It was a long night, a “Kaiser” night dealing with Kevin’s kidney pain issues, but there’s a chance we’ve got a handle on it, and we’re looking forward to better days ahead. But it wasn’t until 1am that we finally got home, which killed getting out for a ride at a reasonable hour.

What about an unreasonable hour? No problem there, that’s our specialty! So we’re out the door and heading to the coast at 1pm, about the same time most are heading back. It might not have been the worst timing either, since it was a pretty gray day with Skyline fogged in, but by the time we got to the coast it had almost cleared up.

We knew it wasn’t going to be a speed run, since Kevin wasn’t feeling the greatest and he’s missed quite a few miles over the last couple of months. I even told Kevin that before we got to a climb. As if that would matter once we got to Old LaHonda, where I told him, if he really did want to go for it, go for it, just make sure you put a jacket on the second you get to the top so you don’t get cold waiting for me. He ended up not having to wait very long, taking just over 20 minutes while I was right at 22. So much for his hopes of a 19 or even sub-19 time. What was he thinking?

One of the real joys of living here is how quickly you can get away to pretty quiet roads. There were so few cars between Skyline and Pescadero you felt like you owned the road. The only time it felt otherwise was on the run north, where we took Highway 1 along the coast, instead of the more-traditional Stage Road option. Kevin’s choice; for some reason he really doesn’t like Stage Road. And for some reason, I really don’t like the noise of all the cars on Highway 1!

It was on Tunitas that Kevin’s lack of miles showed up, which curiously coincided with me feeling a whole lot better on the steep pitches than I have in a very long time. I had that all-too-unusual (for me) feeling of going faster by just shifting to a higher gear. Yet, while I could have ditched Kevin, I didn’t. I’d pick up speed for a bit, then soft pedal and wait for him. That’s OK, there will be plenty of other times when Kevin and I can have at it on Tunitas.

57 miles, 6100ft of climbing. Nothing like the Nifty Fifty in Berkeley today (54 miles with over 10,000ft of climbing!) but it was the right ride for today.

The day started earlier than most Sundays; I actually set the alarm for the regular Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride time of 6:55am, even though I wasn’t planning on getting out until 8:30 or so. Why? Got to catch the end of the Tour of Flanders! Which would have been more interesting if it didn’t take 20 minutes to finally find a working live feed for the video, causing me to miss the part where Fabian Cancallara ditches Sagan on the last climb and then solos in the final 12k for the win. Fortunately, it’s available on youtube here.

Shortly after 8:30 Kevin and I head slowly, and I mean really slowly, out to the coast. He was not a happy camper, and didn’t get feeling better until he got mad enough about the pain that he totally ditched me on the Stage Road climb from San Gregorio to Tunitas. What a way to wreck a beautiful morning! And it really was beautiful, with the broken clouds and super-clean air. I thought he’d stop at the top, but no, he was continuing on, making time on me while I had to change out the battery in my video camera before continuing to Tunitas.

I pushed pretty hard on the lower, flatter part of Tunitas, knowing that was a place I could make up quite a bit of time on him, and eventually caught up just as the main climb started… and right as I found my rear tire going flat. Darn, two flats in a few weeks, this is killing my typical 3,000 miles between flats average! It’s also costing me a lot of money; $5 for the bill I had to reinforce the front tire with last week, but thankfully I had a $1 bill this time.

We did climb Tunitas fairly fast after that, and of course I lost contact with him until it started flattening out again. If he ever learns how to push on the flatter parts, I’m in real trouble! But since I was never any good at that when I was his age, I might have a bit of time.

Now if we can just get rid of those danged kidney stones!

What an awesome spring day for a ride! Mid-60s, a few clouds, a bit of a breeze blowing in from the coast and a playground of fantastic roads snaking through our coastal hills. Finally, a chance to push the legs; the last few weeks have seen no rides of greater distance than the 31 miles on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, and like a car that’s been sitting around too long, or not driven at speed, my body felt like it really needed a thorough thrashing to cleanse itself of weeks of built-up muck.

The “normal” ride would be a simple coast loop, out to Pescadero, across Stage Road and then back via Tunitas. Done that, probably 100+ times. We needed to do something more today, something that we’d feel in our legs the rest of the day. Over Old LaHonda, out to San Gregorio (a nasty drag into a headwind), south on Stage to Pescadero, then back via Haskins and, for fun, West Alpine.

I thought about holding Kevin back, telling him we should take it easy up Old LaHonda, but the way he tore up the first couple hundred meters, I realized he was on a mission. But about 1/3rd of the way up I saw him pulled over and yes, my first thought was darn, he had a seizure. Nope. He was being civilized and seeing if two women at the side of the road needed help.

Being me, of course I don’t remember their names, but Kevin tells me the one with the flat was Susan. Very nice people (aren’t most cyclists?) younger than me (isn’t everybody?) but still looking for women on bikes Kevin’s age (Susan and her friend had a bit more “life experience” than the 18-21 year old he’d like).

I pulled a lot of little pieces of glass out of her tire; please, make sure you inspect your tires after a ride and if you see any little cuts at all, let the air out and squeeze the tire so you can make sure there’s no embedded glass. Chances are there’s more, and if it stays in your tire, it will eventually push through and cause a flat.

From there Kevin rocketed on ahead, determined, even though he no longer had a Strava time to shoot for, pushing himself as hard as he could. Go figure. Me? I’d think this was an opportunity to take it easy.

The ride out to the coast was not easy though, pushing against a fair headwind most of the way, and then, a couple miles out from San Gregorio, right when I was getting into a groove and pushing into the wind pretty well, my front tire went flat (looks like the cardboard from a tube box, which I’d used to reinforce a tiny spot where a piece of glass had gone through, actually wore a small hole in the tube). Yes, I admit it, I used one of Kevin’s CO2 cartridges instead of my hand pump! Saved a lot of time. The repair to the tire did cost me $5 though.

Stage Road, with a slight tailwind, was fun. It was clearly an opportunity to try and post some new best times, which we did, on both the first and second climbs. The fairly-gentle grades work well for me; my breathing won’t keep up on anything over 5%. Glad I had my chance on Stage Road, because that was the only time I could hold my own against Kevin; the subsequent climbs up Haskins and West Alpine were rude formalities, as he established a new personal record on West Alpine 5 minutes better than anything he’d done before (which just happened to be 5 minutes faster than I climbed it today).

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Life goes by at just the right speed on a bike. You don’t notice the smell of breakfast when you drive past a house in a car. You don’t see the snakes in the road that need to be picked up before a car runs over them. You don’t

notice the red-tailed Hawks circling overhead a bit up the road, which might just happen to correspond with another rider on the climb. And you smugly think that those people who drive up to Skyline, to admire the view from the scenic overlook… do they really appreciate it? They’re just looking at it, while those of us on bikes… we’re part of it. But that didn’t stop Kevin from admiring the view of the two young women admiring the view in the photo.

67 miles, just over 6700ft of climbing, and yes my legs hurt when I walk down stairs. It feels “good” to hurt like that. I’m going to get more of that “good” feeling.