What do you do when just about every Sunday you ride the same loop, heading out to Pescadero and back via Tunitas? You do something different, of course! The ride didn’t actually start out to be different; Kevin and I kinda fell into the same lazy trap, heading up over Old LaHonda and out to the LaHonda duck pond, presumably en route to Pescadero. Except that, riding down West Old LaHonda, the view of the coast was definitely not clear, and we’d dressed, enthusiastically, for the warmer temps forecast.

Kevin suggested heading up West Alpine, down Page Mill, then looping out to our Los Altos store before heading back home. Well, maybe, but that didn’t seem very adventurous, or challenging. So after heading up West Alpine we turned south (the “ugly” direction) on Skyline, past Saratoga Gap and out to the literal end of the world (or road, anyway) so Kevin could see where Skyline simply didn’t exist anymore.

We joked about how a road to nowhere, in this case, could be fixed by using Sarah Palins’ bridge to nowhere, and from that joke came a new Strava segment you can see here.  It’s a 7 mile round-trip from Saratoga Gap to the end of the road (despite signs telling you the road is closed in 2 miles),  pretty much entirely uphill. You start to wonder if maybe you should have stopped at Mr. Mustard (for a coke and hot dog) beforehand rather than afterward!

From there we descended Highway 9 which frankly isn’t a lot of fun anymore with its rough and tumble road surface due to all the road reconstruction and slide removal, then down Redwood Gulch and shortly found ourselves at our Los Altos store, where we took a short break for coffee and, apparently, for Kevin to show off Wiki-entry-worthy helmet hair.

Finally we looped through the foothills & home, with a stop in Los Altos Hills to take care of a nosebleed Kevin got, and wash out the glove he’d been wiping it with. Kevin thought blood on his nose was kinda gross, but what do you call that elegant nose plug made from a paper napkin?