Father's Day Ride

For Father's Day M-lady watched Bud while I went out for a longish bike ride. It was a great ride, and ended up totaling about 68 miles. Sadly, my legs decided they were done after about 60.

I was riding with three other guys: DH, a good friend and colleague of M-lady's, and a couple of guys I hadn't met before, CE and DW. DH has a couple of young kids, and gets to train about about much as I do... not much. CE and DW are primarily triathletes. CE is more of a runner than a cyclist, and turns in 2:40 marathons. DW finishes Ironmans. These guys could ride forever.

As it turned out, though, they couldn't really lay down a lot of power. We all warmed up together on Foothill at a very mellow pace, and I had shaken off most of the rust by the time we reached the base of Old La Honda after about 14 miles of riding with some rolling hills. The weather was gorgeous, sunny skies in the low 70s east of Skyline, mid to high 60s on the west.

I started up OLH at what I felt was a pretty reasonable pace, and dropped the other three guys pretty quickly. So I dialed back, took it easy on the climb, and rode up with DW. We finished a few seconds under 24 minutes, which was a respectable time. DH was about 30 seconds back, and CE was about a minute behind him. We all headed up to Alice's at the corner of 84 and Skyline to fill up our water bottles.

We proceeded down 84, with DW taking the lead. I rode down ahead of him for a while, until we hit the little town of La Honda.

One of the things I love about cycling is the scenery. It changes faster than when you're running, but doesn't zip by as it dows if you're in a car. In La Honda I passed a sight which really turned my head. It was a wooden tavern or inn, with a hitching post outside, with about a dozen horses hitched to the post. With saddles. It looked straight out of the 1890's. A little net research showed that the place was Apple Jack's... I'll have to go back sometime. On a horse, apparently.

After trying to clear my eyes, I eased up and waited for DH and CE to catch up with me. We sat in a pace line as we hit the rollers and the headwind running out towards the coast. The three of us pulled up to the San Gregario general store within about 10 seconds of DW, not quite managing to reel him in.

From there, we headed up stage road, a mellow climb towards Highway 1, where we descended to the turnoff to Tunitas Creek. Tunitas Creek is a bigger, longer climb than OLH, with a gentle beginning and ending third, and a fairly steep middle third.

DH was pretty tired before we even started, but my legs were still feeling OK. When the road kicked up into the steeper section, I went ahead and started putting some effort down, keeping my heartrate right around a maintainable 170. I eased up a little when the road flattened out a little bit, but felt like I made good time up the hill.

DW arrived at the top about 3 minutes after I did, and CE was another 2 after that. DW had proceeded on down King's Mountain Road, and after a few minutes of waiting CE and I headed back down Tunitas to find DW. His legs had exploded at the bottom of Tunitas, so CE and I escorted him the last couple miles up to the top.

DH, CE, and I descended King's Mountain Rd at a safe pace, taking it easy and careful of the traffic. We picked up DW at the bottom of the descent, and headed out to the Woodside general store, where we topped off our water bottles for the last part of the ride.

Over Whiskey Hill, up and down Sand Hill, and onto Junipero Serra. That's about where my legs quit. DH and I sat in behind DW and CE, who pulled us all the way home about 7 more miles down Foothill. My legs were just leaden weights... I haven't been that blown for a long time. I guess that's what I get going for a 4.5 hour ride when I've been training about 2 hours at a time.

Here's my GPS data from the ride. Nothing terribly astonishing, but it's always fun to look at the hills.