Reaching the end of the world

The End of the World

It had to happen sometime. 30 years of the Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride, stopped by nothing, not rain, not snow, not even small landslides… we always got through. But not today. We, that would be a total of just four of us this morning (myself, Eric, George & Chris) knew it was coming, but we rode up Kings anyway. About half a mile or so, until reaching the end of the world. Well, OK, the end of solid pavement actually; you can see in the photo where the centerline abruptly ends, and for all intents and purposes, that’s where the road ended for us. The idea of 3+ miles or riding in gravel just didn’t appeal to us. Well, most of us anyway; Chris just kept on riding. We assume he made it, but as far as we were concerned, this was like a twilight zone episode where the world ended just up around the bend.

So the remaining three of us retraced our route back down, with George heading off to do intervals (ouch) while Eric and I headed off to Old LaHonda, down the other side (into the fog & cold; as you can see on my bike computers, it was 46 degrees over there!) to 84, then reverse course back up west-side Old LaHonda and down 84 into Woodside. I wasn’t very good company for Eric, who usually gets to ride with people who can actually carry on a conversation while climbing.

Why three computers? I’m into that whole digital-cockpit thing. Two are direct-wired to my brain, and one of them control my secret hidden motor (that one doesn’t seem to work). More seriously, the Garmin 705 in the middle does everything I need, but I sell a lot of the other two units (a Trek Alpine DW on the left, and a Bontrager Node 1 on the right) and it helps me to keep familiar with them so I can explain better how they work to customers.

Shadows and Fog on west-side Old LaHonda

It was quite pretty heading down west-side Old LaHonda into the fog though, as you can see in the photo. In the end it was about two miles shorter than normal; I’ll have to figure out a way to kick in a bit more miles & climbing for Thursday’s ride. Maybe we’ll head up & over Old LaHonda, back up to Skyline, and then do one of the dead-end roads we haven’t done for a while.






5 thoughts on “Reaching the end of the world

  1. Yeah, that works. So did you ride all the way up Kings? How was the gravel? Are you just that much tougher than the rest of us? (Obviously!) What do you think of the new format for the almost-daily diary? Ironically, I’m doing multiple-updates/day now. Maybe I’ll have to change the name.

  2. Hello Mike,
    After picking up my bike from you today, I rode up King’s Mt. @ 3:30 PM. The cassette upgrade of 11-28, worked great through the gravel. The bottom third of the climb was ok, but after that it got sloppy. Then the gravel started to stick to my tires, as it was layered over a oil sealer. I think I would wait at least a week to ride now.

    1. Fred: You’re a braver man than I! We had a customer a few years ago who rode up Highway 9 then north on Skyline, and up on Skyline they were doing some extensive paving work. Rather than turn back, he kept on riding through the gooey mess, with tar & gravel sticking to his tires, building up so much that soon the crud was literally scraping against the frame. He brought the bike in a day later, and we found he’d literally worn a hole through the brake bridge. One very expensive ride!

  3. the roads on/at/guiding to the end of the world are very narrow! yours up there is far to wide. the end of the world is inner freedom and peace, you dont need any garmin machine to satisfy you ego.

    😉

    try harder.

    best Stefan

Leave a Reply to Mike Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *