Tag Archives: stage road

Just because your star climber abandons doesn’t mean you get in the broom wagon too…

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It was a beautiful day to ride! Which is always a good excuse for another shot of West Old LaHonda.

It was a beautiful day to ride! Which is always a good excuse for another shot of West Old LaHonda.

Kevin and I needed to get in some miles; it’s less than two months before we head to France and tackle some nasty climbs. Would have been nice to do a Santa Cruz run,

The "big curve" on Haskins

The “big curve” on Haskins

but school work for Kevin meant he had to get back at a reasonable hour, so we set out to do the loop I did April 21st (I think)- Over Old LaHonda to Pescadero, Bean Hollow and south on Highway 1 to Gazos Creek, return to Pescadero via Gazos Creek and Cloverdale. Food. Cokes. Mix more Cytomax.

Up to that point, things went reasonably well. Kevin was running into some pain issues from his kidney (isn’t this getting to be pretty stale news about now?) so he was just barely hanging onto my wheel as we rode into a stiff headwind, but kept it to himself until we were just about ready to leave Pescadero, saying he wanted to pack it in, call home for someone to pick him up.

Fun. I talk him into heading to San Gregorio before calling for the broom wagon (in racing, the broom wagon “sweeps” the back of the race, picking up racers who’ve abandoned), since it would be much easier for someone to come straight over 84 looking for us, rather than have to figure out Stage Road etc. He makes it, painfully, we call from San Gregorio, then head east on 84 for the intercept. I figured La Honda, and sure enough, just past La Honda, the broom wagon appears.

Waaaaay too soon for me to pack it in though! Can’t even believe my wife asked the question. As if she doesn’t know after 34 years? Just 50-something miles by that point, none really hard, it was time for me to finally shake my legs loose, which I did, getting a new personal best for upper section of 84 up to Skyline.

77 miles, “only” 6200ft of climbing, so it didn’t even meet the definition of a “tough” ride (needs 1,000ft of climbing per 10 miles). The original plan had been to head up Los Lobitos Cutoff and Tunitas, which would have been 1000ft more… still not enough! Maybe next weekend…

One hot ride today! 65 very tough miles. 95 degrees.

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90, 95 degrees, who's counting?

What better way to prepare for the heat we’re likely to encounter in France than riding up Page Mill Road when it’s 90-95 degrees? Making it especially tough is having Page Mill as the first hill of the day. That’s one mean way to start a ride. Page Mill is one of those hills it’s really tough to get a rhythm on; that bottom section starting just past the golf course/country club turnoff is just plain ugly, and it’s not until you get past Foothill Park that you can really get a handle on it. And that handle is pretty darned slippery, especially between park gates 3 & 4, where it’s gut-wrenchingly steep and you’re thinking why didn’t you go up Old LaHonda instead, an easier grade with lots of shade?

Adding insult to injury is Strava claiming I got a personal best on the climb, at 47 minutes. Umm… no. It wasn’t that long ago I did it in 44, and my son probably could have closed in on that time today too, except that he was being relatively-civil and stayed with me all the way up. OK, it seemed like it wasn’t that long ago, but since I loaded the last three years worth of data from my Garmin into Strava, maybe it was longer ago than I thought!

A beautiful day on West Alpine

We wasted no time heading down West Alpine for another date with Haskins Grade, a climb that Kevin claims to hate but is getting much better at, getting his own personal best today at 9:52 despite not climbing it for time. At least not until the last half mile or so when he noticed his time was pretty good and rode the rest hard. Funny how that works.

I’d like to say it was a fun run out to Pescadero, but not really; the stiff headwind and heat made it pretty tough. The upside? It’s rare that a cold Coke tastes as good as it did today!

Heading north on Stage we once again faced a headwind, yet did pretty good times up the two hills, primarily because motivation was provided by rabbits (cyclists ahead of us). Speaking of rabbits, I should have mentioned we had earlier seen a rabbit the size of a small deer as we rode Arastradero between Alpine and Page Mill. It was seriously huge!

The lower and middle sections of Page Mill proved to be Kevin’s undoing; we’d normally climb Tunitas in 45 minutes or so, but he was barely able to turn the pedals for a while. He can out-climb me dramatically on the first couple big hills of the day, but eventually he wears out and I keep on going. He did a miraculous recovery when the steep stuff ended though, charging the rest of the way at a pretty respectable pace.

In the end a tough ride with the unexpectedly-high temps causing a pretty significant weight loss (6.5 pounds for me) due to not drinking enough, even though I tried. Maybe I did drink enough and I burned 6.5 pounds of fat? Don’t I wish!

The Perfect 60-mile Ride

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The weather turned on us this week, first getting wet, then getting cold & wet. On a bike, wet isn’t so bad, and cold isn’t so bad, but the two together? Bad. Anyone getting out on Saturday got it bad, but most cancelled their rides and seemed to head for shelter at our Redwood City store. Hey, when it’s dark & cold & wet outside, we’re expecting it to be quiet, so having good company (since our customers are cyclists, that goes without saying!) and a few dollars in the register was very welcome.

Click for full-size image and route description

Even more welcome was having a nice day to ride today (Sunday). The weather forecast held up; sometime around 11pm Saturday night it started to clear up a bit, and by the time I got out at 10:30 Sunday morning, it was pretty nice. Not warm nice, not not too cold, and nice skies with a few clouds for contrast.

