# Old La Honda Road Question



## oldskoolboarder (Apr 16, 2004)

I'm considering adding Old La Honda to my route this weekend. Not afraid of the climb, I've done similar before. However, I'm more of a CXer/relaxed roadie. I'm not into flying down Woodside Road at speeds, down from Skyline, unless I have to.

What're some routes to come back down from the top? I seem to recall that it was bad "etiquette" to ride down. Is that true?


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## Francis Cebedo (Aug 1, 2001)

oldskoolboarder said:


> I'm considering adding Old La Honda to my route this weekend. Not afraid of the climb, I've done similar before. However, I'm more of a CXer/relaxed roadie. I'm not into flying down Woodside Road at speeds, down from Skyline, unless I have to.
> 
> What're some routes to come back down from the top? I seem to recall that it was bad "etiquette" to ride down. Is that true?


You can certainly go down OLH the way you came up. There's no problem with that at all. Heck, enough cars are coming down. The real issue is it's no fun for you. It has no flow and the corners are blind and abrupt. It feels cold too. But, if you can just kick back and stay on the right, it might be the best option for you.

Descending Highway 84 on weekends is hectic. Page Mill is a bear. Kings Mountain is ideal but you have to do a bit of 35 to get there. If you don't mind 35 and climbing about 500 feet more to get to Kings, I wold recommend that. It spits you out by downtown woodside.

francois


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## jumpstumper (Aug 17, 2004)

francois said:


> You can certainly go down OLH the way you came up. There's no problem with that at all. Heck, enough cars are coming down. The real issue is it's no fun for you. It has no flow and the corners are blind and abrupt. It feels cold too. But, if you can just kick back and stay on the right, it might be the best option for you.
> 
> Descending Highway 84 on weekends is hectic. Page Mill is a bear. Kings Mountain is ideal but you have to do a bit of 35 to get there. If you don't mind 35 and climbing about 500 feet more to get to Kings, I wold recommend that. It spits you out by downtown woodside.
> 
> francois


Or pile up the milage and go down HWY 9


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## oldskoolboarder (Apr 16, 2004)

francois said:


> You can certainly go down OLH the way you came up. There's no problem with that at all. Heck, enough cars are coming down. The real issue is it's no fun for you. It has no flow and the corners are blind and abrupt. It feels cold too. But, if you can just kick back and stay on the right, it might be the best option for you.
> 
> Descending Highway 84 on weekends is hectic. Page Mill is a bear. Kings Mountain is ideal but you have to do a bit of 35 to get there. If you don't mind 35 and climbing about 500 feet more to get to Kings, I wold recommend that. It spits you out by downtown woodside.
> 
> francois


Thanks! Kings Mountain hadn't occurred to me and taking skyline is fine. Yeah, it's on a weekend so I know it's hectic, which I want to avoid.

I assume I take a right at the top of skyline after old la honda and go north on 35 to kings, right? Is it north or south of 84?


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## goose127 (Jun 9, 2004)

oldskoolboarder said:


> Thanks! Kings Mountain hadn't occurred to me and taking skyline is fine. Yeah, it's on a weekend so I know it's hectic, which I want to avoid.
> 
> I assume I take a right at the top of skyline after old la honda and go north on 35 to kings, right? Is it north or south of 84?



Yep, take a right and go north, or basically go straight when you get to the 84 intersection and then start climbing. 

Personally I have not found the descent of 84 to be too bad, but I certainly would think that Kings is a better decent than OLH.


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## Francis Cebedo (Aug 1, 2001)

goose127 said:


> Yep, take a right and go north, or basically go straight when you get to the 84 intersection and then start climbing.
> 
> Personally I have not found the descent of 84 to be too bad, but I certainly would think that Kings is a better decent than OLH.


The descent on 84 is absolutely incredible. The road is smooth and the turns flow together real well. It's a great balnace of pedaling and braking.

I think the real issue is the cars. If you're aggressive and confident, you can go with the flow of cars and have the lane to yourself. However, if going fast is not your thing, you'll get in the way of cars and some of them get cranky. It's no fun getting passed there since there's not many safe places for that.

I've discovered the absolute gem of a descent... Kings Mountain. Ther's no cars and it's long windy descent with banked turns. It's a true roller-coaster ride.

francois


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## Number9 (Nov 28, 2004)

The descent from 35 down either 92 or 84 is fine - you should be able to safely go as fast or faster than the typical auto traffic and therefore take the entire lane. If you're not an experienced descender, then buy a book on the fundamentals of auto racing and read the sections on corner entry and proper apexing. On a bike, late apexing doesn't work as well as in a car (because you don't have 500 hp) and an early apex will kill you, so you really need to learn how to figure out the proper racing line. Only pass cars on the straight sections where you have a lot of room because you can safely assume that they don't see you...


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## dlbcx (Aug 28, 2002)

francois said:


> The descent on 84 is absolutely incredible. The road is smooth and the turns flow together real well. It's a great balnace of pedaling and braking.
> 
> I think the real issue is the cars. If you're aggressive and confident, you can go with the flow of cars and have the lane to yourself. However, if going fast is not your thing, you'll get in the way of cars and some of them get cranky. It's no fun getting passed there since there's not many safe places for that.
> 
> ...


Just watch out for guys driving their antique cars up Kings...got hit head-on by one of the those clowns in '01! He came out of a hairpin and his car was understeering so badly that he drifted into my lane as I was descending Kings. Needless to say, I'm quite leery of the blind corners! I'm lucky that I still have my left leg...got another Calfee out of it after the first one snapped off the fork. At least, my leg hit the car's radiator hard enough to knock a hole in it so the car lost all of its coolant!


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## johnny99 (Apr 2, 2004)

francois said:


> Descending Highway 84 on weekends is hectic. Page Mill is a bear. Kings Mountain is ideal but you have to do a bit of 35 to get there. If you don't mind 35 and climbing about 500 feet more to get to Kings, I wold recommend that. It spits you out by downtown woodside.


I agree that decending OLH isn't fun because of the potholes and blind turns. Page Mill is one of my favorite decents, except when there is construction gravel on the road. Woodside Road (84) is well maintained, but it takes some concentration due to the cars and sometimes the car traffic can slow you down. Kings Mtn. is OK, but that does have a dark switchbacks where gravel is hard to see.


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## oldskoolboarder (Apr 16, 2004)

Thanks for the suggestions guys.


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