Time to catch up on our return from France!

Kevin and I got home late Monday night, probably half an hour later than it should have been since Air Canada had misplaced two of our four bags. Left the airport at 10:30pm without them and headed home (they eventually showed up two days later, delivered at 7:20am???!!!). Got to sleep some time past midnight. Did I ride Tuesday morning? Of course. Got to keep to the routine, and besides, I woke up at 6:30am and really didn’t know what time it was, maybe sometime late evening in France? Whatever, didn’t bother to wake up Kevin, just got dressed, had coffee, got on the bike and went. Actually went really fast leaving the house, and even the first half of Kings went pretty well until it didn’t. Have to admit the ultralight, ultrafast Trek Emonda did feel a lot nicer than the Bike Friday I use in France! But I’m also not carrying all sorts of gear on my rides around home.

This morning (Thursday) it was just myself and Kevin. The other Kevin (pilot) is slowly recovering from Lyme disease, which is assuredly not a fun thing to have to go through. Hope to see him back soon. Think I would have done better this morning if I hadn’t forgotten to use my inhaler before the ride, but still felt relatively OK.

Everything was going well until we got towards the end of West Old LaHonda. As seen in the photo at the top of this piece, they’ve gotten serious about keeping people out! Not serious enough that we couldn’t climb around the outside corner and lift our bikes over the top. Didn’t get too far until I encountered a work crew that, seriously, is actually repairing the road! Told me it’s going to take about a month, with the work involving building a retaining wall. That’s really good news.

Getting back to France, it’s going to take a while before we can get through all the photos from the last couple of days. I’ve still got some ride reports to work on too. Hopefully soon.

So what’s going on with the roads these days? It’s like everywhere we go, something is under construction. We didn’t get more than a mile away from home before coming to the scene above, where a car had recently taken out a utility pole. Kind of surprised they let us through, but also glad since any detour would have added quite a bit of time, and we arrive at the start of the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride with typically 90 seconds to spare.

Next roadwork came on Kings Mtn, just after turning onto it from Albion. One lane with a signal while they repair the other lane. This has been going on for a few weeks; tough to say how much longer.

Then comes the main obstacle, Kings Mtn itself. Despite a lack of sleep, despite Kevin claiming he wasn’t feeling fast, Kevin (kid, not the pilot, who’s been AWOL recently) set a pretty gnarly pace up the first half of the climb, with me coming off the back just past the park entrance. I held up pretty well to the half-way point and died thereafter, which is unfortunate. A steadier pace and I would have had the best time this year and possibly in the 28-something region. Still, right now, low-29s are passable. Better than I was doing this time last year.

Skyline. This is July, right? But it’s cool and foggy up top. Again. 45 degrees (better than 41, which you’d see on a “nice” foggy winter day) and pretty rays cast by the sun through the trees. I’m kinda done with pretty rays. Let’s get back to dry roads and no leg warmers.

And still another one-lane signal-controlled construction, on Skyline just prior to Sky L’onda. The one they’ve been working on for a year maybe? At least today, when Kevin hit the signal button, it immediately turned green.

Finally the last impediment, the closed section of West Old LaHonda where the pavement fell away. Oh. Wait. That’s not the last piece of closed or damaged road. They’re going to be spending a lot of time putting in a new pipe on Olive Hill/Albion, so after 8am you have to ride through Woodside to get to Canada. No more “maze” on the return.

Oh. Darn. I forgot about the Jefferson thing, where we could get through earlier but was now fully closed off, requiring that we head up the steep part of California. Definitely not in my legs, but didn’t seem an issue for Kevin. Hate that.

Maybe it’s training for when Kevin and I are in France in a couple of weeks, facing road closures for the ‘Tour.