Woo new route!
Just got home, drinking that wine I had to put away last night, waiting for my roomie to finish cooking a yummy Thai dinner...
After doing HMBway recently, I've been itching to do some more climbing (Tunitas was awesome), and wanted to incorporate something along those lines in Skyline since HMBway unfortunately is slightly incompatible with work. Solution: more Skyline!
It was a beautiful morning, with the sun out even in Daly City, which definitely made route extensions a compelling option, although I didn't say anything about my plan as I hadn't quite committed to it myself (yeah yeah, I'm lame and non-committal). Despite the sun, SCT was freezing cold (wtf?!) and I think I saw a couple of Michael's fingers lying on the side of the trail, having fallen off due to lack of adequate gloves. But after all, the sun _was_ out and it was beautiful, and Trinh gave me a cue and said it would be nice to go all the way to Santa Cruz on a day like this (I swear I didn't set it up!). I unfolded my devious plan to lure Ed and Michael up the mountain with me. These brave gentlemen did not hesitate for long and we headed off.
In anticipation of the upcoming climb, I even forgot to exclaim my usual "I hate hills!" as we pedaled up towards 92 on Skyline. And here we parted ways with the Skyline route as we know it, turned right on 92, did not get killed by trucks, and arrived at - Skyline! (Wtf is up with that road? It just keeps disappearing and reappearing in different places.) Again, we did not get killed by trucks as we did a left turn onto Skyline (this was quite an accomplishment).
Going up was beaaaautiful! The road goes along a ridge with views both of the valley and the ocean. Well, it would have had views of the ocean if the ocean hadn't been all fogged up. We climbed and looked and climbed and looked and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed. Pesky rolling hills of Cañada begone! Well... at the top there were actually a few rolling hills, meh. But they were at least steep enough to properly identify themselves as hills, as opposed to Cañada where you just suddenly find yourself inexplicably weak until you realize that the road is, in fact, not as flat as it looks.
At the top, Michael called me an evil woman while Ed stopped to fiddle a bit with his wonky breaks, thinking they may be of use during the descent on King's Mountain Road. I'll blame him dropping me on the descent on my functioning brakes. Ed had a scary near-car experience on the way down but we still all enjoyed the twisty road. It's kind of like a roller coaster, except way more fun and less safe! Whee! Helpful tip: do slow down when the street signs claim you should. This is not SCT. Once down and having reached Woodside, Michael said I wasn't an evil woman anymore.
After a somewhat eventless ride back on Sandhill Rd/Junipero Serra we reached Google way past breakfast time.
Strengths:
- 2000 ft more or so of climbing!
- Avoids pesky rolling hills on Cañada
- PRETTY! Depending on weather, may beat HMB for most scenic route depending on weather.
Areas for development:
- Oops. Very late arrival at work, although not as bad after HMB.
- 92 is not great but tolerable, turning left onto Skyline really sucks though
Total time: 4h15 perhaps?
Rolling time: 3h39
Distance: 53.5 miles
Added distance compared to Cañada: 6.4 miles
Route: Kind of like this, except SCT isn't on the map.
-Lina
It was a pretty route and the King's Mountain Road descent may have
become my favorite in the Bay Area.
Here's the MB for more detail:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6833849
Good suggestion Lina!
Mike
Sweeet!
But it says 5k6 ft of climbing. That doesn't seem reasonable? (Well,
if you ask my legs it is... but not if you ask me. :) It's just 2k ft
added to the normal Skyline route, and then we still avoid the rolling
hills on Cañada.
-Lina
Just got home, drinking that wine I had to put away last night, waiting for my roomie to finish cooking a yummy Thai dinner...
After doing HMBway recently, I've been itching to do some more climbing (Tunitas was awesome), and wanted to incorporate something along those lines in Skyline since HMBway unfortunately is slightly incompatible with work. Solution: more Skyline!
It was a beautiful morning, with the sun out even in Daly City, which definitely made route extensions a compelling option, although I didn't say anything about my plan as I hadn't quite committed to it myself (yeah yeah, I'm lame and non-committal). Despite the sun, SCT was freezing cold (wtf?!) and I think I saw a couple of Michael's fingers lying on the side of the trail, having fallen off due to lack of adequate gloves. But after all, the sun _was_ out and it was beautiful, and Trinh gave me a cue and said it would be nice to go all the way to Santa Cruz on a day like this (I swear I didn't set it up!). I unfolded my devious plan to lure Ed and Michael up the mountain with me. These brave gentlemen did not hesitate for long and we headed off.
In anticipation of the upcoming climb, I even forgot to exclaim my usual "I hate hills!" as we pedaled up towards 92 on Skyline. And here we parted ways with the Skyline route as we know it, turned right on 92, did not get killed by trucks, and arrived at - Skyline! (Wtf is up with that road? It just keeps disappearing and reappearing in different places.) Again, we did not get killed by trucks as we did a left turn onto Skyline (this was quite an accomplishment).
Going up was beaaaautiful! The road goes along a ridge with views both of the valley and the ocean. Well, it would have had views of the ocean if the ocean hadn't been all fogged up. We climbed and looked and climbed and looked and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed. Pesky rolling hills of Cañada begone! Well... at the top there were actually a few rolling hills, meh. But they were at least steep enough to properly identify themselves as hills, as opposed to Cañada where you just suddenly find yourself inexplicably weak until you realize that the road is, in fact, not as flat as it looks.
At the top, Michael called me an evil woman while Ed stopped to fiddle a bit with his wonky breaks, thinking they may be of use during the descent on King's Mountain Road. I'll blame him dropping me on the descent on my functioning brakes. Ed had a scary near-car experience on the way down but we still all enjoyed the twisty road. It's kind of like a roller coaster, except way more fun and less safe! Whee! Helpful tip: do slow down when the street signs claim you should. This is not SCT. Once down and having reached Woodside, Michael said I wasn't an evil woman anymore.
After a somewhat eventless ride back on Sandhill Rd/Junipero Serra we reached Google way past breakfast time.
Strengths:
- 2000 ft more or so of climbing!
- Avoids pesky rolling hills on Cañada
- PRETTY! Depending on weather, may beat HMB for most scenic route depending on weather.
Areas for development:
- Oops. Very late arrival at work, although not as bad after HMB.
- 92 is not great but tolerable, turning left onto Skyline really sucks though
Total time: 4h15 perhaps?
Rolling time: 3h39
Distance: 53.5 miles
Added distance compared to Cañada: 6.4 miles
Route: Kind of like this, except SCT isn't on the map.
-Lina
It was a pretty route and the King's Mountain Road descent may have
become my favorite in the Bay Area.
Here's the MB for more detail:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6833849
Good suggestion Lina!
Mike
Sweeet!
But it says 5k6 ft of climbing. That doesn't seem reasonable? (Well,
if you ask my legs it is... but not if you ask me. :) It's just 2k ft
added to the normal Skyline route, and then we still avoid the rolling
hills on Cañada.
-Lina
No comments:
Post a Comment