Riding into the Darkness ...

The gladiators can't get enough riding in. So it gets dark earlier now that it's Autumn ... so what. We have really bright lights, so why not ride, even in pitch blackness. Have HID, will travel, no matter how dark it is.

The Plan: Meet @Marco's place by 7:30 PM, and get ready to roll, and go for a ride through some hills. One would figure since it's at night, where it can be pretty dark, it would be a mellow leisure ride, right? Well, you gotta first realize what type of crowd this is ... the Gladiators!!!!

This time, for once Marco was not late ... er ... it's at his house, so he has no excuse for being late. By the time we got our act together, we rolled around 8 PM. Henry got there a little later than expected, so we waited around for him. So it's half hour behind schedule. I had a feeling this would be a late night.

It was Pete, Marco, Ramon, and Henry. Immediately, upon rolling out, gladiators will be gladiators, and started sprinting up the hills ... and these were big hills. I knew I would be the last one up every hill, and that's exactly what happened. This was a really aggressive ride, and there was nothing leisure about this at all.

Take a look at this elevation profile ...


Some warm up ... 500 feet climbing in the first 2 miles. It was a struggle on each one. I started to feel a bit embarrassed, having someone always double-back for me, but I am eternally grateful that they did.

Now you'd think that riding in patch black darkness might be a bit dangerous, but oddly enough, we all felt a bit safer ... now does that make sense? Maybe it's the roads we took, which were mainly residential hilly sections of San Mateo, Hillsdale, and Redwood City. Whatever it was, it's almost like cars out there were a bit more careful, and gave us a wider stretch. We didn't feel threatened by cars zooming past us. Crazy thought, isn't it? I wonder what it must have looked like for cars on the road, who approach us, and see an array of dancing blinking lights. They probably thought it was some strange patrol car, but no sirens blasting.



Now I did try to take some pictures, but they really didn't turn out at all. I guess taking night photography takes a bit of practice, and is more of an art ... great, two things I really suck at.

Being in the dark, it was hard to get a sense of how far along the ride we went. Just when we thought we were close to finishing the ride, up comes more hills ... hills hills hills . I was tempted to find the quickest way to El Camino, and take a b line on that busy blvd, but I stuck with it, and continued my slowsky hill climbing. Seeing everyone double back for me was getting to be routine now ... and I once again have to say how grateful I am for that. But I did want the climbing to end ... NOW!

When we finally got back to Marco's place, it was around 11 pm. This was not your short 1.5-2 hour ride ... this was an epic, hilly, 3 hour ride. It was a little longer than was expected, but it was a fun ride, fun company, and if I can do this on a weekly basis, this will definitely help my hill climbing. The only problem now is that I have to be back in the office by 6 am .... so get home by 11:30 pm, take about 1/2 hour to settle in, sleep by midnight, get up by 5 am ... 5 hours sleep??? Yeah, that should be enough. Needless to say, I decided NOT to ride in this day.