cyclintom

https://www.chainreactionbicycles.com/tunitasloop.htm (Mike Jacoubowsky's description of the route)

I got a friend of mine to drive with me over to Woodside. We left the parking lot at about 8:10 and rode past the store and out Mountain Home Rd. That was a perfect warmup since a couple of miles on we turned up Old LaHonda Road. This used to be a really quiet climb but as more and more houses are going in both on the road and on Skyline its gotten a lot more traffic. 10 years ago there'd be 1 car on it on the climb up to Skyline. This time I counted 17 cars, a Model A, a Ferrari and two motorcycles by the top.

On the way down the other side we saw the results of powerful sports cars with sticky tires - the asphalt is being pulled off of these old country roads and they're being turned into gravel patches. Then if the county resurfaces them they get turned into traffic routes by people intent on beating everyone else to the next stop sign. It might be a good idea if gas prices doubled.

We arrived at the San Gregorio general store near the beach by an hour and forty minutes after we started some 22 miles and 1100 feet of climbing previously.

We got a sandwich and a cup of coffee and sat out in the sun and tried to warm up. It was about 50 degrees so it wasn't too cold but that's the temperature in which you either dress too lightly or too warmly. And with Tunitas Creek Rd. ahead of us neither of us had wanted to chance dressing too warmly.

Finally we left and started up Stage Rd. From the General Store it's almost immediately a climb and not a shallow one at that. It's a mile and a quarter up to Highway 1 at that point but then WOOO HOOO it's a fast ride down to the Tunitas Creek Rd entrance. Not long after the turn the road degrades to something that can hardly be called asphalt so that does tend to discourage traffic (thank heavens). There's a long more or less flat section that allows you to get your legs moving again after the break so that's nice. Then the road starts up and you're telling yourself that you can do this all day. It's steep but not awful and you go on and on. You talk to your friend and then a group of racers come by on a training ride. There's probably 20 stragglers that end up coming by for the rest of the climb.

I was feeling pretty good and climbing at about 5 mph or so and then we got to the steep part. On Tunitas Creek the steep part is three miles long and AVERAGES 11.5% so it's something of a butt kicker.

I was in a sort of stuborn frame of mind and although I had some lower gears I was fixed that I would ride to the top in my 34/23. Well I did that but today my legs are tired still so it's a good thing that I don't have another 50 miles to do today or I'd be complaining the whole way.

After hitting the top of Tunitas Creek Rd. you right directly across Skyline and go down King's Mountain Rd. It turned out that there was hardly any traffic on this road today (for a change!) and so I could concentrate on the steep downhill hairpins without having to worry about someone wanting to pass or someone cutting the steep sharp corners coming up.

Finally we hit the flats on the bottom and we rode down Highway 84 and back into Woodside to the car some 40 miles and 4000 ft of climbing later.

Life is wonderful.