The plan (remember, there’s always a plan) was for a long, slow ride. 60 miles, easy pace, OK, not really easy but as fast as I’d be able to go after a week off the bike. Yes, setting a pretty low bar for myself. But everything changed when Kevin developed yet another kidney stone last night, requiring yet another visit to Kaiser Emergency in the middle of the night, so the planned early start became a potential non-start. Except of course that Dad thinks cycling fixes everything, so Kevin was coaxed out of his fetal position on the couch and, a bit after noon (3 hours later than planned), I finally got him out on the road.

And guess what, he did feel better, once on the bike. Much better. Good enough to ask for permission to play his favorite game on a climb- “Let’s ditch Dad!”. I told him to go for it, since climbing fast was taking his mind off the kidney issue. How fast? Not too fast; he’d been off a bike for the past week too (without a reasonable excuse, except that Dad wasn’t around to get him going on Tuesday & Thursday morning), but just over 20 minutes is still about 2 minutes faster than I can handle.

Then up on Skyline he asks me what time it is, I ask him why, and he tells me he’s got to be back by 3pm for his on-line video game shoot-’em-up thingee. ??? It’s 2:15pm just south of Old LaHonda; I’d figured on riding south and descending West Alpine then back via 84, but instead it was a quick run back home… but not before navigating through a huge traffic jam at Sky Londa. Some sort of car rally of epic proportion, with sports cars parked everywhere

and traffic at a standstill. We first figured maybe we could thread our way through but it looked really bad, and for who-knows how far down the road. So instead I showed Kevin the Skywood Way alternative, a road that used to go through to Skyline just north of Sky Londa, and now blocked off but accessible through a dirt path. We came back to 84 a mile down the road, with no traffic at all. And Kevin almost got back in time for his on-line thingee. Unfortunately he was a “reserve” and they filled in needed positions before he could get on-line.

22 miles instead of 60. 2700ft of climbing instead of 5700. Tuesday morning’s ride is not going to be easy!