lol got word from Bill - I missheard, Santa Cruz was his original plan but he was bailing out onto 84 to get back over Skyline and to the bay, which is also what I would have done if I was in that position.
unfortunately he ended up going through two more tubes in the next ~10 miles and blew through a patched tube as well, and had to give up for the day in La Honda and call for a bailout. The tire was just too badly torn for him to get a boot to hold. But he did make it home safely.
Not a huge fan of descending West Alpine, but that’s for sure my favorite climb in the peninsula. OLH, west 84, up West Alpine, Skyline, down 84 into Woodside was a normal loop for me. I almost miss it.
280/500 on the Rapha marketing exercise. Feeling good.
(Almost back down to climbing weight and feeling great)
WHERE are your gloves there’s snow on the ground?!?
I don’t have anything against descending WAlpine, but I usually end up climbing it because descending Page Mill is probably my favorite thing to do on a bicycle. But I did the reverse of that this time, because I dislike descending Tunitas waaaay more.
I had some friends who were renting a house right near Alice’s, and spent a lot of 2020 and 2021 descending 84 towards the coast and climbing back up Tunitas or WAlpine.
^ Yeah, descending Tunitas is the worst. Great way to get into a head on collision with a car. Unless they put in a center line since I last rode it.
Way too warm of gloves and my hands were sweating. Ended up switch back and forth between gloves and no gloves.
nope, it’s just as narrow and un-centerline’d as always.
I’ve actually almost head-on’d a cyclist while descending Tunitas - in the middle of the steepest parts, fuckin’ idiot drifted way to the inside of a (for him) left-hand hairpin. So as I’m coming around this (to me) completely blind right-hand hairpin and studiously keeping to my side of the road on the inside of the turn, I actually passed him to the outside and knocked him into the ditch on the inside.
Sometimes you must become tarckbear in your heart, and knock the trash about.
A friend of mine took me on a similar route a bunch of years back and we stopped at the bike hut, it was great!
Dropped the trolls off at their grandparents and went for a ride. Might have been trespassing on a military base. Not sure.
8 of these damn crossings down stream from this dam. 6 were rideable. 1 I could carefully tip toe around. 1 called for shoe removal and wading.
Not bad for being well within the new boundaries of DC/NOVA hellscape.
Had a disasterous first ride with my buddy on his barn-find Open. I am the guy that always has all the tools, except this time I completely forgot my pump and tubes. Neil is the guy that always takes the bare minimum, especially if he knows I am on the ride. Anyway. We drove for an hour to even get to the gravgrav zone and part way thru did a wrong turn. On the back track I bottomed out in a hollow and pinch flatted on my stupid extralite Bonjovi. Neil muffed the first co2 and the second only appeared to half fill my undersized tube. With only about 100 m of gravel left I flatted again as I probably only had about 18 psi in it. Bugger. Called the waaahmbulance and waited for the ladies to rescue us. I could see the rest of ride would have been amazing from the back seat if the car. So disappointed.
fuckin neil again
One last sloppy 30 miles on wet gravel and mud. Rain stopped in Astoria and we thought we were being smart by riding South but got dumped on for half the ride. So long, 2022!
Rolled over 100,000 km of riding on Strava today. Thought it was a neat milestone for the last day of the year.
A million meters!
52 mile ride the other day, getting my endurance back and I think I finally dialed in my fit. Bryton 420 worked well
I held the Strada KOM for this descent for a couple years. It’s a lot of fun. Descent KOMs are dumb, though and those folks that took it must’ve had a death wish, I know I did when I took it that fast.
New year birb party.
I have a strata KOM in DC that got flagged as dangerous because it was hella dangerous. Big ass hill through an intersection at the bottom. Basically had to hope you didn’t die blasting the red light or get extremely lucky.
I’m surprised King’s Mountain Road hasn’t been flagged. It’s among one of the most popular segments in the Bay Area. I think tour of California has gone up it. I think the climb probably has a few pros on the leaderboard. When I did the descent, I got a rolling start down hill off a road that intersects it (Skyline) railed the turn using all the lanes of travel in both directions, hit the first steep part and quickly got above 60mph which is approximately 30mph over the speed limit. In every hairpin, I used the whole road and sprinted as hard as I could out of each.
Basically, I broke a lot of laws and was prepared to endure a terrible injury. I’d ridden it already a ton of times, practiced each segment to establish the best line, scoped out bailout points in the event of oncoming traffic, and so on. It was a really dedicated, and stupid, risk-seeking effort. I’m aghast that anybody would try to replicate it.
