Category Archives: Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Endless ramblings regarding the every Tuesday & Thursday-morning bike ride, leaving Olive Hill & Canada Road at 7:45am, rain or shine

Another Sunday Solo

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Plenty of rides by myself lately; last time I rode with “a” Kevin was a week ago Tuesday, and that was ex-pilot, a very slow slog up Kings, but at least the full ride including West Old LaHonda.

Thursday, on my own, got to admit it didn’t feel much like a day to be on my bike, having to put on leg warmers and base layer, heading up the hill alone through the park. A number of times I actually thought about heading back down to the flats and looping around Portola Valley, but it’s really not that hard to just keep going. Up on Skyline I was thinking maybe skip West Old LaHonda and do the Swett Road/Upper Tunitas loop, but no, you just put one foot in front of the other, and keep on going. Who knows what you’re going to see after all? Keep looking for that Bobcat that occasionally shows up on West Old LaHonda.

Sunday was again on the cool side, so I stayed on the bay side of the hill, trying to find things I haven’t noticed in the prior 50 years of riding the same roads. That gets tough! But there was an oddly-placed Lemonade stand (on Summerhill) and the horse atop Arastradero, in the photo above. Seen that horse many times, but never stopped to take a photo. This time I did, only afterward, seeing the potential of the phone, wishing I’d actually gotten off the bike and walked up to the fence to get a better picture. Maybe next time.

Except that next time I’ll be riding with others, and most aren’t quite so excited about things like horses up on a hillside, or out-of-place Lemonade stands. Oh, right, why was it out-of-place? It was sitting right past the very top of that short steep pitch off El Monte, just as you’re getting ready for that nice little descent (that wasn’t, back in the day, interrupted by two badly-placed stop signs). You’re just not thinking about stopping at that point, and you’re in a little bit of disbelief that that’s where they chose to put a Lemonade stand.

Tomorrow morning, don’t know if I’ll be on my own or not. Kevin (not pilot) is back from Disneyland but his knee is still an issue. Curiously it hurt just as much from walking at Disneyland as it does from riding. Maybe he’ll be out on his e-bike to give his knee a rest. And just now, as I’m typing this, I get a text from the “other” Kevin, ex-pilot, making sure I’ll be out there.

Summer just went by way too fast this year.

Another solo ride, but at least full-distance. It’s been a tough month.

Personal stuff, Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Last Sunday Kevin and I were supposed to to an easy hill ride, with a few miles. Ride up Old LaHonda then Skyline all the way to 9, down into Los Altos for the usual stop at Peet’s, and back via the foolhills. Didn’t work out as planned; Kevin’s knee was protesting pretty nastily so we cut things short, descending Page Mill and looping back through Portola Valley & Woodside. Under 40 miles just doesn’t cut it for a Sunday ride! But we couldn’t push our luck with his knee. He saw a doctor for it on Tuesday, and a physical therapist, at 7:30am, this morning. 7:30am??? Things are a bit tougher to figure out because he can’t have an MRI done, due to the computer installed on top of his brain. Big magnets aren’t a good idea.

Kevin did ride with me Tuesday morning, but we stayed out of the hills. Feels very very strange doing something other than heading up to Skyline on a Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride. We rode the Loop, including Arastradero, ending up just a mile or so short of the normal distance, but a whole lot less climbing.

Then today, while Kevin was at his PT appointment, it was just me out there. Surprisingly few other cyclists on the road; saw nobody on Skyline or West Old LaHonda. Nice morning as you can see from the video; the fog was further out towards the coast, and dry roads all the way!

Hopefully, with my mom’s brain surgery in the past (having a large meningioma removed, which sounds bad by itself, and add that it’s being removed from a 93 year old…). She’s recovering nicely, and hopefully we can get things back on track at the bike shop now. It just kinda feels like everything began going downwhill after Kevin and I got back from France. Time to reverse that. Time for Kevin to have fewer seizures too; it was 4 today and maybe 7 yesterday.

But this morning, even though riding alone, there was some feeling of normalcy. Heck, at the end of the ride I was even thinking, 9:29am, that’s just 7 minutes off a good time from the fast days way back when. Maybe way way way back when. It really does help having working power meters on the bike, no question.

At least Karen’s cancer seems stable and our November 17th-December 1st vacation is on! Flying into Amsterdam so she can see Anne Frank’s house, then train to Paris for a day, then board a cruise ship where the highlight will be a goat cheese farm and the Rock of Gibraltar. Our 4th cruise, not in as fancy a room as the last two but still pretty darned nice, still an Aft cabin so we can go to sleep with the sound of the ship’s wake through open doors. Looking forward to that! And also looking forward to the TdF route presentation in October. There are some things down the road to work towards. Just have to keep that in mind when things seem a tad bit crazy.