New Year, New Year's Day Ride

I woke up with more than a rumor of too much fun the night before, but more apropos with sore hips from working in the kitchen for hours and hours prepping for a dinner party for twelve. If we didn't have a thoughtless house guest banging around the bath and kitchen six hours after lights out I might have gotten a couple more hours sleep. All cavilling aside, I cinched up my belt at around 10:30 in prep for the scheduled launch at 11:00. I needn't have rushed as Karl was late as usual, and needed to fuss with his rig a bit more once he arrived. No worries - it was a cold morning so it allowed a bit more warmth to build. We rode up the Old Stagecoach Rd. then dodged across the freeway to start climbing East Cuesta/Mt. Lowe. The climb was very hard with my left knee and right hip acting up for most of it. We persevered and got to the very end of Mt. Lowe. It was a gorgeous day, and I've never gotten that far on that road. We were trying to hook into Burrito Crk. Rd. and then down and out Rhigetti, but missed the turn and ended up descending the very rough Reservoir Cyn. Rd. This is steep and the surface is mostly "cow cobbles" and it ends up spitting you into a mud wallow at the bottom so it's less than ideal. About half way down the descent Karl noticed that he'd lost three of his five chain ring bolts - oops! He got the remaining two tightened and amazingly finessed it home. All and all a very good start to the year. The bike and especially the shoes took a lot of clean up after.