It was cold enough this morning that we thought it might actually be close to epic category, and in fact we did notice, as we rode over Jefferson to the start of the ride we didn’t get to start, some of the water puddles looked a bit suspect, that appearance of surface tension that looked just a bit different, maybe close to developing a skin of ice.

But somewhere on the descent to Canada, Kevin picked up a nail in his rear tire, and by the time we got to the 280 overpass on Canada, it was clearly flat. No biggie, we’ll run 5 minutes late, have to skip the West Old LaHonda section, but we’ve got CO2 and tubes and what more do you need? And so what if it’s 37 degrees out? Well all that would have been fine if the first tube seemed to make a mess of itself (had probably been in the seat pack too long and developed some holes), and the next one the CO2 was leaking from… somewhere? Was it another bad tube? Was everything screwed on tight? Tried another cartridge, same thing, seemed it was the inflator itself that might be bad.

So we tried my inflator gadget, and out second-to-last CO2 cartrdidge. It was feeling a bit like the movie Flight of the Phoenix, where they had a limited number of starter cartridges to get their plane’s engine fired up so they could escape the desert. And… same thing. No way to continue the ride, even if the last one would work, since it would leave us with nothing left if we got another flat. Kevin called his sister to come pick him up, and I rode the whopping 2.5 miles back home.

Not a fun morning!

The forecast said we could leave our rain bikes at home, but after all these days in a row of rain, we still made sure both bikes would be available this morning. Thankfully, the forecast was right, and it wasn’t even that cold; I got away with just two layers (a warm baselayer and a jersey/jacket). Kevin went 3 layers, and surprisingly, got a bit cold on the ride. We apparently weren’t the only ones paying attention to the weather forecast; unlike both rides last week, where we didn’t see a single cyclist on the road, there were quite a few out today.

Thursday so it was up through the park. Signage said it was closed, but the gates were open at the bottom and nobody to turn us back (at the top of the park, the gates are closed, with tape around the sides making it difficult to get around). Dreadfully slow though; it’s been a very long time since I felt good on that segment. Kevin, of course, felt better. But unlike some of the past rides, there was never that temptation to turn back and not do the climb. But definitely not a fast climb, just under 39 minutes (but you have to subtract a little time due to the closed gate at the top of the park).

Skyline was damp and made a mess of our bikes, but it still felt pleasant up on top. We were running pretty late, too late to actually ride from the top of West Old LaHonda down to where the road is falling away, but we did come across two women (in the photo at the top) coming back up. Unfortunately, they’d turned around at the downed tree, so we didn’t get an up to date report on how the road’s holding up. That will have to wait until Sunday’s ride.