All posts by Mike

Are we getting the band back together?

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Heading up Kings between storms
It was nice getting out between the storms, being able to ride the Emonda (my nice lighter-than-light Trek vs my functional and awesome Trek Boone “rain” bike that weighs about 6 pounds more due to heavier wheels, disc brakes, fenders, beefier frame and just doesn’t feel anywhere near as responsive as the Emonda because, like, how could it?). Still a bit wet here and there, especially heading over Jefferson to the start.

And did anyone tell you it’s still COLD out there???!!! Not the absurd upper-20s cold we might see once every year or so, but rather the mid-30s sort of cold that would be fine once in a while but two weeks of it is too much. Average temp for today’s ride was 36 degrees. That means-

– Thermal tights
– Woolie Boolie socks
– Toe warmers
– Booties over the toe warmers
– Winter long-sleeve base layer
– Long-sleeve winter jersey
– Winter cycling jersey-jacket
– Winter-weight gloves

You can be comfortable dressed like that, you can even ride without overheating on a morning like this. But you’re thinking how weird it is that, at other times of the year, you might be doing this ride in a short sleeve jersey, regular cycling shorts and not even leg warmers. And sometimes I wonder why the exposed skin on my face (and for that matter, the increasingly-exposed skin on my head) isn’t an issue. But it isn’t. So you just ride and enjoy the company of the 4 others riding this morning, all content with a pretty moderate pace. Both Kevins, Karen, and JR. JR was the surprise, since he’s retired and can ride later when it’s warmer, if he so chooses. Everyone rode together, all 5 of us. Nothing like the groups of 12 we used to see, but maybe someday, in the future, it will happen again. We’ve lost some of the faster folk as a few of us (ok, maybe everyone but younger Kevin, although me more than most) have slowed down a bit over the years. Years. That’s an interesting thing to contemplate. It’s been years, dozens of years, that this ride has been going on, every single Tuesday & Thursday morning, leaving at 7:45am on the dot.

It might make sense to start “advertising” this ride with its own Facebook page, kind of like the “Noon” ride and others do. Facebook has the benefit of focusing on the here & now and making it seem attractive; Facebook’s weakness is on the past. That’s ironic, since Facebook is often used by people “my age” to locate friends from the way-back days. What Facebook might do for our ride is communicate more-realistic expectations of climbing times than I am likely to pull out of my head. Back in the day, this was a ride for people who could climb Kings between 24-28 minutes, with a 30 minute cut-off. These days, 32 minutes or so is my new norm, so we have an opportunity to welcome a whole new group of cyclists who are, er, more our aging-group’s speed. My son Kevin can entertain the faster folk. Who knows, maybe he could lead a second group up the hill 5 minutes behind us, catching up at the top.

OK, the ride. We didn’t do the full West Old LaHonda loop, not knowing if we’d be able to get through the slide section, plus there’s the ethics issue of riding through a section of road the county has declared closed and unsafe. Instead we rode across the top and down into that section, viewed the damaged section of road again, then rode back the way we came. I suspect there will be many more rides like this in our future, although we’ll likely start doing some of the one-way-descents off Skyline to spice things up.

And, just because I’m a bit nuts, I’m sad that tomorrow is a Wednesday so I don’t get to ride in the “big” storm. Hopefully something will be left over for us Thursday morning!

West Old LaHonda slide report

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

The missing section of West Old La.
Sort of a goofy (and cold!) ride, checking out the damage to West Old LaHonda road. As you can see, it’s on the upper section (the forest), less than half a mile from Skyline. A bit more than half the lane had been undermined and was originally hanging mid-air; that has since collapsed. Since there are two saw horses (caution signs) down the hillside, it looks like the collapse continued after the county closed off the road.

The collapse was apparently caused by water eroding around the outside of an under-the-pavement pipe. Repairs to this section could prove difficult as the hillside can’t be cut into as it was further down a few years ago (too steep and likely unstable). Presently the outlook doesn’t look good.

It appears the county did temporarily lay in a new drainage pipe to try and prevent further erosion. Remaining pavement is wide enough for bikes to get through, but there’s no certainty that will continue, or that it couldn’t collapse while transiting it.

I will contact the county to find out what their plans are, as I believe this is a safety issue for cyclists, given that the alternative route up to Skyline is via 84, which has heavy & fast car traffic as well as very narrow and sometimes non-existent shoulders on some of the corners, due to continuing rockslides.

And yes, it was cold out there. Strava says the average was 36, but that doesn’t take into account the 20 minutes or so that it was recording too high because it had been in a relatively-warm garage overnight. Had we left a bit later, it would have been less wet and warmer. By 10am it was not longer raining, or even drizzling, but the roads were a mess so our “rain” bikes were a very good choice. Lowest temp we saw was 31.1 degrees, as we rode from Star Hill to Skyline. It was pretty much right at freezing the entire way along Skyline, warming up to a nice toasty 41 on our return to Woodside. A bit of snow but we were hoping for more. No ice, always a good thing!