From: Hunt
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2001 9:33 PM
Subject: first day done and still alive!

We woke up at 4:45 in the morning in Milbrae and headed out.  There were
about 40 of us.  I really like the people who are on the trip.  Allthough
most of them are 50+ year old men from boston, there are also people from
canada, south africa, sweden, china.  Its really a friendly bunch.  It was
really great being the local bay area experts.  Everybody got lost through
the, say, 60 different turns and directions.

I had my bike tuned up 3 weeks prior and never took in
out for a spin to see that everything was OK.  It turned out that the bike
shop I took it to  SUCKS.   The chain fell off the main chain ring 3
times, the handlebars were cocked to the side, and I didn't notice until
too late that they had lowered the seat several inches.  --The result
being that I've hurt my knees (especially the left) to the point that I
had to walk in most of the last few miles.

I might have to become the second staff bike mechanic for a couple days.
(which would be nice, since it'll get me over the sierra's without turning
a single pedal!)

We had a scrumptios dinner at Denny's and are about to turn in to turn in
for the evening in our nice little best western in Fairfield.