No ride Sunday because Saturday night/Sunday morning Kevin and I were on a red-eye to Madison, Wisconsin, for TREKWorld (a Trek dealer event). Of course we couldn’t get there the easy way, the new direct flight from SFO to MSN. No, we had to fly all the way to Newark and then backtrack to Madison! Why? Cost. Way cheaper. But you gotta wonder, why is it more expensive to fly to Wisconsin than overseas?

So that took out Sunday’s longer ride as well as Tuesday’s regular Kings ride. Rumor has it that Karen and Lanier showed up, but I haven’t yet checked their Stravas to be sure. We got back late Tuesday, so plenty of time to recover for this morning! Only things didn’t go quite as planned for Kevin (we’re talking my son, not the pilot); we got about half a mile from home before he developed some pretty severe vision problems and had turn around. This happens once in a while; a peculiar reaction to the meds he takes for his epilepsy. No good rhyme or reason for why and when.

So I got to the start, solo, and check to see if any text updates from Kevin (son). Nope, but had one from Kevin (pilot) letting me know he started up the hill two minutes ahead of me. Texted back to him- “You suck!” As in, the last thing I wanted to do was try and chase anyone down. But chase I did. I went flying through Woodside, fast enough that I was wondering if I’d catch glimpse of him before the actual climb. Nope. (Later discovered I actually got a PR for the section from the start to Tripp Road!)

I thought I’d see him heading up through Huddart Park. At least on the long straight steep part heading out to Kings, right? Nope.

Maybe after getting onto Kings where you’ve initially got the long straight section. Nope.

First switchback? Nope.

Finally spotted him on the “big” hairpin about halfway up. From that point is was “stay on target” and try to not run out of gas catching him. He really didn’t need to start up earlier. Had a nice ride across Skyline with an unusual tail wind and yes, it was pretty windy up there. Even windier out on West Old LaHonda. After passing the “spooky old tree” and heading up the valley, it was like pushing into a wall of wind. Beautiful day for pictures though!

Nice to be back. No more off-the-bike stints, at least none voluntarily, until December, when I disappear for 11 days to Israel with my wife. No cycling; trips with my wife center around doing something special for her, and cycling is not one of those things. Hopefully time with me is. 🙂

Tuesday’s ride was shortened a bit by Kevin running a bit late getting going, and struggling up the hill. It was kind of ugly. I mean sure, it’s nice when I feel better than someone else, but it’s not so much fun when Kevin (kid, not the pilot) is not having an easy time. The other Kevin (Pilot) was still recovering from non-specified injuries that he’s in therapy for. We actually rode so slowly we had to shorten things a bit and skip the just-reopened West Old LaHonda section!

But Thursday was different. We actually had company Thursday; both Kevin (pilot) and Lanier. Actually, we didn’t meet up with pilot Kevin until quite a ways up Kings, as he’d gone up earlier, thinking he wouldn’t be able to keep up. Well, at a 33 minute pace, that really shouldn’t have been much of an issue! We also caught up, just barely, to a young woman climbing Kings who was cruising along without too much effort. She couldn’t accompany us on the West Old LaHonda section because of this work-thing some people apparently have, but we did invite her to future rides, and mentioned that our reliability isn’t affected by rain. We just might have convinced her to avoid us entirely. 🙂

It was a beautiful day on West Old LaHonda, as you can see in the smaller photo. Click on it for the full-size version. And yes, that’s a bench somebody installed at the view spot.