Kevin was off doing the paintball thing with his friends so I was on my own on the road today, which isn’t such a bad thing sometimes. It’s good to get out there on your own for a few hours, ride at a pace that’s not a compromise but rather a reflection of your own strengths & weaknesses, and make random stops along the way when you see something interesting without having to think about whether it’s interesting to anybody else.

Like those ducks I came across in the duck pond on the shortcut between LaHonda and Pescadero Road. I never thought they might not be real, which in retrospect seems pretty dumb.

But getting to the ride itself, it was up Old LaHonda and down the other side, over Haskins to Pescadero, Stage Road to San Gregorio and then, instead of the usual run up Tunitas, I headed up 84, which, even though it means nearly a thousand feet less climbing, always seems like more of a grind.

But that wasn’t different enough; when I got to west-side Old LaHonda I took that to the top instead of continuing on 84 and then did the unthinkable. I went down Old LaHonda on the other side. For only the second time in my life I think. I’ve never understood the attraction to descending Old LaHonda, and I still don’t, yet so many people do. Some day I’ll figure out why.

The silliness of my route didn’t end with the Old LaHonda descent; I was determined to get in 100k, so I did some additional looping around in Woodside before getting home… and ended up with 62.3 miles. Didn’t even have to do a lap around the block!

For more ride details, check out the Strava entry here.Biggest disappointment was a 15.9mph average speed. 16 sounds so much faster! 5987ft of climbing, so technically not a “hard” ride (you need 1000ft of climbing for each 10 miles, so 300ft short) but you could have fooled me.