Once every few months Kevin has what you might call a “kidney event.” He starts feeling pain on his right side during the day, which goes on for a few days at moderate intensity, until one evening it decides it wants to kill him. Not quite literally, but what he goes through often puts him in the ER for 4-6 hours, pumped full of very serious pain meds until it’s under control, usually getting to go home around 1:30am. It’s not fun. Last night was one of those nights, only he wasn’t taken to the ER, he had to deal with it at home. This was partly one of those mean-Dad things, because Dad has noticed this pattern that, whether he goes to the ER or deal with it at home, the episode mostly ends about the same time, 1:30am, and he can finally go to sleep.

Truthfully, I was surprised that Kevin was in any shape to ride this morning. It did take a bit to get going, and he did have a moderate amount of background pain, with the occasional spike to something nasty. We started out thinking of doing a mostly-flat loop down to our Los Altos store & back, but as we passed Old LaHonda, forcing our bikes to not take the right turn up the hill (they’re kinda programmed to do so), Kevin suggested riding up Page Mill as far as Moody, and then heading back down to Los Altos. I said yeah, we could do that, but if we survive OK that far, why not just keep going?

So that’s what we did, we kept going up Page Mill. Certainly not at a very fast pace; Kevin’s pain increases when he stands. But he made it to Skyline, and once there, continued down the other side to LaHonda, then back up 84 & West Old LaHonda before descending back down into Woodside and home.

Not a big ride; just under 50 miles, less than 4800ft of climbing. Nothing like last week’s ride to Santa Cruz! But if you measure success not by what you actually accomplished but rather by minimizing the difference between the best you could have done and what you actually did, then this was a very successful ride.