All posts by Mike

Wet ride, had to check out West Old LaHonda road conditions

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

An interesting ride; we thought we’d avoid most of the rain, as the forecast showed no rain between 8am until 2pm. That didn’t work out! We did wait a bit thinking the roads might dry out, but it began raining just 15 minutes into the ride. Well, at least we were on our rain bikes!

Our wish list ride would have been to head out to Stage Road and try to get to the part where a good section of it has just disappeared. Unfortunately, we weren’t in shape for a ride of that magnitude today, so we dialed back a bit, and combined checking out West Old LaHonda with an “ugly” ride.

Heading out Canada Road, we were surprised by the number of other cyclists out there in the then-mild rain. Also surprised how many cyclists are out in less-than-ideal weather (low visibility) and no lights! Saw that throughout the ride.

Old LaHonda was an exercise in ride-casual; we would have been just under 30 minutes if Kevin hadn’t had a small seizure on the way up. At the top we did spot the “bike frame up in a tree” that we’d been told about.

West Old LaHonda has a “soft” road closure; just a barricade that doesn’t quite make it all the way across the road and a sign. I suspect nothing will change until the county gets a handle on the many much-more-traveled roads that have also been damaged. If you want to ride West Old LaHonda, be very careful when you ride through all the debris on the road; those small branches can easily get tossed up into your wheel and bring you to a quick stop without warning. It’s possible to get your rear derailleur tossed into the wheel and actually break your frame. We’ve seen this at the shop.

It’s easy to get past the tree, and, so far, it’s easy to ride through the section where much of the road has given way, as you can see in the video at the top of this page.

Riding back up 84 to Skyline isn’t a whole lot of fun right now, with many areas where the hillside has slid down into the shoulder. Make sure you’re aware of cars behind you as you approach the many blind corners.

Heading north on Skyline is never, ever, fun. OK, maybe I remember a ride or two when I was in good shape and you could really apply power, but that was a long time ago. It got colder as we climbed, eventually getting down to about 38 degrees; fortunately, at that point, it wasn’t raining. But we were looking forward to much lower traffic than would normally be the case, due to the partial closure of Highway 92. A really good thing, it turned out, since it did start to rain again and it wouldn’t have been much fun with a lot of cars!

Most interesting thing on Canada Road was the largest flock of turkeys EVER, near the Filoli Estate. Normally we’d probably have stopped to take photos, but we were trying to stay warm and get home.

Just 37 miles (sure felt like more than that!) but we did give ourselves some brownie points for not cutting the ride short by heading down either 84 or Kings Mtn.

Nice to be on our regular bikes again. Nicer if we ever get fast(er) again!

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

The forecast said we could leave our rain bikes at home, but after all these days in a row of rain, we still made sure both bikes would be available this morning. Thankfully, the forecast was right, and it wasn’t even that cold; I got away with just two layers (a warm baselayer and a jersey/jacket). Kevin went 3 layers, and surprisingly, got a bit cold on the ride. We apparently weren’t the only ones paying attention to the weather forecast; unlike both rides last week, where we didn’t see a single cyclist on the road, there were quite a few out today.

Thursday so it was up through the park. Signage said it was closed, but the gates were open at the bottom and nobody to turn us back (at the top of the park, the gates are closed, with tape around the sides making it difficult to get around). Dreadfully slow though; it’s been a very long time since I felt good on that segment. Kevin, of course, felt better. But unlike some of the past rides, there was never that temptation to turn back and not do the climb. But definitely not a fast climb, just under 39 minutes (but you have to subtract a little time due to the closed gate at the top of the park).

Skyline was damp and made a mess of our bikes, but it still felt pleasant up on top. We were running pretty late, too late to actually ride from the top of West Old LaHonda down to where the road is falling away, but we did come across two women (in the photo at the top) coming back up. Unfortunately, they’d turned around at the downed tree, so we didn’t get an up to date report on how the road’s holding up. That will have to wait until Sunday’s ride.