Lost in Lakeview

Well, it was certainly a nice day today, a very nice day to be out riding, but if I had planned our route, it's possible that I might not have planned a route than involved circling endlessly past Lakeview, in Emerald Hills.

My plan for the morning involved simply heading up from Woodside to perhaps Hillsborough or San Mateo, with judicious helpings of whatever hillage might seem interesting to attack. And yes, I know that 'hillage' is not a word. The very first digression I took off Canada Road was our undoing. We turned on Godetia, just before Jefferson, and climbed up that. After that, instead of turning back down Jefferson, it seemed like it would be interesting to go the other way for a bit.

This 'bit', of course, involved more and more climbing, but that was OK, because the weather was fine and nice views were everywhere. It's not exactly clear to me where things began to get weird, but it might well be somewhere around where we decided to turn left on West Summit Drive. This took us in a loop back to where we'd been a few minutes before, near what sounded like a quite annoyed dog. As we circled round to where we'd made our left, we passed some people playing outside with a dog, who looked a bit puzzled to see us go by for the second time in a few minutes. Little did we know that we had entered a gravitational vortex.

For despite our determination to now leave this area and cross Edgewood, we were tempted by the demon curiousity and turned left (at the very last point that we could have, it turns out) on Sylvan.
After a stretch of non-city maintained road and some steep climbing, we somehow ended up..at the corner with the barking dog once again. Rather than face the certain derision of the playing-with-dog people, we turned around and went down the unknown (to us) descent of Woodland Place, ending up going around Emerald Lake. Once again, foolish curiousity got the better of us and we soon turned off to climb up Summit. In short order we found ourselves in familiar territory again - too familiar. There was the intersection with West Summit again. Aargh.

We begged directions to Edgewood from a couple strolling by. The directions of course involved riding on some ground we'd already traversed (though how could we not, considering how we kept encountering the same roads) and this time avoiding the dread turnoff onto Sylvan. Finally we made it to Edgewood and out of the Lakeview Maze of Doom.

Other things of note were the climb up Melendy, which was at least as steep as I remembered it (and I remembered that it was steep) and even more false tops than I remembered. Nice views from there too, though.

Also I can report several sightings of pro teams getting ready for the Tour next week. The CSC team went by us heading towards Crystal Springs, with their team car close behind. We also saw some other smaller groups that must have been pros, especially the group with the carbon disk wheels (presumably time trial bikes).

Anyhow, it was just nice to be riding in warm weather. I'd forgotten how much fun that is. You just find yourself smiling for no real reason. A good thing.

Scooting up Redwood

Ack, again I have no pun in my title. I'm falling down on the job here!

Anyhow, today Alan and I went riding, the first time I've been over to his neck of the woods in a few months. 'Twas a beautiful day for it, finally didn't need a zillion layers of clothes.

Alan obviously felt that I needed to suffer, so he picked a route going up Redwood to Skyline. Thanks Alan! I think that peaked out at 15%, and I was really wishing I didn't have a jacket on while I did that. I'm also thinking I might not have been properly clipped in for part of the climb, but it becomes sort of a blur.

That was pretty certainly the toughest climb of the day, though looking at the graphs now seems to indicate that the last part of Pinehurst was a close second in grade. However, that part is much shorter than the Redwood climb was.

As usual, on the descents, Alan rocketed ahead of me. I really must find a way to get faster descending - well, while still staying upright.

Anyway, the weather was ideal, the views were plentiful, and all in all a fine day to be out.

After we got back, we hung out on Alan's deck, and Alan's son Aron successfully completed his fundraising shakedown of me and I bought some chocolate which doubtless Nick and Ethan will have no trouble dispatching. :)