We knew it was going to rain, and we thought we knew it was going to be fairly warm. But it also looked like there was going to be a dry period between 11am-4pm, pretty much prime riding time for Kevin and I. What’s not to like? Well, for one thing, real live rain is preferable to wet roads. Wet roads are just… messy. You can’t ride your nice bike and you have to dress for wet. Without over-dressing.

We lucked out a bit. Leaving at noon, it had just started to rain. Not much, light stuff, but a bit more than drizzle. Given that the weather would be, at the very least, questionable, we opted for a shorter-than-normal loop, skipping Pescadero, but I was absolutely, positively, going to make it to the coast. Slowly but surely. How slow? 28 minutes up Old LaHonda slow, and it wasn’t a zero-effort climb on my part. The light rain was fine, but the temps promised didn’t hold up. Instead of 60, most of the ride was about 48. Still, we were dressed OK for it.

We saw a couple riders on Canada Road, a couple riders on Mtn Home, a single rider descending Old LaHonda… and that was it, I think. Where did everybody go? Has Strava killed winter riding? Or did everybody get out yesterday when it was nice out?

A bit of a headwind going out to the coast, as expected. Couldn’t get much protection from the wind because if I drafted behind Kevin, I got a mouthful of dirty spraying up from his rear wheel. Surprisingly, we climbed Stage Road pretty quickly, much faster than our pace up Tunitas. But while Tunitas was slow it was also nice actually being able to talk with Kevin instead of constantly gasping for air.

The wet Kings descent? Not an issue with our wider tires and disc brakes; we even caught up to a couple of cars on the way down.

Overall a pretty nice ride. Just 44 miles, but pretty high quality miles.