It’s not that often that I get to ride three days in a row. Well, if you included commuting to work, sure, but that’s not quite the same as 2+ hours of hard riding. Tuesday was the usual Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride but with rain, yesterday was my ride from the San Jose train station to the top of Sierra Road to watch Stage 4 of the Tour of California, and today it was first Marcus and then Karl’s job to beat me up.

It was a spectacular morning, with few clouds, a bit warmer (I honestly never checked my computer to see what the temperature was) and dry roads despite a heavy marine layer that had blanketed the hills the night before. We rode up through the park, as is often the custom on Thursdays, and I glued myself to Marcus’ rear wheel as solidly as I could, which will never be solid enough to hold on much more than half way up the climb. At the top of Kings we met up with Millo, dropped off Marcus (he lives just off Skyline) and the four of us rode at a reasonably-civil pace the rest of the way, at least until the last half of west-side Old LaHonda when Karl and I found ourselves a bit ahead of Marcus & Eric, and rather than ease up Karl just kept going. Today, I could keep up with him. Soon, probably not! Just like the way I couldn’t stay on his wheel when he pushed things on Manuella ahead of the final sprint.

No ride tomorrow, or Saturday, darn. But Sunday the rain’s been called off, and I’m ready for something big.