Today's ride cut right to the chase (er, climb). The approach to our first hill was short and essentially flat; after that we were either going up, or down. We climbed everything we descended, kind of like the Death Ride (but a mere 5780 feet of climbing over 45 miles). Moody. Page Mill. West Alpine. Portola Park.I was climbing Moody when a descending rider shouted "Hi, Pat!" Someone recognized me? Turns out it was Ron, a fellow Low-Key Hillclimber (and video-creator extraordinaire). He swung around to join me for a brief chat and climb, in true Low-Key spirit.
I did a variation of this route two years ago in January, as I was toying with entering the lottery for the Death Ride that year. When I reached the upper section of Portola State Park Road, I was toast. It's the only way out. I had to finish climbing it, and then I had to finish climbing Alpine Road.
Death Ride? No way! What was I thinking?
As we started descending Portola Park today, another rider asked how long it was. "About three and a half miles down, and ten miles back up," I joked.
Oddly enough, my wildlife sightings for the day were all in residential Los Altos. A mass of feathers plummeted from the sky to the edge of Moody Road, not ten feet away: a red-shouldered hawk, just as startled to see me, took flight again without its prey. Next, a handsome coyote stepped off the road and watched me pass. Last, a woodpecker (probably Nuttall's) clambered up a tree between a playground and tennis courts in the park where we started (and finished) our ride.
I love the Bay Area.
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A couple of years ago, a red-shouldered hawk flew into a window at work. When the bird was still teetering on one foot in the courtyard after 5 hours and was obviously being watched by crows, I decided it needed to be rescued. I called a friend, who came over with safety goggles and a leather jacket on. He threw a blanket over the poor creature and put it in a cardboard box. We took the hawk to a rehab center in Newark, where staff diagnosed it with a severe concussion. Within a few days, the hawk was flapping around a flight cage, and in a couple of weeks, the Center released it in the East Bay Hills. The moral is, crashes happen, but we live to fly again!
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