and Foothill
Expressway. It was a nice gentle tour with no hills to amount
to anything. (I might mention that a loop up Altamont Road was
considered, but discarded because that is definitely a low pedal
hill.) So we did the green grass, flower portion of the tour,
and postponed the blue sky portion to another day. But there
was one additional very colorful portion of the tour, and that
was all the bicyclists in their colorful cycling attire. There
was only one mechanical incident, Mike Camicia’s exhaust
nut backed off, so Mike wisely pulled over (thinking that after
all, this depot hack is made of wood). The thing was hot, so
Mike used a couple rags to screw it back on and finished it off
with a big set of channel locks from Troed Johnson. Mike was
quickly back on the road again when he was frantically waved
off by Ivan Jorgensen who observed a rather large ball of flame
under the hack. Turns out one of the rags had got away and caught
fire on the pipe underneath. Hey, nothing like a little roadside
excitement to keep us all on our toes. Only other small hitch
was that Bill Siebert got a little bit lost in his dump truck
when he fell behind the pack. But he came in only about 5 minutes
late.
At the conclusion of the tour, we ended up back at the Camicia’s
house for chili-mac, soup, hot tea, fresh baked rolls and chocolate
cake with chocolate icing with ice cream. Whoa, what else could
a guy want? Fun day, thanks to everyone who came.
Bob Meneely
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