All posts by Mike

Back to normal but not quite normal

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)
On the left we see a Pescadero cookie just barely passing the Cookie Face Test. On the right, the infamous Bridge of Death that defines the beginning of the “Hammer of Thor” segment on Tunitas Creek. Passed the cookie test, failed the Hammer of Thor.

Strange sort of ride today. First weekend back post-France, and I was expecting that post-France performance bump to show up, but it was nowhere to be seen. Just did not have it in me today for a hard effort on the climbs. Nothing hurt; I just couldn’t get my heart rate to respond to the effort I requested. Heart rate stayed considerably lower than normal for pretty much the whole ride. Sure, it was pretty warm, but climbing Old LaHonda when 78 degrees, compared to the Col du Lauteret at 102? I sent Kevin ahead on Old LaHonda, hoping maybe he could pull something off, and, while certainly a lot faster than me, he was pretty disappointed with his 20:23.

With West Old LaHonda closed for repairs, we had to do the odd thing of heading right on Skyline and heading out 84. One forgets how much nicer the West Old LaHonda descent is, where you almost never see a car, compared to all the traffic on 84. Fortunately, once we made the turn onto Pescadero Road, traffic all but disappeared. Almost eerily so.

Pescadero was good for the usual sandwich, cookie and olallieberry struddle (plus a Mtn Dew for me, Coke for Kevin). Then it was heading north into the wind on Stage Road. Kevin had actually suggested the possibility of the reverse Pescadero loop, which would have had us returning via West Alpine, and an added bonus of tailwinds heading south on Stage! But I wasn’t convinced my legs had it for the slightly-longer ride with the nasty climb up West Alpine. West Alpine by itself isn’t so bad; it’s that lead-in over Haskins that kills you.

Tunitas? Nothing special there. We were both just kind of phoning it in. Maybe next week.

Late updates, plus WOLH *really* closed now!

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Yes, West Old LaHonda is seriously closed now!
Time to catch up on our return from France!

Kevin and I got home late Monday night, probably half an hour later than it should have been since Air Canada had misplaced two of our four bags. Left the airport at 10:30pm without them and headed home (they eventually showed up two days later, delivered at 7:20am???!!!). Got to sleep some time past midnight. Did I ride Tuesday morning? Of course. Got to keep to the routine, and besides, I woke up at 6:30am and really didn’t know what time it was, maybe sometime late evening in France? Whatever, didn’t bother to wake up Kevin, just got dressed, had coffee, got on the bike and went. Actually went really fast leaving the house, and even the first half of Kings went pretty well until it didn’t. Have to admit the ultralight, ultrafast Trek Emonda did feel a lot nicer than the Bike Friday I use in France! But I’m also not carrying all sorts of gear on my rides around home.

This morning (Thursday) it was just myself and Kevin. The other Kevin (pilot) is slowly recovering from Lyme disease, which is assuredly not a fun thing to have to go through. Hope to see him back soon. Think I would have done better this morning if I hadn’t forgotten to use my inhaler before the ride, but still felt relatively OK.

Everything was going well until we got towards the end of West Old LaHonda. As seen in the photo at the top of this piece, they’ve gotten serious about keeping people out! Not serious enough that we couldn’t climb around the outside corner and lift our bikes over the top. Didn’t get too far until I encountered a work crew that, seriously, is actually repairing the road! Told me it’s going to take about a month, with the work involving building a retaining wall. That’s really good news.

Getting back to France, it’s going to take a while before we can get through all the photos from the last couple of days. I’ve still got some ride reports to work on too. Hopefully soon.