Rode from Pine Mountain Club, CA to Taft, CA this morning. Even though the ride goes from 5,500' to about 500' elevation, it is not your typical downhill ride. The ride starts with a 2 1/2 mile climb to 6,200' and then the next 10 miles are 30 to 40mph decents followed by 5mph uphill climbs of a quarter to half mile each. After the 10 miles of up and down, it's pretty much flying downhill with a couple of good hills to remind you you're in the mountains. Once you get to Hwy 166, it's a 7% downgrade for 4 miles and 4% the rest of the way into Maricopa. The road has good clean shoulders and traffic is fairly courteous. From Maricopa it was rolling hills on the old Petroleum Club Road for seven miles to Taft. This is a road that my dad roller skated on in the 30s with steel wheeled roller skates behind an old model-T for the seven miles from Taft to Maricopa and back. So it did have some special memories to be riding the same road thinking about my dad's stories of his childhood on the same road. That seven miles today wasn't real difficult but it had gotten pretty hot, low 90s. I finished the ride going up Center street in Taft to my moms house. It was a great 43 miles in just over 2 1/2 hours.