OK, I know y’all have just been waiting with bated breath for something interesting to come out of our ride yesterday. I’ll try to deliver.
Once we got the valve cover thing all straightened out, we headed south on Summit Road to the Summit Store. A whopping 3-mile ride thus far, but we were both warm and hungry from the roadside maintenance. We split a really good rye sandwich and some chips and laughed about how we were finally out riding, despite having taken 4 1/2 hours to go 20 miles.
We turned north back onto Summit Road for about a tenth of a mile to Loma Prieta Avenue. This was the road I’d been on last September (on the SVS) that I had to turn around on — it was much more relaxing on a 200-lb dualsport. 😉 About halfway up, Loma Prieta Ave turns to dirt. Finally! I annoyed Peter by stopping for photos a few times and making him ride around a corner for me.
A couple of turns later, I noticed there was a really good view of the upcoming part of the road, so I asked Peter to take some pictures of me. He took some nice ones, but this is my favorite:
This one’s nice because it shows how the road twists:
Loma Prieta Ave eventually winds up at Loma Prieta Way, which is paved the rest of the way up the hill. It was nice to be able to upshift and ride “normally” again. 😉
We stopped a couple of times for photos; this road has a great view of the Soquel Demonstration Forest. I had no idea what that meant (Peter: “What’s a demonstration forest?” Me: “No clue. I just know that’s the name.”), so I looked it up when we got home — it’s basically a forest set aside for forestry innovations, recreation, and education. There’s logging in the Soquel forest, too, where they test out new ways of logging and harvesting.
By the time we got up to the intersection of Loma Prieta Way and Summit Road, it was after 5pm and we needed to head back. So Summit Road remains elusive…but at least I was able to get there directly via Loma Prieta this time, instead of having to weave around sticking to the paved roads. A bit of a personal victory.
Next time, I swear I’ll take Summit all the way down to Mt Madonna. That stretch of road was what made me want a dualsport in the first place; it’s sort of a vendetta now. 😉
Anyway, from Summit and Loma Prieta Way, we turned back down Loma Prieta but took Mt Bache to Highland, thus staying on pavement for our way home.
It was a pretty crazy unintentional adventure, but we both had fun and can tell some good stories about valves and roadside maintenance now. 😉