Category Archives: Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

Ride reports for everything *but* the Tuesday-Thursday morning ride

To The Sea! And maybe Ketones really do work.

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Tdf trip planning

We had put in place to ride to the coast so many times recently, and ditched out as we saw heavy coastal fog and had little desire to ride in the cold. This is Summer, after all. And even before Summer hit, it just seemed a bit strange to ride into cold fog when it was 75 degrees on the bay side of the hills.

But after watching the weather forecast update its Sunday forecast each day, each time adding a degree so what started out at 62 for Pescadero finally landed at 66, this was finally going to be the day. No chickening out. And looking at Strava, more chickening-out than I’d thought; the last time we did the full Pescadero/San Gregorio/Tunitas loop was March 17th!

Old LaHonda wasn’t pretty; Kevin rode away from me pretty quickly, but got held up by the stop light, allowing me to catch up…just barely. The light turned green very shortly after. A quick stop on the other side to view the coast, and yes, there was a bit of fog at the coast but it wasn’t the thick marine layer we’d seen so much of recently. All systems go!

While Kevin had an easy time up Old LaHonda, he began to struggle a bit on Haskins. Had to wait up for him a couple times. After that, I even pulled into the wind, something I haven’t felt comfortable doing for a while, thinking I needed to save strength so I could keep Kevin in sight for at least a few minutes on the climbs.

Pescadero. Their usual excellent Chicken Club sandwich (split between us), a gigantic and thick double-chocolate chocolate-chip cookie, coke for Kevin, Mtn Dew for me and… each of us downed a Ketone bottle. Vial might be closer to the truth; think it’s only 2 ounces, but those 2 ounces pack one heck of a terrible-tasting punch.

Kevin ate the entire cookie while I just ate maybe 1/4 of mine, not wanting to go into a food coma as we left Pescadero. And I think that’s what happened to Kevin; I definitely had the upper hand the rest of the ride, which is very unusual. Could also be that I respond better to Ketones than Kevin. The three Stage Road bumps all found me feeling pretty good, and plenty of times on Tunitas where I felt like I could actually ride with a bit of power when I wanted to. Didn’t ditch Kevin though; it wouldn’t be a good thing if he had a seizure without me knowing about it, especially if he was behind me.

Overall a nice ride, and feeling like I will survive the French Alps in a few weeks. Happy about my weight too, coming down to 161.5. My plan was to get to 161 on a day I’m not riding, and I’m getting closer to that than I thought I would. But before I could think it was time to celebrate, my phone brings up a “5 years ago today” memory. It’s a picture of our bathroom scale, showing 156 lbs. Not going to happen, but still, where I am is progress.

From Tuesday’s heat to today’s cool & wet on Skyline- things change fast!

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Before getting to the most-rides-
Sunday’s plan was for the full coast run, Pescadero & Tunitas. But once up top and viewing the fogged-in coast, that plan was scrapped without too much thought. In the days before my hand’s sensitivity to cooler weather, it would have been no big deal. But Sunday’s ick would have required that I’d brought my electrically-heated gloves along, and I just wasn’t interested in yet another ride with winter gloves.

So we headed south on Skyline to Page Mill, then descended into Los Altos via Moody. We did take a slightly-different route past the golf course; instead of turning left, we headed right. In the end, you still climb about the same amount. No big hills, just 51 miles. Meh.

Tuesday, our first fling with real heat in the SF Bay Area. Yay, got to dispense with base layers and leg warmers! Sharp contrast to this-morning’s ride, where it was cold & drizzly up on top.

My power was nowhere to be found today, but Kevin at least was feeling a bit better, with his knee telling him it’s there, but no sharp shooting pain like before. But while there’s no power, endurance isn’t an issue, so maybe I’ll be OK in France.