Last ride before the rain, so decent-sized group (we generally get more riders in the morning when bad weather is moving in later in the day). A large group of younger women rode past before we started out, giving the guys a chance to give Kevin a bad time for riding with the wrong group (my son Kevin, who has yet to find that girl who’s going to break his heart). Slower ride up the hill, although I wasn’t there at the end,since I hung back with Kevin at the park entrance when he had a seizure. Strava says I stopped for 2:26, so if I subtract that from my 31:52 total I get… 29:36? Obviously I would have made it up faster, if Kevin hadn’t immediately ditched me once he got going again.

Only really notable event was a Sheriff’s car flying past at high speed, just over a foot away. Oh, and bleeping his siren at us. Why? I think because he was annoyed he couldn’t harass us, as we were riding single file, right at the edge of the road. Probably wrecked his day.

The climb begins!

Beethoven’s 7th Symphony is perhaps my favorite piece of classical music, first made known to me at the end of Zardoz (one of those self-important semi-existential sci-fi movies that you saw at an influential age and thought wow, that was deep, lots to talk about). You can give it (second movement, Beethoven’s 7th) a listen here.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to climb to music, something that would be timed such that I could relate its segments to landmarks on the way up the hill. To some extent it happens anyway, playing back a piece of music in my head. Not as often as used to be the case though, which is probably something I should work on. Obviously, quite a few people ride with their iphones hooked up to earpieces, somewhat oblivious to their surroundings, a state that I don’t feel comfortable or safe with. Perhaps if I didn’t have to worry about cars or trying to hold close to the wheel in front of me, I might. Maybe it would be worthwhile having some sort of mini speaker system on the bike? But that would intrude on the world around me, and one of the things I like about cycling is that it seems you can be part of the natural order of things without adding to it.

Right, about the ride. Fresh meat today; Gregor, one of our reps (Look pedals, Giro helmets and Blackburn accessories) finally showed up, after threatening to for several years. We don’t get too many industry folk on our rides, but maybe we can do our best to not scare Gregor away and start attracting a few. He’s finally recovering from a lengthy injury (don’t recall what it was at the moment) and while for the time being he can keep me company on the climbs, it won’t be long before he’s up there with the fast guys.

One of the more-interesting CalTrans jobs!

Roll call? Jan, Chris, Todd, Nigel, Kevin, George, Gregor, John… that might have been it. Nobody melted the asphalt this morning, thankfully for me. A lot of gravel up on Skyline, enough that it’s obvious they’re still working on the road, doing what to it being rather tough to say. We did come across a pair of CalTrans guys riding something looking like go-carts, removing some of the temporary reflectors from the middle of the road… we can only hope that’s in advance of actually laying down some new pavement!

Not as cold this morning as I had feared, never dropping below 44 and warming up to near-50 on Skyline. Not bad weather at all for a ride that you never get much of a chance to settle down and think about things like whether it’s cold or how long you can hang on. The pacing is sustainable; not easy, but not the sort of ride where people are blowing up and dropping off the back. In warmer weather, that’s not an issue, because even if you stop completely, you’re not going to get uncomfortably cold, but those days are behind us. In fact, the weekend looks not-so-nice at all! But thankfully this-coming Thursday and the Tuesday following are supposed to be dry.

I didn’t figure it would be too bad this morning, missing just Tuesday’s ride due to my silly 54 hour trip to Singapore & back (did I really do that?), and it wasn’t too bad. Not great either. The run through the park felt bad but my time was actually pretty decent, and when the group split, with those wanting to go really fast riding on ahead and those wanting to chat and socialize falling back… well, I carved out a nice place in the middle until they caught up at the wide open section on Kings. I’m thinking this might not be such a bad day on the bike after all, until a few corners later and spot Kevin at the side of the road, having a seizure. He’d been doing so well in the seizure department until this week, when there seems to have been a cluster of them.

The seizure passed without much drama, but it did leave him with a nasty headache (which can sometimes happen) and, of course, he’d left his post-seizure instant-acting anti-headache meds at home. We continued up the hill and south on Skyline to 84, but instead of continuing with the rest of the group over to west-side Old LaHonda, we headed back down 84 into Woodside. Without that extra loop (Old LaHonda), it just doesn’t feel like much of a ride. Sunday we’ll have to do something nasty to make up for it.

