A wet January day on Skyline

The plan? Kevin and I ride to Pescadero/San Gregorio/Tunitas and back. The usual coastal run. The weather? We knew it was going to be questionable at best, but we’re strong enough, we’re stupid enough, and we’ve got the gear for it. We got going around 9:50am (fairly early for us!) and headed out into a light drizzle, nothing nasty, just enough to make it not much fun. Almost nobody else out on the road; we saw 3 people on Canada, and not a single cyclist heading up or down Old LaHonda! A rare day indeed.

We weren’t burning up the pavement on the climb, but we weren’t slacking either, just a good, steady climb, knowing we had a long ride ahead of us. About 2/3rds of the way up Kevin’s dropped back a bit, and I look back on the last steep corner and he’s heading to the edge of the road and getting off his bike. Unfortunately I know where this is going; he’s had a bit of warning that a seizure is coming on, and the ones where he gets the warnings are the ones that tend to be a bit bigger. This was no exception; he was tensed up for about two minutes before coming out of it. We got back on and continued up the hill, delayed by no more than 5 minutes, but as the rain got heavier & the temps got colder, Kevin had lost his enthusiasm for the Pescadero Bakery so we scaled things back, heading down west-side Old LaHonda but then back up to Skyline and north all the way to 92 and back Canada. Even though significantly shortened (37 miles instead of 58), it still wasn’t easy, with the rain getting pretty heavy up on Skyline, soaking through our gloves, and the temperature holding steady at 45. At one point Kevin said, in a way that could have been mistaken for sarcasm, “This is what we do for fun.” But it wasn’t sarcastic; in our own warped minds, it was fun!

This was forwarded to me by the young woman referenced in the photo on my “Breaking Away Revisited” piece. Very cool video. There’s also a video showing how it was put together.

If it’s going to rain, then let it rain well before the ride, or afterward. Today, it was after. So far, we’re actually having a pretty good record for avoiding the rain this winter!

No Ludo today, no Kevin (the pilot), no Karl (who’s still doing his ‘cross thing). Just myself, Eric, Marcus and Chris this morning, riding is much warmer, almost balmy conditions. 50-55 degrees! But the air was so heavy with moisture that your glasses (or at least my glasses) frequently fogged up, and you could tell we were right on the edge of fog. Even at the start, 52 degrees, you could see the condensation in your breath. As a result, even though there was no rain, the roads were pretty wet (which seemed to affect me a lot more concerned on the descents than the rest of the guys).

The arrows point to Chris's "flaps" which were fully engaged climbing west-side Old LaHonda

We had a fairly easy, non-Marcus-like pace up Kings, punctuated only by my attempt to drive hard on the steep middle section, which is always followed by the need to stop at a bar and rest for a day or two. Too bad I don’t drink and there are no bars on the ride.

Even though Chris was holding back, he still looks fast, as you can see in the photo. Heading up west-side Old LaHonda, his windbreaker flying wide, you think of Chris on a climb or a sprint and you think “fast.”

The descent on 84 was not much fun for me; I’d much rather ride on dry pavement or in pouring rain. The inconsistent traction when things are damp causes me to lose my nerve. Hate that. Also hate it in the final sprint when Chris takes off and I just can’t quite get there. But tomorrow is another day!

About time. No rain for a week. Great way to start the new year!

Normally I would have promoted the annual New Year’s Day ride up Mount Hamilton beforehand, but given the questionable weather, I figured it would be better not to encourage others to be as silly as some of us. Thankfully, the weather may not be as bad as initially forecast; right now weather.com says rain turning to showers (showers timed nicely for the descent), while the TV people believe that the rain will have passed through before we even start. In this case, I like the TV people better! Whatever, my son and I will be heading up the hill at 9am, getting to the top a bit over two hours later. Look here for photos later on that afternoon or evening. –Mike–

Our Redwood City location is normally closed on Sundays, but we’ll be here for you the Sunday before Christmas, smiling and cheerful and helping you with new bikes and cool stuff for presents & stocking stuffers while it’s nasty & raining outside. We’re hoping it’s nice, but the long-range weather forecast presently doesn’t know nice.

We’ll also have our Los Altos store open on Monday (they’re normally closed Mondays & open Sundays).

What will be on sale? All Jackets, Jerseys, Shorts, Arm & Leg Warmers and most other things we’d call “apparel” (but not shoes or sunglasses or helmets) are 20% off regular price. We’ll have some extra-special further markdowns on closeout bikes too. And who knows what else? I’ll be sending out an email flyer shortly.

