I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, doing a ride that involved any climbing at all, after missing Thursday morning’s ride due to Karen’s (my wife) appointment with the breast cancer specialist at Stanford. As much as I hate missing a ride, this was a pretty good trade as it was a great meeting with the specialist.

The coast was questionable; we considered doing the Redwood Gulch/Skyline thing, but Kevin really doesn’t like the climb up 9 and I can’t say that climbing Redwood Gulch is something I’ve looked forward to in a very long time. We kept our options open to a reverse Redwood Gulch, heading up Old LaHonda and checking out the fog at the coast. Fortunately it looked pretty nice. I wanted to do the full Pescadero/Tunitas loop, but Kevin thought it might be better to cut out the Pescadero part… good thing, too, because otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten to experience the black cloud from the pickup… rolling coal, they call it.

Stopped for food and coffee at San Gregorio. And miniature cookies that no trick of the camera will allow to cover a face. Miniature isn’t quite right; they’re actually slightly larger than normal. The worst thing about either Pescadero or San Gregorio is that either place seems like a good place to stop and go read a book under a tree. But you have to keep going.

Kevin wisely decided to use the bathrooms at the Bike Hut, to make sure he didn’t have a Strava time to chase. Despite being short on miles the past week, I didn’t completely fall apart on Tunitas. It was almost enjoyable. But, at 44 miles, not a very tough ride. I need to do better.