Today we finally pulled off the ride we tried to do last Sunday, and then had to postpone for a day yesterday when I had an early-morning alarm call for our Los Altos store.  Is that a good thing? I say yes, not so sure Kevin would agree.

“Just” 113 miles (exactly) and “only” 9,656 feet of climbing, what’s not to like? And I ended up with my recent-history best times up both Old LaHonda and Haskins! But Kevin had a pretty rough time once we headed east from Santa Cruz, and it never really got much better for him until he had the Oreo Cookie milkshake with his hamburger at home.

Mtn Charlie itself didn’t seem as bad as I had remembered. I’d last ridden it, with Kevin, 4.5 years ago; he remembered none of it. Well, almost none of it. He remembered quite well the cooler we’d hidden at the top, filled with ice & cokes. Unfortunately, none of that today! And it was likely to combination of pretty high humidity and 80+ degree temps around Santa Cruz that did him in.

But hey, could be worse, he made it the whole way, but the climb up Mtn Charlie and subsequent uphill slog along Summit and Skyline was fueled by the knowledge that Mr. Mustard would be at Saratoga Gap with ice cold cokes and, yes, he needed fuel, and the fuel of choice today was going to be a hot dog.  Unfortunately, Mr. Mustard was all packed up & leaving by the time we got there, leaving us with Plan B, the coke machine at the Saratoga Gap fire station. Except that it’s not working lately for dollar bills! If not for some friendly staff at the fire station, who manually opened up the machine to liberate a couple of drinks for us, it’s likely Kevin would have called in for a ride home.