No, you can’t test ride a bike in the rain, but we’ll have trainers set up and make sure everything fits just right. Come in and say hi and keep us company! Oh, and if you’ve got odd-sized feet, either really small (preferably women’s) or a guy with wide size 13 monsters, we’ve got a $50 sidi closeout sale going on.

Sometimes we try to be “thankful” for something at Thanksgiving out of rote. It’s just something we’re supposed to do, and we search for the usual, the mean on the table, those who prepared it, the roof over our heads, whatever. I don’t want to trivialize Thanksgiving too much, but sometimes it’s more of a Hallmark Holiday than it should be.

Kevin riding through Woodside on Mountain Home Road

But not today. Because today, Kevin got out on his first bike ride. After I did the morning 58 miles with Claude, Kevin suited up and we did a 24 mile version of the extended “loop” through Woodside & Portola Valley. First time for Kevin on a bike in, what, 9 weeks or so? And just 4 days after having his kidney stent removed, and 2 days after getting off the all-too-powerful pain meds. He did impressively well! We didn’t push it hard, but he was riding at a near-normal pace, complaining only about a bit of pain when he breathed, partly due to the cold (although it wasn’t that cold this afternoon, around 51 degrees or so) and partly due to getting over quite a bit of congestion caused by his meds (narcotics depress respiratory activity, which can cause the lungs to congest, as his certainly did).

So Saturday you may see him working again at the shop, and Monday he’ll be back at school again (which, just like his cycling, will be after a 9-week absence). This is something we are truly thankful for.

There were multiple factors conspiring to keep ride attendance low this morning-

• The low-key hillclimb series, normally held on Saturday mornings, was running a special edition today up Mount Hamilton. If I didn’t have my regular ride, I’d probably be there myself! The low-key series is an informal race, meaning that times are kept for everyone, but since “everyone” shows up, you’ll get rocket-fast semi-pros melting the asphalt along with a few recreational riders who will count themselves fortunate to finish before the sun goes down. A fun time for all.
• A lack of publicizing the ride this year. Normally I’d be sending out flyers and putting info on our website, but there have been so many things challenging my ability to juggle time lately, some things lost out. Between working on ways to re-invent the shop (some things are kinda stuck in 1985-style retail), taking care of my son’s kidney issues (now seemingly resolved, thank goodness!) and an upcoming vacation, I’ve been a tad bit stressed. Which, of course, is why I need to ride!
• The weather. Clear & beautiful, light breeze, what’s not to like? Apparently, the temperature! 33 degrees at the start this morning, dropping to 32 at one point.

And it it was just me & Claude, doing the traditional Old LaHonda/Pescadero/Tunitas Creek run. We did see a small number of cyclists out on Canada as we started out, most bundled pretty heavily but more than once this morning we saw people with exposed legs and wondered what were they thinking?

From the start in Woodside to the outskirts of Pescadero, temps stayed between 32 & 37 degrees for the most part, with brief forays into the very-low 40s. Thank goodness we live in an area where we don’t get ice when it’s cold! There were only a few times where I heard or felt that crunchiness you get when the road is frosted, and no slipping. Climbing Old LaHonda, Claude remarked that we were likely the only people climbing the hill this early; the group we came across at the top proved this quite wrong.

One area I was mistaken was the ability to buy food in Pescadero & San Gregorio! Every previous TurkeyDay ride, one of the two stores/bakeries in Pescadero was open, and the San Gregorio General Store has always been open. Not today though; stores in both towns were hosting private town functions. My initial instinct in Pescadero was to hit up the gas station’s market but I figured I was fine for a while, and San Gregorio wasn’t that far away. Trust those initial instincts! Thankfully, the Bike Hut on Tunitas Creek had some munchies available (yogurt-covered pretzels, $2/bag) that kept me going.

Did I mention how incredibly-clear it was this morning? You could look out towards to ocean and see Hawaii! Almost. There was something out there, an island, a non-moving ship, something that was in the same place when I first saw it, off Stage Road, as when I last saw it approaching Tunitas Creek. It was too far south to be the Farallon Islands, but it was… something.

Some things about this ride will never be the same; passing the Flamingo House sans Flamingos (5 or 6 miles before Pescadero), and the removal of the iron skeletons holding machine guns a few miles after Pescadero, on Stage Road. But some things never change, like the steepness of the middle section of Tunitas Creek, or the fun of sharing your favorite rides with others.