All posts by Mike

First morning in a long time it didn’t drop into the 30s. Good thing, that! But no legs to go with it.

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Maybe I should have included the many rabbits we saw in the title, more rabbits today than other cyclists. Usually we see just one, two, and rarely three rabbits. If we see any at all. The reason we saw so many rabbits is shown in the picture; overcast/fog. The rabbits come out to the road when they feel safe, and safety, for a rabbit, involves not being easily seen by overhead predators. Keven wondered why they come out to the road; I’m thinking maybe that’s the easiest place to meet up with other rabbits!

OK, just the two of us today, although we did see Karen riding down Kings just as we were heading up. Slow? Oh yeah, so slow that Kevin hardly noticed he was having a seizure not too far into the climb. We could tell from the very beginning that neither of us had legs today. One of those days where you think about where you might even want to turn back, but fortunately I haven’t gotten to that point yet. 40+ years of doing this ride, and it’s actually a longer ride than at the beginning (back in the day, we didn’t include the West Old LaHonda loop).

Slow ride doesn’t equal easy, but… found great new food stop in Los Altos!

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

A++ for this place! Fantastic Capuccino, best chocolate-covered croissant ever.
Not the planned ride today. Originally was going to be Pescadero/Tunitas loop, but even if we hadn’t felt awful after climbing Old LaHonda, the cold overcast enveloping the coast was less than inviting. We weren’t dressed for damp 50s, and while we could have survived just fine, all the cold damp weather we’ve put up with on Skyline on Tuesday & Thursday mornings… we’re kind of done with cold and damp!

Thought about turning around at the “view” spot on West Old LaHonda (where we could see all the fog on the coast) and heading south on Skyline then down 9, but decided instead to do West Alpine then descend Page Mill & Moody in to Los Altos, looping around a bit to get at least 50 miles. Just doing either West Alpine or San Gregorio/Tunitas comes out to 43 miles, and that just doesn’t seem like enough to get the job done.

West Alpine was almost as painful as Old LaHonda, but we survived, followed by the less-than-enjoyable descent of Page Mill & Moody. Our next bikes, with disc brakes, are going to make that a lot more fun.

Instead of heading all the way south to where our old shop used to be, and hitting up the Peet’s Coffee there, we dropped straight into downtown Los Altos, looking for the Peet’s there. Couldn’t find it. Where did it go? Maybe just hidden behind too many umbrellas? Whatever the case, we continued down the street and stumbled upon Satura Patisserie (200 Main Street). Great find!!! Perfectly made Cappuccino, and chocolate-covered croissants to die for. The combo cheese/cranberry/something-else scone was great too.

Refueled, we headed back via Fremont Street (hadn’t done that for a while), Arastradero, Portola Valley and Woodside. Not fast, but feeling a lot better than we had earlier in the ride.