There was more to the ride than the headline says; for example, Nigel had called the shop yesterday to ask if I could arrive 5 minutes early to help him install some new cleat. No problem! And heading up through Huddart Park I had a very minor tachycardia thing going on. The flat tire was Nigel’s on West Old LaHonda, the broken spoke Karen’s near Skeggs, the slide on wet pavement was mine. All that and yet this was just such a perfect winter morning, about 50 degrees up on Skyline, no fog.

Kevin, Kevin, JR, Eric, Nigel. Still no sign of Karl, who’s still nursing a knee injury. I asked Karen about it; she said the knee’s not an issue, because he’s not riding. Doesn’t sound like much of a solution to me. Last time he didn’t show for a while it was due to an infatuation with chess.

I felt pretty good, outside of a brief period, just over a minute, where my heart rate jumped up about 25-30 beats. One of those things you weren’t sure about until checking out the heart monitor reading on the Garmin, and seeing yes, that sorta butterfly feeling was a slightly-elevated pulse rate. No problem, took it easy for a bit and all was good. Even found that I’d dropped Kevin and had to circle back near the top to make sure he was OK.

It was on Skyline near Skeggs that we heard a very loud bang, which turned out to be Karen’s spoke. We spent about 10 minutes trying to get the front wheel straight enough she could head back down the hill and, about 15 minutes later, Nigel flatted at the base of West Old LaHonda. Kevin (the pilot) stayed back with him while the three of us who remained, myself, Kevin (my son) and Eric, rode on ahead… something to do with getting to work on time. It was on the descent into Woodside that I felt my bike slide across the road a bit, causing me to stop and make sure I didn’t have a flat tire. I didn’t; probably just a bit of diesel that a car had spilled on the way up. Hate that.

A lot of odd things happening and yet it seemed like a great day to be out there and a very enjoyable ride overall. Life really does go by at just the right speed on a bike.