To paraphrase a line from a great movie (Field of Dreams)- Is this heaven? No, its West Old LaHonda.

It could hardly be said I’m back to the old grind when the old grind is as awesome as getting to ride the roads up to and around Skyline. Sure, I was having more issues breathing than expected (despite having gone to both the regular inhaler and the short-term as well), and the guys were getting away from me and I just couldn’t do much about it. But I’m on my bike, I’m going places at just the right speed to notice what’s going on around me, and there are so few cars on the roads that I ride, at least when I ride them, that you can almost believe they were made just for you.

New guy on the ride today, Mark, who lives in Palo Alto and normally frequents our Los Altos store. Good chance for me to keep an eye on things towards the back. I’m good at that. Whatever is going on at the front, on a day when Marcus shows up, I can only wonder about. And in fact, I do think about that, when I look at my computer and see that I’m 24 minutes into the climb and figure that Marcus has likely finished by now. Sometimes I think hey, I’m not so far from the top, that’s not so bad! In terms of distance, that’s true. In terms of time, that’s another story! Today, if I hadn’t held back, I would have been somewhere around 28 minutes. I can live with that, after two weeks pretty much off the bike.

And, to answer the question it seems EVERYONE is asking, we don’t have Garmin 520 computers in yet. Soon, very soon. Just not yet.