I met some friends in San Carlos for a ride today, and we went up Edgewood Road past 280 to Cañada, and then rode up to 92, and came back the same way. Total distance: 18.2 miles.

Edgewood Road kicked my ass, hard. I really wasn’t properly prepared for any ride harder than Sand Hill/Whiskey Hill/Woodside, since I haven’t ridden as much, and have done exactly no hills, since I had the flu. I had kind of assumed that Edgewood wouldn’t be much worse, but it is. It just goes up and up and up and up forever, it seems like. There’s a few brief flats and downhills, but it’s just a twisty up and up otherwise. Quite beautiful though. For the first time ever a road kicked my ass enough that I had to get off and walk the last little segment. I could see the top but I just couldn’t keep going. And this was after three or four previous brief rests.

Then the road just DROPS. I forgot to turn on my cyclocomputer before the drop, but I was going awfully fast, enough that I was just sort of going “Oh my god” the entire way.

Cañada is nice, kind of rolling hills. It’s supposed to be closed to cars on Sunday, but it wasn’t this Sunday for some reason. But due to the usual closure there was very little traffic. There are a lot of rollerbladers too, including one who was tailing me as we went 18mph. Wow… (and scary if I have to stop suddenly). That part was mostly pretty pleasant and relaxing despite fighting the wind on the way north. The way back was great.

But then I had to climb the DROP on Edgewood and descend the long, twisty, “forever up”. I made it up the hill, going “I think I can” like the Little Engine That Could. At one point I was going 32 on the descent, which probably wasn’t my max speed, but it was close. (My cyclocomputer didn’t record the max because I have to clear the max separately after each ride and I didn’t, and previous ride involved a wireless traffic sensor which makes my bike think I’m going 73). And on that twisty road it was scary.

At one point there’s a parking lot entrance to one of the county parks, and people also park on the shoulder, so I was fortunate that I was paying attention and noticed I needed to leave the shoulder, and was able to time it properly so that no one was in the traffic lane.

Then we came back down into the neighborhoods, for a calmer return to the start. My muscles that pull the brakes were so sore then I was having trouble braking. Fortunately my brain must have been overriding it while I was actually descending because I knew I really needed to brake (and to stop braking periodically so as not to glaze my brakes).

This is a great ride, and would be really awesome if they would close it properly. Edgewood is a challenge and is a little scary in spots, but overall a great ride. And it connects up with a lot of other possible rides, like Woodside, Portola, and Sand Hill, if you have that much leg. Which I clearly don’t. And if I intend to do Waves to Wine in September I obviously need to get on that.