Maybe the last really perfect weekend day to ride, so you’d think a long hard ride to the coast would be in order. Nope. Kevin got another kidney stone (a painful by-product of his epilepsy meds) so it was almost 2pm by the time I got out on the bike. Instead of a quick run to Skyline I opted for a full-speed run through the foothills, with a detour (decided on the fly) up the infamous “Walking” Joaquin in Portola Valley.
Thankfully I did get a few Strava “accomplishments” for this ride. If I was only going to ride 35 miles, I was determined it was going to be a hard 35 miles. I was actually getting a bit tired by the time I got to the turn-off for Alpine Road (which Joaquin turns off of, just before Alpine becomes a washed-out dirt road), but came across another guy who’s got two years on me and was pushing pretty hard on the Alpine Road section (he didn’t go up Joaquin but instead turned around at the gate).
Monthly Archives: December 2012
Ride report
Enough of the psuedo-psycho-intellectual drivel about pain. This morning’s ride was still on wet roads; the rain may be in the past but the roads into and out of the hills haven’t yet got the memo. Nice enough that we didn’t need rain bikes though.
Kevin (pilot), Jan, Mark, Eric but missing in action was the other Kevin (my son) who’d been up late last night working on a paper for school and woke with a very nasty cold. It was a bit odd riding with a helmetless Kevin; he’d forgotten it back at his car but picked up a spare at his place on Skyline before descending.
Cool but not yet really cold; that’s coming soon enough. For me, what mattered most is that I was able to experience “normal” pain again, “normal” being the self-inflicted variety that tells you that you’re working hard. I felt good pain climbing Kings, and I felt more of the good stuff on west-side Old LaHonda. Yes, my version of cranking it to 11 is neither fast nor pretty compared to others, but if my 11 allows me to keep up with their 8, or get ahead of them if they’re at 7, I’m good.
I’m coming back. It’s going to take a while, but I’m coming back.