Ice Oasis Hockey Ride

Heh, I wondered whether I’d ever make a post in both the hockey and motorcycles categories. 😉

Yesterday was the 3rd Annual Ice Oasis Hockey Ride. It was a total blast. We all wore our team jerseys over our normal gear, which was a pretty cool sight as we were riding along….though Viv and Joe cheated by having decidedly not-dorky black team jerseys. 😉

I just realized while doing this write-up that Peter stole my jersey for the ride. I’m #15 on the ice. Dork! I wonder if he wore my jersey in our game last night and scored a bunch of goals for “my” stats. Huh.

Viv:

One of our group, Ken, is a big muckity muck at Ice Oasis — he teaches the Ken Yackel Hockey School that we’re going to at the end of August — so it was really cool to hang out with him a little. My previous interactions with Ken had been limited to him shouting things across the ice at me that I couldn’t possibly hope to achieve; I was happy to prove that I could ride a motorcycle, even if I couldn’t deke around a cone defenseman while passing to my own backhand before going up the slot to score a goal.

Peter and Ken:

From the rink, we took Highway 84 up to Alice’s, where we got onto Hwy 35 southbound. I tried to take a few photos, but my camera set-up on the Z is still not good. The photos all came out blurry. Rarrr. We turned right onto Alpine, where those of us in the front pulled over to wait for the last couple of riders. We did the thing that I LOVE LOVE LOVE in group rides, where you ride your own pace and just wait at turns for people. Normally I’m the last person since I stop every 5 feet for photos; it was nice to be near the front and realize that it isn’t annoying to have to wait. I’ve always sort of worried about that.

Viv (5), Peter (15), and Joe (13) on Alpine Road:

From Alpine Road, we turned onto Pescadero Road. We got behind a cop for a while, which was a bit annoying…but it’s always better to have the cop ahead of you than behind you, right? Plus, he was going a bit above the speed limit, not crawling along at 25mph like some jerks do.

Coming into Pescadero, we got behind a group of three other motorcyclists, the tail of which looked like my friend Laura on her FJR. I was too far back to see if it was her, though…I shot her off an email, so maybe we did have an unintentional ride together yesterday. 😉

Peter was leading the group, so he pulled us over for a lunch stop at Arcangeli’s Deli along Stage Road. Mmmm. I bought some raspberries, fresh sourdough bread, and cheese. Yum! I also got some cinnamon rolls to bring home, which had the nice side effect of helping my tailbag to smell of something other than rotting bugs for a change.

Peter, Mike, Ken, Joe:

Me, Ray, Viv, Ken, Mike, Joe, Peter:

After lunch, we continued on Stage Road back up to Highway 84. Aside from a couple of butt-clenchingly-placed hay trucks coming around blind corners, the road was pretty empty and we got some good speed going. I was having a “good Z day” — lots of dancing around turns and good flicking around chicanes. I always consider it a good day when I can keep up with Peter. 😉 Viv was right behind me on Mike Wazowski (get it? Single-headlight Monster?), looking very nice indeed.

Viv:

From 84, we wound up back at Alice’s, where we stopped this time for another snack. I almost never go up there on a summer weekend — too many squids. It was nice to see all the bikes, though. I forget just how packed it gets up there.

Viv very kindly let me sit on Mike Wazowski. It’s a sexy bike! She’s really done some great modifications to it already. Mrow.

We all walked over to Alice’s and had root beer floats, garlic fries, onion rings, and other greasy yummies. There was a scooter contingency parked outside the restaurant that made me very happy indeed…that looks like fun. Check out the customization on some of those — awesome stickers and decals. Though I think I’m partial to the Honda Ruckus as far as scooters go.

And that was pretty much the ride! Peter and I went home via 35/9/Pierce/Mt Eden/Stevens Canyon; some of the other guys went north up towards San Francisco. It wound up being about 70 miles, and a good time was had by all.