I know better than to… what? At 62, I should know better than a lot of things! There isn’t much about cycling in this area that should surprise me. And maybe the pretty constantly wet Tuesday & Thursday-morning rides don’t really surprise, but rather just annoy. It’s hard not to be annoyed; this is June after all, and just 10 days ago we were riding without leg warmers or base layers and it was 62 up on Skyline instead of 42.

This too shall pass. Really. It will. I promise. And then I can start recommending that people actually pay to have their drivetrains cleaned because the extra money won’t be going to waste after the next day’s soggy ride.

Let’s get one thing straight; I’m really spoiled to have this to complain about. Our weather here is not normal. Seriously, it isn’t. There aren’t many places in the world where you can assume it’s not going to rain from the middle of May all the way through, perhaps, the second week of November. That’s nuts really, but it’s not at all abnormal for the SF area.

If we could just get rid of that infamous “Marine layer” we get as we head into Summer.

Changing subjects, sorry if you earlier tried to get onto the blog site here and found it unavailable. There was a software glitch of some sort that took us off-line for most of the day. Obviously, back up and running now!

I’d love to say that, after the Sequoia Century just two days ago, I’m stronger than ever. But that wasn’t the case this morning, at least not up Kings! I would have loved to have been able to ride up with Kevin, Kevin, George & Karen this morning, but they were off the front so fast (or rather, I was off the back so quickly) that there was no time to even wish them well. This was not just a “high gravity” day; no, this was one of those days where you wonder if you’re seeing the future and it really, really sucks. I was lucky to even get under 35 up Kings. And I managed to lose track of the most-important thing to remember at times like that- you WILL feel better, soon. No matter how badly you feel going up Kings, you always finish the ride feeling a whole lot better.

And, thankfully, that was the case again today. I began to recover gradually on Skyline, and by the time we got to West Old LaHonda, it’s not like I was feeling lively, but I wasn’t dead either, and I could carry on conversations with George, Kevin and Kevin (Karen had peeled off earlier, to get to work).

You just gotta believe. There’s not yet been a time I felt worse at the end than the beginning. You might have to pay for feeling better by feeling really awful early on, but it’s worth it, every single time.