Brentwood to San JOse

Leaving Brentwood, we said our goodbyes to the nice group of volunteers who helped set up dinner and breakfast for our group. Kudos to Scott who came in with fresh bagels at 7 am to feed us. The ride ahead of us was short but had some great beautiful passes between valleys of towns.

We could not believe how much wind was coming in our faces as we headed up the first ascent of 6 miles. Basically in order to get out of a town, you have to go through hills/mountains since all towns are based in the valley. So as we headed up this ascent that was certainly unexpected, we started to see wind turbines along the road. They were certainly doing their job as we saw pumping out a bunch of electricity due to the constant winds. One part that was kind of ironic was that I waited too long to switch into my smallest ring known as the granny gear to get up the big hill. Basically, it was too difficult on my gears to change since I was going so slowly. I learned my lesson as I was plenty tired once we finished these hills.

After coming down from the hill through curvy turns and small shoulders, we were just happy that there were respectful drivers on the road. They were much nicer than what we encountered in Northern California before Chico. As we went through towns in the valley we came to our second ascent. I just have to thank Kelsey for finding this route through the mountains to San Jose. While we were sleeping and eating at our lunch break, locals told us that this road was used as a Tour de California stage.

I could understand why as the road became small enough only for one car at a time as we worked up gradually. It offered great hairpin turns in the shade to protect us from the sun. Along with that, there was a great view to enjoy as we were just above a reservoir that feeds San Francisco. It really helped remind us why we enjoy cycling and seeing so many different parts of the country. The descent down into San Jose was a fun technical ride of balancing between low and high speeds in straight-aways.

San Jose overall is a big city as it has one million people but is very sprawled out. We are in the downtown part of the city, and it does not feel anything like a city that has this many people. The First Christian Church is hosting us and their staff here is very welcoming to our group. They offer breakfast and dinner four days a week to the homeless, as they are very involved in the community.

We got to spend a Build Day in San Jose as we worked with the local Rebuilding Together. We had to split the group up as 10 of us went to work on specialized projects at their main office. The people there built stairs, did carpeting and built cabinets with a group of older males that come weekly to volunteer. The group enjoyed meeting the local folk in the San Jose Area as they took on projects cooperatively.

The second group stayed at the church to clean up the back area. This involved laying down a layer of carpeting and nice red rocks to make it a bit more chipper. We also painted all of the door frames, a big wall that needed another coat, cleaned up some trees and put down awning. It was nice to help the church out since they took us for in two days, and offered some great memories.

We have to make s shout out to Coco who runs the meal programs at the church. We apologize for keeping you up the first night; we basically had too much fun at the Night Club dancing after watching Monty Python downtown. We hope you enjoyed the laughs that we brought to you. Thank you again to the church for inviting us to your fundraiser on the second night for dinner, as we got to meet many faces in San Jose area.