Birthdays, Bike Riding & The Tour of Cali

Since Thursday was Allen's 25th birthday, we decided to have a more relaxed day and go out for an enjoyable ride on the mountain bikes. We found some pretty sweet trails that go all the way down to the beach that we could have explored for hours but we didn't need to get lost again 2 days in a row :)

Apparently riding 'wheelies' are the new in thing to do!

After cleaning up, we headed down to Malibu to have a nice dinner by the ocean. We went to Duke's (which was kindly recommended by Sir Ben) and had a delightful fish dinner.

Today was filled with another string of fun events. We work up super early and drove up to Solvang, where the 6th stage (individual time trial) of the Tour of California was being held. We got there just in time to meet up with the Road Bike Action Magazine clan at a coffee shop and join in our their pre-race group ride. There were about 50 people that initially started out together but after we hit the hills in the canyon, the boys got separated from the men...or should I say, Erin (the only chic there), tried to hang on for dear life! It was super fun, but holy crap did I forget how intense riding in big groups can be...thank goodness for the numerous pushes from Allen that kept me from being dropped all morning :) We finished off by riding the actual race course which was a treat. What a beautiful course!

After the ride, we got changed in the car then went and wandered around the venue which took up the entire town of Solvang. This was the start of the race...pretty cool!

Because we know so many people in the cycling world, bouncing from one team truck to another was lots of fun. We honestly knew at least one person from each of the teams and their expressions seeing us there were all priceless!

Of course, the only really important person who we saw was the one and only Doug Berner. Not only is he the mechanic for the Timex Team, he does some pretty good stuff for the Team Type 1 Professional Cycling Team too...he's kind of a big deal. Needless to say, it's always great to run into and always has something nice to say :) Now he just needs to get his butt out to Colorado to ride bikes with us...geeeez!

After the drive home, we stopped at the grocery and picked up some delicious food from Trader Joe's (my favorite place EVER) and cooked a nice meal consisting of salmon, rice, asparagus, spinach salad, garlic bread and homemade oatmeal cranberry white chocolate chip cookies for Chris and Gary. They have been the most amazing hosts ever and the is least we could do. It turned out really good and I hear my cookies might even taste better than yours Miss Jenny Gerson....bwahahaha!