It had to happen, after a long string of rides where I had been feeling pretty darned good and basically playing around, riding on up ahead at times, drifting back, repeat. But not this morning. This morning it was all I could do to keep Kevin & Kevin and Colin in sight on the climb up Kings. It’s not like they all finished a day earlier than I did, but they all did finish together, and I’m holding up the tail end.

Riding along Skyline wasn’t so bad; I had a bit of power on the short hills, and was hopeful West Old LaHonda would be OK. Well… it was pretty much just that, OK. I could hang, but when it came time to fumble around with the camera for the obligatory photo (above), there was nothing extra, and you need a bit of extra at that point to keep up while trying to get the phone out of the pocket, get it into picture mode, take the photo (or two or three) and then get it back into the pocket. While wearing thick winter gloves. Yeah, good luck with that.

And the best was yet to come- descending Old LaHonda because 84 is closed for tree work. I do not understand why some actually enjoy descending OLH. You can’t get any speed due to the corners and a car that could be coming up, you’re on the brakes the entire way down. What’s the point, other than burning through brake pads? But two weeks more of this until all the Eucalyptus tress are gone from the base of 84.

It’s February, so you never know what to expect. That’s about as wrong a statement as you can come up with; it’s February so there is one thing you CAN count on.

It will be cold.

Joining Kevin and I today were both Karen and Todd. First Todd sighting in some time, and for good reason- he’s too fast for us. He’d already climbed Old LaHonda before meeting up arriving, and was putting in a pretty strong pace through the park. Kevin was going strong too; first time he’s put the hurt on me in some time, leaving me in the dust on that final steep pitch before rejoining Kings.

I didn’t give up; I knew I’d start feeling better soon and just a few minutes after getting dropped I was off the front. Kevin was in pretty severe distress though, so I dropped back and rode the rest of the way with him.

Temps had been 35 at the bar and never reaching 40 on top, but sure felt a lot better than last week, probably because it was less damp. Kevin assumed we’d be dropping the West Old LaHonda loop since we were running way behind schedule, but I’ve had way too many shortened rides lately so we rode on. Surprisingly it was Kevin pulling on the descent to West Old LaHonda!

Gorgeous views, as always, but you just can’t easily operate an iPhone in camera mode with thick gloves. Very frustrating! There are still times when a dedicated camera works a lot better.