That shouldn’t seem like a big deal, that Kevin and I were accompanied by two other riders, Todd and ex-pilot Kevin, but I think it’s been at least a couple months that it’s just been the two of us, nobody else. The rain, the cold, and probably how darned slow I’ve been has likely discouraged others.

But this morning it was really nice out; unlike Tuesday, the roads were dry, and it was, wait for it, 45 degrees up on Skyline! That feels so much nicer than 37.

Having both Todd and Kevin was nice because Todd’s fast and can entertain Kevin, while Kevin (ex-pilot) is definitely slowing down, which suits me just fine. They got up the hill in 28-something, a time that I haven’t been able to touch in probably 5+ years, while Kevin (ex-pilot) and I cruised up in a leisurely 40 minutes. Of course that included a stop at the top of the park for ex-pilot to take off his jacket… must have been at least 5 minutes. Right.

We were going to risk the Old LaHonda descent this time, instead of the Swett Road/upper Tunitas loop, but didn’t get there because younger Kevin lost his Garmin Varia Radar unit descending Skyline into SkyLonda, and didn’t know exactly where it was. Thankfully, it was pretty easily found as it tried to reconnect to the Garmin computer on Kevin’s bike as he got near. After that we continued north on Skyline back to Kings and down.

Amazing how much more fun it is to descend when it’s not really cold. That feeling of “We just need to get off this hill as quickly as possible” on cold days isn’t very fun. Today, everything was fun.

Assessment:
RAYNAUDS SYNDROME (primary encounter diagnosis)
Mike E Jacoubowsky is a very pleasant 67 Y male presenting for evaluation and management of raynaud’s syndrome.

That’s in the after-visit notes from my video doctor visit this afternoon, dealing with my Raynauds (my circulation issue where my fingers turn white and icy). Leaves me wondering how honest they might be with an antagonistic patient. My guess is that the scale starts at mentioning nothing at all (which would actually indicate someone you’d rather not deal with) and then at the top of the range, wonderful superlatives and perhaps a mention that the doctor is looking forward to their next visit. I’m good with “Very pleasant 67 & male” though.

Regarding this morning’s ride, well, it was definitely one to challenge someone with circulation issues! This is mid-April, right? That’s what the calendar says. So should it really be dropping into the mid-30s on Skyline? Any answer other than a solid no is not acceptable. Fortunately it wasn’t that bad starting up Kings, and even more fortunately, I decided to attack the climb differently, hoping that maybe I could improve my time. And attacking it differently meant… not attacking. Taking that first steep part more easily instead of quickly getting out of breath and not recovering.

It really did work. I would have had a pretty decent time to the Park entrance, if not for that new one lane piece with stop signs at each end, and me, being a nice guy, letting two cars go through that were coming down, not just the one. I’ll have to check out Strava to see how much time I was actually stopped, but it was definitely more than enough to have gotten me a 33-something time (I ended up with 34:04 I think?).

At one point, prior to the archery range, I even managed to put a gap on Kevin, but it wasn’t intentional and it didn’t last.

As has been the case with most Tuesday/Thursday-morning rides lately, we’ve been looping back to Kings, shortening the ride a fair amount, since we can run into issues getting back in time (to open the shop) if we’re caught at the Old LaHonda light for a long time (it can be up to 8 minutes, and the “window” for letting cars up or down is only about a minute long). So we’re making a u-turn on Skyline at the Skegg’s parking lot and then doing a loop of Swett and the upper part of Tunitas.