The Descender

“That lady is fast!”

“She's a descender,” our ride leader replied.

We had been ready to move on after the last rider had regrouped, and there had been some chatter about who should go first. [I took off.]

I was puttering about at home this morning when I realized that today's ride would start at 9:00 a.m, not the 9:30 a.m. I had in my head. I scrambled to get myself together and pushed a fast pace to the start. Not the easy warm-up I'd planned, given that I'm slowly recovering from last Saturday's blood donation (my 77th!).

I rolled up at 8:45 a.m. and ... no one else was there, yet.

We enjoyed our snacks under the redwoods at Uvas Canyon County Park after climbing up Croy Road. The road had been damaged one winter, and somehow I haven't visited in more than three years.

There was some chatter about who should go first. [I took off. Again.]

One must always take care on the bumpy and rutted section through Sveadal, but after that ... well, the bike is fast. A little faster than I'd like, I was thinking, as I rounded a curve. I reminded myself that it was fine. Just fine.

The rollers slowed me down, and another rider caught up. “You're fast, downhill!” [And slow, uphill.] “And you're good!” Yeah, that takes 'em by surprise, since I'm nearly always off the back otherwise.

Somehow, we had headwind in both directions, which isn't fair! After I got home, I realized I needed to run an errand, and the obvious solution was to get back on the bike. [Eh, it was a flat few more miles.] For the day, 58 miles with 2,090 feet of uphill (and downhill!).