Where else can you get “Deer Approved Lettuce”? A burma-shave-style sign that appears after “Do vegetables creep you out?”Sometimes it frustrates me that it takes so long to get things going for a ride on Sundays; the original idea is to get out fairly early (which, for us, would be 9am! Hardly early!) but then you get roped into heading down to Noahs and Starbucks for bagels & coffee, then Kevin starts playing whatever the latest video game is and can’t leave until he finishes some battle (Skyrim?). But it worked out well since the gloomy overcast burned off, allowing us to ride without leg warmers or jackets by the time we finally got out the door sometime after 12 noon.
A rare photo showing Kevin actually trailing me on a climb. Unlikely to happen again!The route chosen wasn’t “fun” but it was the right ride for the day. The usual up Old LaHonda, but instead of heading out to Pescadero and then north to Tunitas and back, we went all the way out to the coast, south on Stage to Pescadero, then over Haskins Grade (in the “wrong”/harder direction) and up West Alpine to Skyline.
The run up Old LaHonda was Kevin’s fastest-ever, thanks to some good-natured taunting by Jeff Z, one of our customers, who had just recorded a time better than Kevin’s previous best. No longer! Kevin’s now in the mid-18-minute club for the climb up Old LaHonda, leaving me to believe he’s capable of something faster than he’s shown so far on Kings. Me? About 4 minutes behind. Thankfully, I did better later in the ride, holding my own on Stage Road, and even getting the best of him on Haskins Grade.
Kevin eventually got the best of me on West Alpine, but not by any great margin. So, I’m not dead. Not yet! Even Strava thinks I had some “accomplishments.”
