It’s becoming increasingly clear that colder temps aren’t my friend. My Kings times get slower and slower as it gets colder and colder. Some mornings I don’t even look forward to it, although, by the time I get to the top, I’m always, 100% of the time, feeling better and glad I did it.

But Sunday comes, none too soon, and things are very different. Leaving after 9am it’s quite a bit warmer than 7:30am. Of course, it’s not going to be too long before high temps of the day are in the 50s. But for now, I really enjoy the later start and warmer temps of my Sunday rides.

Kevin was feeling a lot better today than last week; we made it to Peets in Los Altos (the Peets at our old location’s shopping center) much faster today. Good thing he felt better because instead of turning back at that point, we turned up. Up Redwood Gulch, which, surprisingly, Kevin and I hadn’t gone since last April! I found myself running out of gears again but unlike some past rides up RWG, I was able to maintain a bit of power and finished faster than the previous 4 or 5 rides up.

The continuing ride up 9 to Skyline always seems a lot longer than it really is, and it was the only part of the ride, really any ride for a long time, where I felt some muscles protesting in my left leg. Fortunately, it went away before the top.

The rest of the ride is pretty easy, rolling stuff on skyline before heading back down 84 and home. It felt good.

Don’t know how many times I’ve been down the road shown above, but it’s a lot. Started back in the early 70s, and the road was memorable because someone had painted gigantic footprints on alternating sides. If I recall correctly, they weren’t there at the beginning (of my riding that road),but appeared shortly after.

They remained in place for years. Must have been a very well-built road, to not need resurfacing (which would have eliminated the painted feet) for so long. They were there long enough to register with me in a very permanent way, so permanent that 50 years after I first came across them, I still look for them, I still imagine that I’m seeing some remnant of the huge white painted feet.

I’ve searched the ‘net for pictures of those feet, or a story referencing them, but nothing. It was 50 years ago. It probably did appear as a story in the Palo Alto Times (back when newspapers were a big thing), but it doesn’t appear easy to access archived records on-line.

It’s funny, the nature of things you never forget, and imagine them today just as they were then. And interesting that something of such apparent important to me, didn’t leave much of a mark on anybody else, at least not enough to reference it on-line.

Today’s ride… not much. Kevin was having issues that you’d associate with a bad cold so anything long and challenging was out of the question. It was surprising even to get him on the bike in the first place! Wouldn’t have been a good thing having to descend any big hills anyway, as my rear wheel needs some work and doesn’t coast well right now. So an easy and very very slow ride to Los Altos, stopping at Peet’s for the usual before heading back.

And funny thing about the way back. In a pretty short period of time, shortly after leaving Peet’s, the ride went from “ugh” (and an implied, “Why am I riding at all if I feel this bad?”) to really feeling good about being out on a bike. For Kevin, it is frustrating how often this happens. And he hates it.