It was supposed to be the usual Sunday ride out to the coast with my son, maybe with West Alpine thrown in at the end. Didn’t work out; Kevin’s getting kidney pain again and instead of riding got to spend 4 or 5 hours at Kaiser. It was after 1pm by the time I finally got out on the road, which meant I’d be chasing the sun, trying to get in a good ride with very limited time. No biggie; I had two flashing tail lights, and, believe it or not, three headlights. Two meant for flashing mode and a super-bright Bontrager Ion 700 that can light up the road if it got seriously dark.
The most-unusual aspect of this ride was that I didn’t know where I was going. I wanted to do something a bit different, but what? Well, it’s like this. Virtually every single ride I do heads up over Jefferson and turns left on Canada. All of them. Whether it’s a ride to the coast, to Santa Cruz, up Kings, or south through the foothills. They all turn left on Canada. Today, I turned right. Headed north on Canada Road, the “Bicycle Sunday” route, then over to the coast via 92 to Half Moon Bay. What, you’re thinking it’s crazy to ride 92, that’s it way too busy? Well yeah, that’s hard to dispute. It is really busy, which mostly means noisy. Really noisy. But I’d wouldn’t call it unsafe, if you’re an experienced cyclist that can put some watts into the cranks when needed.
I passed on the coffee shop/cafe in Half Moon Bay that cyclists generally stop at, because, as I said, I was racing the sun. I headed up Higgins Purissima, discovering that it’s gotten a lot steeper since I last rode it! Where did that long climb come from??? Strava tells the story; I’ve only ridden it three times in modern history, in 2008, 2010 and today. 2008 would have been the last year I did many rides without Kevin, so it’s gratifying to see that I was actually faster today than I was then. But that’s not totally surprising because I was pushing it pretty much the whole time, stopping briefly only a couple times to take pictures.
After Higgins Purissima I looped up the Lobitos Creek cut-off to Tunitas, and then, instead of climbing back up to Skyline like you’d expect, I rode out to the coast and back home via San Gregorio (84) and West Old LaHonda. 57.5 miles (which happens to be exactly the same as the usual Pescadero/Tunitas loop), a lot of roads less-traveled, and at the end, my legs telling me that I rode. Doesn’t get much better.
