Today I rode from the Pigeon Point Lighthouse hostel (on Route 1 between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz) via Stage Road, which is a moderately hilly inland route, and back up to La Honda via Rt. 84.

Since Lee and I are going on our Puget Sound tour in a couple of weeks I did this ride with my rear panniers attached and loaded up, to make sure they were secure and there were no problems with heel rub, that sort of thing - and to get an idea of whether I could schelp all that stuff around without dying . During our tour we're going to be staying in B&B's along the way and I'm certain that none of our rides from one B&B to the next are going to be as hard as the one I did today, so I figured this would be a reasonable indication of whether or not I'd survive with the whole set of panniers loaded up

Here's the profile for the Stage Road part of the ride - Diablo it's not, but although the scale makes it look worse than it really is, I did only the 3rd hill last Labor Day weekend, and back then it put me in a world of hurt!


At any rate, I'm really thrilled - not only did I do Stage Road with no difficulty (and was rewarded with a screaming descent back down the 3rd hill to get back to Hiway 84 - I almost broke 40 mph ) but just for yuks when we got home I weighed my bike and panniers.

Bike, with front & rear racks & fenders & assorted detrius = 28 lbs.
Loaded rear panniers & handlebar bag = 21 lbs.

Throw in a lb for the watter bottles, and it turns out I was lugging 50 pounds up them there hills, and lived to tell about it - hoo hah!

- jo "grunt" bob