The photo says it all. This is what I look forward to this time of year, on Tuesday & Thursday mornings. 7:03am or so, out the kitchen window. If it’s not clear, this is not to my liking. I have never understood those for whom watching the sun comes up is a glorious start to their morning. Instead, if I wake up and it’s dark, I’m wondering, did the sun go away? Will it ever be bright & warm again?

Thankfully, it will be light outside next time I wake up for my morning ride, since Daylight Saving Time comes to an end this Sunday. Normally I enjoy extra daylight in the evenings, but once it starts getting darker around 6pm, what’s the point? We’re slowly heading towards the darkest day of the year (December 21st or 22nd, not sure which it is this year), but right about now I’m thinking why pretend we’ve got enough daylight to do something useful in the evenings or, soon enough, the afternoons? Let’s trade some of that not-quite-long-enough-to-be-useful sun later in the day for the mornings, so at least we’re not waking up to a world that doesn’t appear ready for us?

And with thoughts like that, is it any wonder that I was dreadfully slow on my rainbike this morning? Kevin wasn’t much better off, likely because we were the only two on the ride today so he had nobody to chase or try to stay ahead of. It never rained on us, the worst of the storm passing early in the night, dropping just enough moisture to make sure everything stayed wet and not enough breeze to dry anything off. Nor was it even cold; both of us over-dressed for temps that didn’t drop below 50.

As for the roadwork on Skyline, we did the normal loop this morning, trusting that Skyline would now be passable after the chipseal work this past week. Let’s hope they put at least a thin layer of asphalt over the extremely-rough surface after the gravel that may not have had enough oil to properly bond with the older pavement. For now, they’ve taken one of our nicest, smoothest roads for cycling and turned it into a selling tool for “comfort” bikes.

OK, right, we’re heading towards winter and there’s really nothing about winter that I like and this post has done nothing to hide that. –Mike–

Hate getting up when it’s completely-black outside; daylight saving time comes to an end soon, and with it, a bit more sun in the mornings. That’s a good thing. Not-so-good is that test rides at the shop will have to end around 4:30 pretty soon. Hard to believe it wasn’t that long ago we could ride until 9pm!

By the time we got ready to head out, the dark had turned to gray fog, which stayed with us until about a third of the way up Kings. Fog a shade of gray that changes only with altitude, not with the rising sun. Some days we climb more quickly out of the fog than others; today wasn’t particularly fast or slow, with Kevin’s group finishing just a minute ahead of me (27 vs 28 minutes). This time of year, I can live with 28 minutes.

Eric, John, Mark, Todd, George, Kevin (not the pilot) and first-timer Chris on the climb today. With the work being done on Skyline this week (chipsealing pretty much its entire length) we had planned to do one of the dead-end roads, probably Native Sons, and were heading towards it down Tunitas when George got a flat, taking us off schedule and forcing us to turn back at Swett & Star Hill, about 9 miles short of our typical distance. Skyline had simply not been an option though; chip-sealed roads destroy bikes, in a very literal sense (you pick up a piece of gravel that gets stuck to the chain and in the instant that your drivetrain comes to a halt you can tear your rear derailleur right out of the frame, as happened to one of our customers this past Saturday).

The iPhone’s panorama function almost does justice to West-side Old LaHonda. Too bad you can’t take such pictures while riding. Maybe Todd could, doing a trackstand.

Long-range weather forecast says no rain on my ride days, with Sunday showing a very-pleasant 73 degrees… and rain curiously scheduled for consecutive Wednesdays. I can deal with that. Bring it on, but only on Wednesdays. Once it becomes a sure thing I’ll even alter staffing at the shops for presumed fewer customers on wet Wednesdays. I like it. Leave the weekends nice & dry, and have that one not-nice day to make you appreciate the great days. Works for me!

Assembly-line flat fixing? Kinda looks that way!

Most people flying back late at night, getting home past midnight, wouldn’t think about getting up early the next morning (actually the same morning!) for a bike ride, but I’m not most people, and there’s really nothing quite as rejuvenating as a bike ride. Especially with temps warm enough you don’t have to worry about leg warmers or base layers, something that may change next week when they’ve put rain into the forecast. Rain? What’s that?

Kevin, Kevin, Eric, John, new guy named Mike and Zack today; not quite the group of 11 on Tuesday, when I was off pretending I could make a difference for bike dealers at meetings in Austin, but maybe this was quality vs Tuesday being quantity? Since it was Thursday we rode up through the park, but started a bit late when Kevin (the pilot) promptly got a flat tire. No records, but anytime I can get to the top through the park, in something under 29 minutes, I’m good.