Tuesday morning… it wouldn’t have been that tough to skip the ride. Rain. Not much, but rain nonetheless. Did I really want my first ride back up to Skyline to be in the rain? But it’s not like there’s a choice these days, rain being such a common thing lately. Kevin was surprisingly up for it though. First time up the hill so I was thinking what, 48 minutes? Could I even make it the whole way? Of course I did, and it was just under 42 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised. Kevin wanted to do the run across Skyline, but I wasn’t all that keen of descending 84 in the wet, with cars behind us wanting us to go faster. The last thing I want to do is crash and re-injure my pelvis, so we simply headed back down the way we came. Not much of a ride, but if you consider the percentage of climbing per mile, pretty good.
This morning, it finally looked like we could get in a dry ride. I woke up a bit earlier than normal (my wife decided to have some weird dream where she suddenly started yelling at someone at 6:33am), looked out the window and… no rain! Which meant I’d try riding the Trek Domane + e-bike that I’ve been wanting to demo on the regular ride for a while.
I could get used to an e-bike. I could probably get fat too! Kevin, Kevin & JR showed up for the ride, and yes, even in a very low power mode (Eco/Sport/Tour/Turbo and I rode up the hill in Sport) you could fly. By fly I mean a 12mph pace even though I’m out of shape. 12mph would easy, super easy. Can’t imagine how fast I could go if went up in “Turbo” mode. Actually, I can. Strava keeps separate KOM records for e-bikes, and some guy blitzed up Kings, via the park, in just under 10 minutes. Average speed over 17mph. I’m thinking… do I go for it? Do I pull out all the stop and see what this Domane e-bike can do?
From a more practical standpoint, the ride was 24 miles, 2,8154ft of climbing, and I had 47% of battery power remaining at the end. I’m pretty sure I could do a coast run via Old LaHonda, 84 to the coast, and return via Tunitas. For most of the ride Eco mode is more than adequate, giving you roughly 3mph more speed than normal. Only when you hit a climb over 3% or so do you need to kick it up to Sport.
Wished I hadn’t discovered Strava has a separate category for E-bikes!
Now that you are back at it, do you have report on status of West Old La Honda ? Can you get through on a bike uphill from 84 ?
West Old LaHonda remains closed, but is easily passable by bike. Two barriers that need to be crossed. There appears to be no further erosion since it began, which is kind of strange, given that we continued to have significant rain for some time after the initial collapse.