The plan (remember, there’s always a plan) was for a long, slow ride. 60 miles, easy pace, OK, not really easy but as fast as I’d be able to go after a week off the bike. Yes, setting a pretty low bar for myself. But everything changed when Kevin developed yet another kidney stone last night, requiring yet another visit to Kaiser Emergency in the middle of the night, so the planned early start became a potential non-start. Except of course that Dad thinks cycling fixes everything, so Kevin was coaxed out of his fetal position on the couch and, a bit after noon (3 hours later than planned), I finally got him out on the road.

And guess what, he did feel better, once on the bike. Much better. Good enough to ask for permission to play his favorite game on a climb- “Let’s ditch Dad!”. I told him to go for it, since climbing fast was taking his mind off the kidney issue. How fast? Not too fast; he’d been off a bike for the past week too (without a reasonable excuse, except that Dad wasn’t around to get him going on Tuesday & Thursday morning), but just over 20 minutes is still about 2 minutes faster than I can handle.

70 degrees, great day on a bike

Apparently great day for cars too!

Then up on Skyline he asks me what time it is, I ask him why, and he tells me he’s got to be back by 3pm for his on-line video game shoot-’em-up thingee. ??? It’s 2:15pm just south of Old LaHonda; I’d figured on riding south and descending West Alpine then back via 84, but instead it was a quick run back home… but not before navigating through a huge traffic jam at Sky Londa. Some sort of car rally of epic proportion, with sports cars parked everywhere

Taking the Skywood Way bypass

and traffic at a standstill. We first figured maybe we could thread our way through but it looked really bad, and for who-knows how far down the road. So instead I showed Kevin the Skywood Way alternative, a road that used to go through to Skyline just north of Sky Londa, and now blocked off but accessible through a dirt path. We came back to 84 a mile down the road, with no traffic at all. And Kevin almost got back in time for his on-line thingee. Unfortunately he was a “reserve” and they filled in needed positions before he could get on-line.

22 miles instead of 60. 2700ft of climbing instead of 5700. Tuesday morning’s ride is not going to be easy!

Sorry to be late on this one; it was a great day to ride yesterday! Much warmer than forecast for an unusual, early-Sunday-morning ride to the coast, with “the loop” tossed on at the end.

Why early? Because Kevin had to be back by 10:30am so he could… Play an online video game???!!! Whatever, gave me a chance later to figure out some computer stuff at the shop.

Four is us (myself, Kevin, Todd & Jeff Z) set out from the usual starting place (Olive Hill & Canada) at the usual time (7:45am) for a quick ride up 84, out to San Gregorio and back Tunitas. Kevin headed for home at that point while the rest of us added “the loop” because 41 miles just isn’t respectable enough when thousands, ok maybe hundreds, er how about a handful of people will be checking out your ride on Strava.

It was clear from the start that I was the weakest link, first getting blown off on 84 up to Skyline, then again on Stage, and finally on Tunitas. Did I care? Well, yeah, would have been nice to put up a fight somewhere! But I’ll blame it on the tail end of the plague, that nasty chest cold thing everybody got yet you never saw in the news (while the flu “epidemic” seemed more myth than real).

The hardest part was holding onto wheels on “the loop.” Todd and Jeff Z can (and do) set an extraordinary tempo, so fast that its tough for an accomplished wheel sucker (me) to hang on. I have a huge amount of respect for these guys, who made it obvious that my future depends on bumping up my ride schedule from 3 days per week to 4. This became especially obvious the other evening when I found myself paying too much attention to a late-night add suggesting that their testosterone supplement would get rid of stubborn belly fat. My weight is stable; I can even drop it a bit, but there’s too much above the belt despite the belt itself feeling like it could use a tighter notch. Potentially evidence of muscle loss. Hate that! –Mike–