Some of you may have heard that a truck crashed into the patio of Lenise's Cafe, taking down some of the fence and patio furniture. So the patio area where we usually sit is more limited. I have decided to take this opportunity to try another place called Emile's Cafe which is not far off my routes to Lenise's Cafe, but it is another 3 miles down the road. Lenise's Cafe is still open, and since we go right by there, you could still stop there instead of Emile's Cafe, if you prefer. This may be particularly appealing to the riders on the long road route since you do a lot more miles before the rest stop. I should warn you that if you decide to try out Emile's Cafe, you can't easily bring your bikes into the patio area, even though it's large. One of the workers there said it also gets crowded on Saturdays, so another reason not to bring you bike back there. However, there is a lot of fencing around the Heritage Oaks Park which is still under construction where you can lean your bike and there are benches and a few tables in front of the cafe. If you bring a bike lock you can leave your bike out front and enjoy the patio in back which is pretty nice. There is one bike rack that can hold 4 bikes max. There is now only one gravel route since getting over to the deep water channel is more difficult from Emile's Cafe and there usually aren't that many people who want to do gravel anyway. Here are the RWGPS links for the three routes:
Road, short - https://ridewithgps.com/routes/54746046
Road, long - https://ridewithgps.com/routes/54746345
Gravel - https://ridewithgps.com/routes/54746273
The ride starts at 9 am from the northeast corner of the South Hills Shopping Center near the corner of South Land Park Dr. and 35th Ave. Hope to see you there.