Strava’s “suffer score” isn’t quite right

The large slide on Skyline, just north of Sky Londa. One of many that may remain active for a while.

182. That was my suffer score today. It felt a lot harder than last week’s just-slightly-longer ride that scored a 207. The flaw in the rating? It’s about your ability to actually produce watts. You can run out of gas and suffer like a dog, but your score will be relatively low because suffering is more related to maximizing your potential, not how badly you feel.

I knew this was going to be a tough ride, first because I was riding solo (Kevin wasn’t feeling well, and second because I got out so late (leaving just before noon) that there weren’t going to be as many people on the roads near the coast, which means fewer rabbits to chase. Somehow you manage to up your game when there are lots of rabbits ahead of you.

The normal ride didn’t seem quite right, since it wasn’t a normal day, but I didn’t have the willpower to bypass the Pescadero Bakery. So the usual up Old LaHonda (slow start but picked up speed further up the hill), Haskins (the one place I did have a rabbit, but not one that I could catch), coke and a chocolate croissant in Pescadero, then north into a moderate headwind on Stage but… I decided I wanted to do a slightly longer ride, and yet not do Tunitas.  So at San Gregorio, I turned onto 84 and headed towards Skyline, and once there, instead of descending 84 into Woodside, I headed north on Skyline and descended Kings.

First half of the climb up to Skyline was OK; second half I was beginning to lose power and questioning my decision to make the ride “ugly” by heading north on Skyline. But riding slowly gave me an excuse to stop and take photos of some of the roadside carnage from last-month’s heavy rains, so it wasn’t all bad.






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