Had I known about the tree with a mile to go, I would have brought a ride 1 mile kite to tack to it! Pretty good ride Thursday morning; actually had enough rain, a couple of times, to make it worth while. Lots of debris, small slides on the road, but totally passable by bike. And even the tree had enough clearance for cars to get past. Thursday’s ride heads up through the park, but the fire department blocked off Greer before the lower park entrance, due to a downed tree. Tuesday’s ride not too much different, still wet, still cold.

And the forecast says a lot more ahead! Thankfully Sunday looks like it might be ok to bring out the nice bikes. Don’t know where we’ll have the strength to ride; Kevin’s been off the bike since last week, other than commuting to work a couple times on his ebike. So yes, the past few rides have been solo for me. Kind of lonely, yes, but there’s something nice about being the only crazy person in the world. Sometimes. I might feel a bit differently if I ever get a flat out in the rain, alone.

And then there’s that odd Strava entry for me from a few nights ago, a 5 mile loop around midnight. My mom wanted to know what I was mad about; apparently it had been a thing for my dad, way back in the day, to just get in the car and drive if he was really upset at something (presumably the something being my mom). I guess, honoring my dad, I really should have gotten out on my bike. I actually did think about it, but wasn’t sure if my lights were charged up enough for a significant ride. And then I’d need to take a shower when I got back too.

I think, had I ridden, I might have actually felt safer; there were a few times, around Canada College, where I was thinking I’d rather not meet up with a mountain lion. Hate it when that happens.

Sunday. I’ll try to talk Kevin into heading out to the coast and coming back via Tunitas, so we can see what the creek’s like. Hopefully it will rain enough late Saturday to get it running nicely. The forecast says nothing heavy tomorrow, just an all-day light rain ending about 6am Sunday morning. Light breeze that might help dry off the roads. Looking forward to coffee in San Gregorio. 56-57 degrees, not too cold. Should be nice. Slow, but nice.

This morning’s ride… yet another in the rain, and still nothing to really write home about, not Epic, bit nobody else out there. At least not until the very end of this morning’s ride, when we finally saw a guy on a green ebike heading the other way on Canada Road. I guess Zwift and indoor trainers have really taken over when it’s not nice outside; in past years, we would have seen a number of other silly people out there, making (literal) tracks in the rain.

We’re getting the timing down a little bit better; only 7 minutes late to the start this morning. Still getting the hang of having the right clothing ready to go, figuring out how many layers (4 today, including lightweight rain shell), I felt more energetic this morning, but yeah, once we hit the steep stuff, not so much. It never rained really heavily, but it was still a surprise to see the various creeks on Kings had all but dried up, compared to the high volumes and mini-waterfalls of Tuesday morning.

Fortunately we weren’t so late we had to cut the ride back like we did Tuesday. There was still no way to manage getting in West Old LaHonda, but at least we were able to head south on Skyline to 84 and back down into Woodside. And those 4 layers I spoke of? Definitely needed, as temps were quite a bit lower today than Tuesday. The temp gauge is the Garmin 1040 is a bit suspect, but Purple Air says it was a pretty consistent 40F for most of the ride. The worst stuff to ride in is heavy rain and 38F (it rarely rains below 38F), but we were slightly above that and definitely not a soaking rain.

The hope is that Sunday will be nice for our traditional New Year’s Day ride up Mt. Hamilton. The plan is to take the train (leaves Redwood City at 9:21, arriving San Jose 10:10, ride the 8 miles or so to the base of the climb, and start up about 11am. Past history says we’ll get to the top shortly before 1pm, head down around 1:30pm and maybe make the 3:12pm train for home. If we miss that, there’s another an hour later.