For only the third time in modern cycling times, I went for a road ride with a companion, my brother-in-law Starky. We met at the Chain Reaction bike shop on Foothill and 280 after work. From there, we rolled north on Foothill at a pretty good clip -- we were hammering along at about 25 MPH all the way to the VA hospital in Palo Alto. After that, we dialed it back a little on the way up to Woodside Avenue and into Woodside. In Woodside, we reversed course and headed up into Portola Valley, screamed down Alpine Road, noodled past the Arastradero Preserve through Los Altos into San Antonio Preserve, and then headed back down to Chain Reaction.

We ripped a couple of heavy pulls, but for the most part, it was a pleasant day of comfortable riding and conversation. Starky is a great accelerator and downhiller. On every start, he'd be 50 feet ahead of me after about 15 seconds and he wouldn't even be trying to accelerate quickly. I'd spend the next hundred yards closing the gap. Same thing happened on the downhills. Starky would instantly be 30 feet ahead of me and gaining before I even knew what was going on. I literally could not keep up with him no matter how hard I pedaled. Eventually, I'd stabilize at about 75 feet back and once again spend the next quarter mile closing the gap. On the plus side though, following Starky really helped me go a lot faster than I normally would have. With Starky and now Romulus to ride road bikes with, I expect to start cracking the 40 MPH barrier in the very near future.

Relatedly, the Blade felt great again today, and riding on the Bay side of the coastal ridge was much more pleasant than riding on the overcast, wet, foggy, and windy side of the hill. Ah, sun, warmth, dryness.

We saw seven deer on the large field near the tennis courts in San Antonio.