Matt, John and I rode down on the Peninsula today. I picked Matt up at the ungodly hour of 5:45am and we drove down to Woodside. It was a cold morning, but the weather was supposed to be sunny and warming up. The weather guys were flat out wrong. This was the coldest I have ever been on a bike by far, and maybe even the coldest ever (coming from a guy who regularly sleeps in snowcaves on the sides of mountains at 13,000', that is saying something).
I knew we had made a mistake when we started the quick "warmup" from Woodside over to Page Mill/Arastradero. It was F'ing freezing! I foolishly wrote it off as being early. Surely it would warm up, right? I sure hoped so, since I had only half gloves, a windvest and no shoe covers.
We met John at Page Mill and started the climb. Normally I am baking on steep climbs, but today I was perfect. Hmmm... At the top, the wind hit and I started to chill. The descent off West Alpine, normally a fantastic ride, was nothing but grimness. Farther down I had to stop every half mile to warm up. I was nearly crying.
We aborted on our original plan to ride out to Pescadero and instead cut the loop over to 84, then up Tunitas. We stopped at the San Gregorio stove for about 30 minutes, just slugging hot coffee and basking in the warmth of the stove by the door. Lesson learned -- always dress warm.
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