Old La Honda

For our Saturday ride, we went up Old La Honda. This is a windy, steep, and narrow road that goes from Woodside to Skyline Blvd. Of all the routes to Skyline is it probably the easiest, yet the first time I did it, the climb was interminable. You can see in the elevation profile below that one hill is quite a bit bigger than the rest.

A few people in our group were definitely taken by surprise. :)

Here we are at the top of the mountain:


To get back down the mountain, I've only ever gone down Old La Honda. Like I said earlier, it is windy, steep, and narrow, so my hands ache from braking the whole way down. On Saturday, we went down Highway 84 or "regular La Honda" instead. I wouldn't suggest going up 84 because of the traffic, but it was perfect to go down. The speed limit is 30 mph and you hardly have to break or peddle to maintain that speed. Below, you can see the same elevation profile as above, but this graph also includes my speed. Going up Old La Honda, I averaged about 7 mph. Going down 84, I averaged about 30 mph.

See the full details of the ride.