For several years, we didn’t see any temps below 30 on our rides, very rarely even 32 or below. It used to be the norm; we could count on 4 or 5 of our Tuesday/Thursday-morning rides to see some really cold temps. Then… we went through a bit of a change in climate for a number of years, a change where the lowest of low temps went up by maybe 4-5 degrees, but an even-more-interesting change was the disappearance of “summer fog” in the mornings up on Skyline.

You’ll be happy to hear that things are back to normal again; this past summer we saw a fair amount of fog in the mornings (and evenings) on Skyline, and we started seeing some colder temps on our morning ride.

But today it wasn’t just about cold temps in the morning; they persisted through the entire ride. It was the “usual” Sunday ride, with slight modification. Old LaHonda, Haskins, Pescadero, Tunitas. Usually we take Stage Road between Pescadero & Tunitas, but today we opted for Highway 1, just for a change. We saw some pretty cold temps, first in Woodside, then again in La Honda. Average temp ended up being 36, certainly putting it into the category of our coldest rides. Cold enough, perhaps, to have scared away quite a few others; we were told we were the first cyclists of the day in Pescadero (we arrived about 10:45am).

And yet, we really didn’t feel all that cold. Booties, base layers, jerseys, winter lined jackets, long-fingered gloves. We were actually pretty good, but not quite so toasty that we went for the regular cold cokes in Pescadero, substituting coffee instead.

It wasn’t a fast ride; about 24 minutes up Old LaHonda, almost 12 minutes up Haskins and 54 minutes up Tunitas. But after both Kevin and I missing so many rides in November and December, we weren’t expecting anything faster. It just felt good to be out there, nice to brave the cold and feel fairly comfortable.