After Sunday’s ride, which was a lot tougher than it should have been, I didn’t really know what to expect today. Didn’t sleep well last night, but my weight is coming back down after the two weeks in Greece though, a sign that my body is rejecting the notion of rest and getting back into the swing of things.

Karen joined Kevin (not ex-pilot) with me this morning, on a little bit colder, slightly-foggier day than seen for a while, and yet a pretty nice day at the same time. Also, for some reason, a quieter day than most. Not just fewer cars, but almost that eerie kind of quiet post-9/11 where you noticed the lack of background noise from the missing planes for a week or two.

Today it was Kevin’s turn to suffer. Not sure why. I was ok, nothing to write home about, but able to get in some pretty hard 20-30 second efforts, pulling ahead a bit and then waiting for Kevin to catch back up. Karen was riding a steady pace and finished well ahead of us; on Skyline we suggested (and she agreed) to go on ahead.

The temperature varied from 47 to 52 or so, but even with the occasional fog, it didn’t seem that cold.

And that photo? It’s from West Old LaHonda (of course) where they’re doing a bit more than minor patchwork in a number of places.

After Sunday’s ride in the muck on ebikes, I was thinking I might feel pretty awful yesterday, riding my “regular” bike. But, and this is admittedly really weird, I felt so much more alive, so much more powerful on my ultra-light & efficient Trek Emonda than on the ebike. With each pedal stroke the bike just wanted to surge up the hill. It was… fun. Apparently even with unimaginable power at your command on an ebike, there’s still something that, for some of us, is much more fun when you can get that weight down so low, the efficiency so high, that your bicycle is a non-assisted extension of yourself.

Much nicer day than Sunday; no rain, a few wet spots here and there, but most debris gone. Exception, of course, being the upper part of West Old LaHonda road. Both Kevins were with me, and for the first time in several months, I felt like I was riding stronger than them. I was having fun up Kings, picking up speed, then slowing down to let them catch up, then accelerating again.

We did have a detour as we neared West Old LaHonda; a power line had fallen across the road, so we had to take the dirt shortcut up to WOLH. But not before getting harassed by a CHP guy who thought our intent was to go straight through, just because we didn’t screech to a half the moment we saw him. He even said if we wanted to take our life in our hands we could ride through, and we’re all thinking what the heck is with this guy? I’ve actually got the exchange on video so maybe I’ll upload it one of these days. Eh, maybe not. I don’t want to get the guy in trouble and have him think all cyclists are bad.