Motorcycles, Mostly

As the group was gathering for today's ride, one rider proclaimed “You helped me become a better cyclist!” He explained that he used to bonk all the time, and then fished a sandwich bag from his pocket filled with my “cure:” Salted, peanut butter pretzel nuggets. I smiled and held up my cache of the same. Another was grateful for comments I'd shared long ago about recovering from a PCL injury.

Unexpectedly, those two guests on today's ride knew me from a road bike mailing list at work. [Small world!] It was pure luck that we met today for the first time. Especially since one of them is now based in Australia.

Unfamiliar with this route, I told them what to expect. Motorcycles, mostly. Sports cars. “Pickup trucks,” our ride leader added.

And views that the vast majority of Bay Area residents will never see.

They were somewhat uncertain about going the distance to The Junction, concerned about climbing back out. But the thing is, once you make that turn onto Mines Road, there is essentially nothing until then. (Except those views that the vast majority of Bay Area residents will never see.)

One guy was getting over a cold, the other had just flown in yesterday—and then broke a spoke after the first few miles. The wheel was still true enough; another rider helped him weave the broken spoke through others to tuck it out of the way. They kept going and were glad they did. “It's just like you said it would be!” one exclaimed.

I was surprised that wildflowers were still blooming, and flowering shrubs on the hillsides shimmered in the light.

There are creeks running alongside the road, but there was another area that caught my eye. There was something different about that standing water. Was I looking at sag ponds? (Indeed, I think they were. Mines Road basically aligns with the Greenville Fault.)

We passed a few Aermotors along the way; this one begged for a glamour shot.

The temperature will be unbearable here tomorrow, but today it was just right. A bit windy, but that helped keep us cool as we climbed 3,705 feet over 62 miles. Of the times I've biked this road, today was the prettiest.

Wazombies

A warm summer weekend in the Bay Area sends thousands of people in their cars over the Santa Cruz Mountains, to the beach.

I made the same trip ... on my bicycle.

Sirens wailed as we climbed Old Santa Cruz Highway, heralding the latest crash on nearby Highway 17. Sure enough, bursts of cars soon appeared on the old road to the coast as Waze helpfully re-routed drivers around the backup. One of them nearly mowed me down.

I'm a skeptic when it comes to self-driving cars, but one of those would have yielded to me today. Instead, a zombie driver, unfamiliar with the area and fixated on his or her navigation screen, pulled alongside me as I approached Mountain Charlie Road and then veered directly across my path to make the turn.

I was semi-expecting this move after watching a few other vehicles make that same turn. No one familiar with these roads would take that steep, twisty, one-lane shortcut; they would stay on the main road and turn right at the summit. But Waze will recommend the shortest (fastest) path, thus sending a stream of zombies up Mountain Charlie.

When we reached the summit, we could see that the marine layer was thick; the descent was cold, and moist. On a sunny day I wonder where all those thousands of people go, when they get to the coast. On a day like today, I wonder even more. What do they all do?

There were only four of us planning to do the full route today; I contemplated re-routing straight to Corralitos, as I was pretty chilled and saw little point in biking all the way to the beach. But we were looking after one another, so I carried on.

We would not see blue skies again until we were partway up the return climb on Eureka Canyon Road.

It's been a while, so I had forgotten how long that climb is. Most of it seemed to be in better shape than I expected, but Highland Way certainly took another beating over the winter. I had shortened the route by starting on the south side of Lexington Reservoir, as 62 miles and 4,655 feet of climbing seemed like enough for me.

And, it was.