All posts by Mike

The usual Sunday ride, solo (again)

Not ready for this place yet!
Last Thursday’s ride was shortened by cold weather & wet roads; I descended 84 directly instead of doing the West Old LaHonda loop. Upper 40s, foggy, and not quite dressed for the occasion, y’know?

Today? Yeah, a bit different to be sure! Mid-80s at the beginning & end, hit a low of 63 along the almost-foggy coast, and not-too-bad winds. A nice day to do the usual Sunday Old LaHonda/Pescadero/Tunitas loop. Solo, again, because Kevin’s knee is still a mess. Sometimes that’s ok; gives me a chance to see what pace I can drive on my own. Not much of a pace up Old LaHonda though; first half went ok then died a bit on the second half. Lots of families out riding up the hill today, something a bit unusual. Young kids riding up Old LaHonda, but a good thing. That’s the future!

A few ducks but no turtles at the LaHonda duck pond, and, as is often the case, very few cyclists on the “other” side of the hill. What’s with that? It’s like people think the road falls off a cliff as you head west past Skyline? No shortage of cars though. And Pescadero was pretty crowded; any idea of heading into the market for a coke and oversized cookie was squashed by the long line outside. Long line at the Mexican restaurant/store at the gas station too, so got coffee and a lemon cake at the “DOWNTOWN LOCAL COFFEE” shop. OK coffee, excellent lemon cake.

No headwinds on Stage Road today!!! Nor any cyclists ahead to chase. Just the readout from my Garmin which, of course, was telling me to go faster. Tunitas? Well, to tell the truth, I really thought I was going faster than 49:55. I would have been REALLY upset had it been 50-something. Met up with Rachel H at the top; nice customer who let me know her bike is riding much better after I looked at it. Fortunately I was carrying some tools with me, so maybe I could have dealt with it if that hadn’t been the case. 🙂

It will be nice when Kevin’s knee is back in one piece again though.

How much longer can it last?

Strange days indeed. Starts out nice and relatively warm (60 degrees), warms up a bit as you climb, stays pretty nice up on Skyline, but the second you make the turn heading west on 84, bam, it’s 51 degrees and foggy!

But of course the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride is all about the climbs. And today on the climbs we had Kevin (pilot), George & Collin. Kevin (not the pilot) was home nursing his still-painful knee. We also spotted Karen on our way up, during intervals. And apparently someone else who was doing the “Everest” thing on Kings today, trying to climb 27,000ft in one day. And even though I hadn’t had much sleep the night before, I still felt pretty good, getting far enough ahead by the park entrance that I did a circle waiting for the others.

Actually, George was there with me, and anything that looked like I might be strong enough to drop George would just be him taking it easy that day. But I did hold up at the wide-open section for a couple minutes to accompany Collin the rest of the way, helping to pace him to a PR two minutes faster than before.

So it’s pretty much all-good, almost as if I had returned from France in good shape.