You have to inhale the clear air to believe it, and I can see and even hear a lot of people inhaling. These are my people, my roots, and I thought they had all gone. There is even a new generation of adult men who tell me they were envious kids at the time, and now they are finally where they have always wanted to be. A couple of kids who look to be about thirteen have come in the back way from Woodacre, a tough ride. They are so stoked they arrived two hours early.
Nobody is in a hurry to leave.
Hangin' is almost as good as ridin' when you have this crowd. Hangin' at the top of Repack is more fun than riding in the National Championship. There are lots of photos to be taken, and we pose in the time-honored manner, lined up with our bikes like every photo of a bike club taken in the last hundred years. One of the photographers tries to get just the people who were at the first race, a group that includes myself, Bob Burrowes, Alan Bonds, Wende Cragg and Bob Peterson. The other original racer, Fred Wolf, hasn't made it up the hill.