Where Ever I Am, there's my bike: Riding on borrowed wheels.

Hilary phoned me last night to invite me on a ride with Julia, Michele (Julia's friend from Vancouver, soon to be moving to Victoria), and a new lady who is just back to riding after an injury. We were to meet at the round-about where Somenos joins Sherman. I got there first, took my gloves of and sat on the rock waiting for the others. Apparently I left my gloves there.
Hilary arrives first on her new Kona Jake (same bike as mine, but they ran out of the blacks and had to do another run, making them red this time). Carmen showed up a few minutes later on her brand new Everti with deep dished rims (fancy!). Julia and Michele then showed up - Julia on her new Specialized Ruby Elite, and Michele on Julia's old Norco flat bar. We all arrived at the round-about on different roads.

Careful there Hilary - others might think you're pointing out a hazard:

Sorry, I must have moved the camera too early:

Hilary stopped for a few minutes to chat to a gentleman out jogging with no shorts on, and then she led off. We took a leisurely pace along Somenos and turned right onto the highway.
Earlier in the ride Carmen had been instructing us on pace lines, drafting and the like. She said we should be three feet apart. On the highway, Julia called out "I've got no sense of distance. How much is three feet?". I shouted "About one meter", and pushed on the pedals to close the gap between us to one meter. As I did so, Carmen braked (broke?), Michele braked, Julia braked (and made some exclamatory sounds as she narrowly missed running into Michele's wheel), and I braked, but I couldn't slow enough, and found my wheel on the left of Julia's. I made contact, but we both remained upright and carried on. There was the sound of something catching. I thought it was my fender, but it soon became apparent that my front wheel was very wobbly. When we stopped to take a closer look, one of my spokes had snapped and got wrapped around the hub, and another was bent (I've had this wheel 11 days - it's predecessor had an incident with a concrete barrier on the same stretch of highway). Hilary yanked it out I carried on with my front brake unhooked to see how I'd get on.

Apart from a dangerously out-of-true wheel, I seemed to be doing fine, until we approached Herd Road, and I had to come to a stop at the bottom of a hill. The rear brake just wasn't strong enough, and I had to do a "Fred Flintstone" (as Brian called it), and brake with the heel of my shoe. The little bit of tread I had left is now gone.
We rode along Herd to Lakes Road, and I decided to cut the ride short and head home. Julia and Michele followed, while Hilary and Carmen went either to Crofton or around the lake.
Back at Brian and Julia's, Brian lent me the wheel off Julia's old bike (thanks Brian and Julia!) and I got to meet Bill and Eric.