Had to happen sometime; our string of amazing weather came to an end. Got a chance to try out the rainbikes in weather that wasn’t too challenging. Just light drizzle and not too cold (upper-40s). REALLY slow slog up Old LaHonda, but nobody else out there to make fun of us. We saw maybe 10 others out on the road though. The original plan hadn’t included a ride up to Skyline, as I was thinking we should put the rain bikes to a milder test first, maybe heading down to Los Altos & back, but Kevin wasn’t having any of that. Too bad; I wanted to see if our old Los Altos location was still empty.
Last Thursday was a beautiful morning, although Kevin still wasn’t on top of his game, this time developing quite a nose bleed on Kings. Kevin (former pilot) and Karen showed up too! 4 is a big group for wintertime; most head out later when it’s a bit warmer.
Tuesday’s ride was just the two of us (myself and younger Kevin). Just another nice, and still slow, day on a bike.
Turkeys at the start of West Old LaHonda! We see them several times each year, but the flock is a lot larger than usual lately.
Interesting morning; did NOT expect to wake up to wet roads!!! Actually, expected to wake up a lot earlier than 9:15am too. Not sure what’s up with that. Not like I’ve actually gotten enough sleep for a while, so not a bad thing really, just an odd thing.
So we waited for the roads to dry. And waited. And waited. Eventually, around noon, things were looking good so Kevin and I got out there, and gave the roads in the hills a bit more time to dry out by heading south a bit then up Page Mill. Page Mill, that one road you just can’t get a rhythm on. Or at least I can’t. Hate that first part, all the way up to Foothill Park. From there on, it’s steep enough you can establish a good grind, but before that, those ugly little bumps and even that gradual lead-in from the start of the timed climb at Arastradero… it all makes you wonder why you’d want to climb it. Which is likely why we don’t climb it very often! Yet, today, the moderate speed forced by Kevin’s still-angry knee and still out-of-shapeness seemed almost pleasant.
From the top we descended West Alpine and yes, the lower parts felt quite a bit colder than the 49 showing up on my Garmin. Felt good to bottom out and get into the sun again, and even better to make the turn up the hill to to Duck Pond detour.
This is what Raynauds disease looks like (a circulation issue that cuts off blood to extremities when cold, and it wasn’t that cold!).
The climb from 84 to West Old LaHonda isn’t so bad when you haven’t ridden 84 all the way from the coast; Kevin kept up a reasonable pace. West Old LaHonda was its usual pretty self, with a large flock of turkeys greeting us near the start.
By the time we got to Sky L’onda I’d pretty much lost feeling in my fingers and switched to the heaviest winter gloves that I had brought along, just in case. Good thing. Should have put them on much earlier! They didn’t even start to come back to life until half-way through the post-ride shower.
Had to happen sometime; our string of amazing weather came to an end. Got a chance to try out the rainbikes in weather that wasn’t too challenging. Just light drizzle and not too cold (upper-40s). REALLY slow slog up Old LaHonda, but nobody else out there to make fun of us. We saw maybe 10 others out on the road though. The original plan hadn’t included a ride up to Skyline, as I was thinking we should put the rain bikes to a milder test first, maybe heading down to Los Altos & back, but Kevin wasn’t having any of that. Too bad; I wanted to see if our old Los Altos location was still empty.
Last Thursday was a beautiful morning, although Kevin still wasn’t on top of his game, this time developing quite a nose bleed on Kings. Kevin (former pilot) and Karen showed up too! 4 is a big group for wintertime; most head out later when it’s a bit warmer. 
Tuesday’s ride was just the two of us (myself and younger Kevin). Just another nice, and still slow, day on a bike.
