Nice ride this morning! 5 of us, with both Kevins along with JR & Marcus. Pilot Kevin is still getting over something nasty so I waited for him at the clearing on Kings, while JR rode on ahead. Way ahead were younger Kevin and Marcus.
The most-interesting part of the ride, for me, was the climb from Swett Road up to the plateau before the Skegg’s parking lot. I went pretty hard for some reason, with younger Kevin on my tail. About halfway up he pulled even with me, but instead of giving up, I just went that much harder and somehow pulled off the uphill sprint. I wanted to create a Strava segment for it, titled “20 seconds of pain”, but Strava won’t let you create a segment shorter than a minute. Darn!
Pilot Kevin peeled off for home before reaching Sky Londa (Marcus had left us before that). Now the decision- what to do about the West Old LaHonda loop, since it can’t be done as a “loop” anymore with the construction going on. Last week we did an out-and-back from the bottom, so today we rode the upper half. We didn’t actually head all the way down though; we stopped at the scenic viewpoint to check out the construction from up above, and then retraced our route back to Sky Londa. Along the way we met up with a couple guys from London who’d found their way up Old LaHonda and were wondering where they might find a good place for breakfast. Well, just a mile or two away from Alice’s, is that really a question????
The real surprise, for me, was heading home back over Jefferson. My legs still felt a bit cooked from my “20 seconds of pain” effort, but Kevin was pushing really hard up Jefferson. I thought for a bit, nah, let him go, but why? Why not see how long I can hold the wheel? I was actually riding behind JR, who fell off the pace about half-way up, giving me an opportunity to say well, that’s it, time to watch Kevin ride away. Instead I went around JR and rode up to Kevin’s wheel, hanging on all the way over the top and ending up with my 2nd-best Strava time for that segment. I really didn’t think I had that left in my legs.
And yes, the rest of the day, my legs were talking to me. Talking in a language I haven’t heard in quite some time. “We hurt, why did you do this to us? Can you do it again?”
