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.

Yes, I did ride yesterday. I waited long enough for the steady rain to become a steady drizzle, the kind that makes more of a mess of your bike (because it isn’t raining hard enough to clean it) and isn’t even as fun to ride in because it’s not as challenging.

But what made it sad was visiting the site where, last week, we lost a good customer & friend. Lauren Ward, wife of Bob Ward, longtime bike racer and a member of a racing club we sponsored back in the early 80s. Good people. Two kids I think. Steve, my brother who runs our Los Altos store, knew them very well (they lived in Los Altos, near our store).

I rode up to the intersection from the east, and maybe a mile beforehand, had this sudden feeling that this road, doing what I was doing right then, those were some of the last memories of her life. That just didn’t make sense in so many ways. I knew it was going to be emotional, but I didn’t consider that it was going to be personal. I pulled up to the intersection and studied the markings on the road, the painted red markings and investigative shorthand (AOI for area of impact, RF for right front, as in the final position of the front of the truck whose wheels had run over her).

It didn’t make sense.

I tried to play out various scenarios in my mind. I was there at (corrected for the time change) the same time of day, and saw that the sun was much too high in the sky to have been an issue. So I got on my bike and rode through. I shot video of cars overtaking me. I rode through again. And again. And again. It was probably 10-15 times through that intersection, making a U-turn after the overpass and doing it again, often waiting for a fair amount of traffic to show up, thinking maybe I could see something about the intersection, and the way the cars go through it, that might provide a clue.

There were none to be had. Oh sure, lots of little things that could be improved, like removing the sidewalk-to-nowhere on the westbound side (where the accident happened) so you would have another 3 feet of room for cyclists to share with cars. Which made me think of the 3-foot passing law that we don’t have, and wonder if maybe that would have helped, because motorists might have to plan a bit more carefully when they see cyclists ahead to make sure they don’t get squeezed. But would it have mattered? I don’t know.

Past senseless events haven’t helped me come to terms with this one, and this one won’t likely help me deal any better with those in the future. There are no insensitive cliches that can come out of this and help the family deal with the loss of a wife and mother. Going out there and riding through that intersection wasn’t going to make me, or anybody else, feel any better. I knew that. I just hoped that maybe I could see something and understand. –Mike–