By admin
Another ride leader in my club, Melanie, led a 54-mile ride starting 38 miles south of me in the little town of Paicines. The route was 27 miles out Panoche road to the Panoche Inn for lunch then back to the start. My friend Kris, also in Morgan Hill, was going on the ride so I carpooled with her. This is a beautiful but remote road, passing through some vineyards and then mostly ranches, with a lot of climbing up and over Panoche pass. The Inn was really more like a biker bar (the other kind of bike- some Harley riders showed up not long after us) but the folks were nice and they had great sandwiches. On the way back we had a brutal headwind, averaging about 25 mph but gusting to about 40. This was a pretty fast group and I would not have been able to hang with them without some electric assist, especially against the headwind. So a nice first test of the bike. This took 80% of my battery charge.
I’m not sure what is natural erosion and what is cuts made for the roadDescending From Panoche Pass. We were flying on this long downhill with the wind at our backs. The only problem was the pavement had lots of potholes, so vigilance was needed. But I enjoyed having wider (38 mm) tires.
