I’d thought about doing the usual Sunday ride, the coastal loop featuring Pescadero and Tunitas, but with the annual ride up Mtn Hamilton the next day, thought it might not be such a great idea going that long. Obviously, if I just took it easy, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal, but that doesn’t seem how I roll.

It was a solo ride, giving me a bit more flexibility in how I approached things. I decided to do West Alpine, thinking for some reason it might be “fun.” And it was, because the segment popped up on my Garmin for the lower part of West Alpine, the flatter part, and in short order I was on target with my best time, flirting with a few seconds faster now & then, and just decided to go for it. If I blew up on the main climb from the effort on the flatter section, so what? I was solo, so nobody to see me fall apart!

As it was I didn’t fall apart, at least not completely. It wasn’t super-fast but it wasn’t super-slow either. The important thing is that, for the most part, I can still set out to accomplish what I want to, at least on a bike.