I went to bed Monday night with no small amount of fear & trepidation, wondering how I’d feel after the tough ride out to Boulder Creek. Surprisingly, while my legs didn’t feel “fresh” they did feel like they wanted to go places! And go they did, heading up Kings with the fast crowd, eventually getting to the front and making it to the park entrance before anyone else. Of course, neither Chris nor Marcus was there, but still, anytime I can get to the park entrance around 7 minutes 30 seconds I’m moving pretty good.

Unfortunately, Kevin wasn’t. I looked around, saw some familiar faces, but no sign of Kevin. I waved the rest of the guys on ahead and about a minute or so later, Kevin appeared, not looking like he was really enjoying life. We rode up about a mile or so, not terribly fast, and down he goes, one of those seizures that hits him without much notice. Worse, he went down on the right (the derailleur) side of the bike! Fortunately no damage, but he rode the rest of the way up the hill a bit groggy and suffered from the double vision that his meds sometimes induce.

By the time we got to the top of Kings the rest of the guys were long gone (we’d be warned ahead of time by fast-guy Jon, who was riding back down the hill) so we decided to follow the usual route to Sky Londa and then trace the west-side Old LaHonda loop backwards to run into the group again. Kevin hadn’t yet come out of the fog, so we once again waved the group on and tried something that seems to help him- a good dose of Caffeine, this time in the form of a bottled Starbucks Frappaccino drink from the market. Amazingly, this seemed to do the trick! Caffeine may be the key to clearing his head, with today’s effect mirroring that of Monday’s stop at the Starbucks in Los Altos. We’ll shortly be stocking the ‘fridge at home with bottled Starbucks Frappaccinos, one to be had before each ride. Hoping it works! –Mike–