Lunch ride with Cadel

I planned to do a short lunch ride today, climbing Page Mill and I see this rider in the rainbow jersey take off from the side of the road, pushing a ridiculously high gear up the hill. I try to speed up, just enough to be able to verify that yes, it’s Cadel Evans. Of course he then disappears out of sight pretty much immediately. I continue climbing and a bit later he crosses me while on the descent – and I can hereby now confirm his mountain bike roots: he waved back!

I then turn around to pursue him, meanwhile trying to fumble out my cell phone in order to take some shots – not the greatest idea on this descent. Anyway, he luckily paused for a while at the bottom next to his team car and was kind enough to let me and some others ride with him along Arastradero and Alpine (I brought up Old La Honda which he mentioned he’d done a few times in the past days, but when I asked about his time, he said he hadn’t timed himself!). On Portola I said bummer I have to go back to work, and he replied, yeah me too, and headed off towards Canada Rd… a very pleasant fellow and I had one of my more memorable lunch rides to date.

Short video