The view on Stage Road, looking back towards San Gregorio

The view on Stage Road, looking back towards San Gregorio

There were three of us enjoying the day; myself, plus Andrew & Brian from the shop. I did try to convince Burt to ride, but I don’t think he really believed the day would turn out so nice. We did a variant of the reverse Pescadero loop (detailed Google map), starting in Woodside, heading up Old LaHonda and down the other side to San Gregorio, south on Stage Road to Pescadero, then over Haskins Grade (the “hard” way) and back up to Skyline via West Alpine to add a bit more “kick.” You can see the details on the map; this is a ride that’s nice in just about anything but rain (although I’m dumb enough that wouldn’t likely stop me).

Heading north on Stage Road into Pescadero

Heading south on Stage Road into Pescadero

I’ve always tried to see something new on each ride, even on roads I’ve ridden literally hundreds of times before. Today? Easy. Heading out towards San Gregorio there’s a barn on the right hand side, one that you can often see cows hanging out underneath on a hot summer day. Today, out in front, not too far from the road, was a Coyote munching on an animal carcass. I rode past before realizing exactly what it was; it looked, for all the world, just like a large piece of meat that would be hung from a hook at a butcher, all the ribs showing white against the red flesh. As I stopped and started back (had to get a picture, y’know?) the Coyote quickly headed off, very wary of our intentions. Strange thing, that. My recent dealings with Coyotes on rides has been that they just haven’t seemed to care about me as I rode closely past. A couple of years ago, there was one on Mount Hamilton that was heading up the hill alongside the road at pretty much the same speed I was, which was almost creepy.

It did start getting a bit cold as we neared Skyline

Looks cold & was cold as we neared Skyline

Brian was surprised we weren’t stopping at the San Gregorio store, but I generally don’t stop there when doing the counter-clockwise loop, because the much-better Pescadero Bakery isn’t too far off and they actually like cyclists in Pescadero, while at San Gregorio, they’re concerned we’ll be displacing customers drinking their 10am Bloody Marys. Seriously.

Check your tires before riding! You don't want to see this with 30 miles to go.

Check your tires before riding! You don't want to see this with 30 miles to go.

It was in Pescadero that I noticed my rear tire getting a bit soft, and then saw a pretty good amount of exposed casing. Not much life left in that tire; please check your tires carefully before each ride and make sure they’ve got some life left! Thankfully, it held up the rest of the way.

The temperature was pretty nice until we got to the back side of Haskins Grade, but since we quickly started the stiff climb up West Alpine, it wasn’t an issue until we got to Skyline. Not much snow, just a little bit left here & there alongside the road, probably having been washed away by the pretty heavy rains Saturday.

Why I like my job

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Faithful readers will recall that, in last Tuesday’s entry, when our morning ride was enjoying yet another incredible day to ride and regretting that they had to get to work, I mentioned my job involves getting others to enjoy the same sort of thing we were. And today, at the top of Old LaHonda, I came across someone we had sold a new bike to just a couple days ago, on his very first ride up to Skyline. How cool is that?

Obviously lots of people out riding today, most of them a bit earlier than I got out, trying to get back before the Superbowl. I would have been in that earlier crowd, except that Kevin (my son, not the pilot) got out of bed limping pretty badly and had to make a trip to Kaiser (something he’s rather used to by now). Turns out he’d messed up a tendon at LaCrosse practice on Friday, so no riding or LaCrosse for a week. So instead of getting out at 9:30, it was shortly after 12 that I got going, something you wouldn’t do in the summer because you’d be facing the climbs in the heat of the day. Well guess what? February 6, 2011, which is technically the middle of winter, and it was in the mid-70s and I’m even feeling like I got too much sun.

My original plan, or the slightly-modified version without Kevin, was to do a speed run, no stopping for rest anywhere, just get out, do the Old LaHonda/Pescadero/Tunitas loop and return. It didn’t quite work out that way though, as my legs and mind just didn’t initially seem wired for speed. I took a bit of time at the top of Old LaHonda, where I came across Hugh (the guy who’d just picked up a bike from us) and a number of others enjoying their bikes. Then down to LaHonda, loop through the back roads to Pescadero Road, up Haskins Grade and wondering when I was really going to get in the groove on this ride. I stopped in at the Pescadero Bakery for an Ollallieberry Scone and then headed across Stage Road. Curiously, I came across quite a few cyclists I know, all heading in the opposite direction (doing the loop counter-clockwise). Did they know something I didn’t? Struggling north against strong winds on Stage Road, the answer was yes! But headwinds have been less of an issue for me these past few years, whether because I have more patience now or see it as a challenge, not sure. Just know that I don’t mind putting my head down and driving into them, at least for a little bit.

It was on Tunitas that I started feeling really good. It took 3/4s of the ride to get that feeling, but there’s no better way to finish a ride than feeling good on a climb. Nothing earth-shattering; from the coast to the top took 51 minutes, 17 seconds (not that I keep track of such things!), but the warmer weather opened up my lungs and I could breathe! For once I wasn’t limited by my usual winter lungs so I was able to breathe easily and slowly, limited instead by whatever my legs could deliver. Of course, I’ll claim that I could have made it up significantly faster if I hadn’t been fighting the strong offshore flow at the bottom, and perhaps that’s even true. Whatever, it felt like I was putting in a good effort, and my bike was doing a fantastic job converting that effort into speed up the hill.

And Burt, yes, you should have ridden with me today. You would have liked it. –Mike–