Cycling on the San Mateo coast can be dismally cold when the marine layer is thick and the sun nowhere in sight. Ah, but when the fog fails to roll in and the sun shines brightly it can be pure heaven. That was the case yesterday with our second Different Spokes weekday ride, which went from Half Moon Bay down the coast and then returned on the back roads of San Mateo County. The route was a club favorite: from Half Moon Bay we rolled 22 miles down the coast past beach after beach to Gazos Creek Road. From there we turned inland and took a series of old roads—Cloverdale, Stage Road, Verde, Tunitas Creek, Lobitos Creek, Purissima, and Higgins Canyon. A couple were flattish but most of them were real grunts uphill (and down) albeit not too long to kill the buzz. We had a moderate wind from the northwest that whisked us southward as if we had legs of steel, and since the return leg was slightly inland we didn’t have to suffer the indignity of a withering headwind.
Riding on a weekday instead of the weekend meant we escaped the typical horde of city folk rushing to the beaches; traffic was agreeably light and the line at Norm’s Market in Pescadero, our lunch stop, was—gasp!—nonexistent. At times it was a hammerfest but mostly it was taking in the exquisite quiet and beauty of rural coastside San Mateo piano. It was 54 miles and 3,800 feet of elevation gain. Stay tuned to the Different Spokes Ride Calendar for the next weekday ride…
The Chain Letter 