Monthly Archives: November 2011

Will it be a kinder, gentler winter? For the sake of west-side Old LaHonda, let’s hope so!

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Definitely a bit of a chill in the air this morning; amazing to think that “winter” is still a full month away! Mostly-dry roads which, sadly, are not in the forecast for Thursday’s annual Turkey-Trot event (8am, 15 minutes later than our usual ride, and scheduled to return by about 1pm assuming weather allows us to do the full Pescadero/Tunitas ride).

Eric, George, Todd, new guy from Colorado whose name I forgot already (hate that!), both Kevins and Jim. Seems like I’m leaving somebody out. Right. Chris! Chris, who’s coming back up to speed very quickly after a voluntary (he claims) sabbatical from cycling so he could spend more time with his family after his intensive training for the Mt. Everest Challenge a couple months ago.

It was a pretty hard start up the first part of the hill, with the time to Huddart Park sitting right at 8 minutes (7:45 would be a very fast time for the summer), at which point I told Kevin (my son, not the pilot) that it was time to “shut down” for a while to avoid a seizure. Which he dutifully did… for a minute or two. Then Jim took off, with Kevin hot on his wheel. For about a minute. And then, predictably, Kevin had a seizure, thankfully one of the seizures where he has enough warning to get safely off the bike and on the ground. Two minutes later and he’s back up, no lingering effects, full-speed ahead.

West-side Old LaHonda, on the other hand, may not do so well this year. Check out the photo; if we have a winter & spring like last year, we may not have a road to ride anymore! The county has already cut into the hillside a bit to make enough room for cars to get through, but it’s entirely possible that entire hill could start sliding down across the road in a heavy rain, and it’s doubtful the funds exist to do a permanent repair. Cross your fingers for mild winters until the county has enough money to deal with its road issues!

Why we need a 3-foot passing law

Advocacy & Local Issues, Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

Why we need a 3-foot passing law
I do what I can to avoid issues with cars, and for the most part, have very few. But today, heading back up west-side 84 from Old LaHonda, my son and I had someone fly by much too close for comfort. Currently, there is nothing on the books saying how much clearance a car should be giving a cyclist, but pretty sure most reasonable people would think it should be more than what’s shown in the photo, particularly when the car is going well over the speed limit.

Aside from that a pretty nice ride; first chance to get out the rain bikes (as if it’s something I’d look forward to?) and get things checked out before a “serious” ride (such as next Thursday morning’s Thanksgiving Day ride, otherwise known as the annual Turkey Trot, which presently shows rain in the forecast). It was supposed to be a longer ride than it was, the plan being to head down to the Los Altos store via the foothills before turning back. I really didn’t want to do a Skyline ride in the wet until I knew the bikes were up to it. That was until Kevin lets m know, about 15 minutes into the ride, that he’s got to be back for a 4:30 gig with his friends (Lazer Tag). And it’s 2pm. Yikes. So we ended up doing Old LaHonda instead (maximum effort minimum time), down the back side and back over 84 into Woodside.

Amazingly, despite the face that we had waited until it had stopped raining, we saw just 6 other cyclists on the road. Where was everybody? Perhaps watching the cyclocross racing in the City?