Rollin’ up to Gold hill

Alright, so I’ll only rub the weather in to those folks back home just a a little bit. Today was one of those sparklin’ spring sunshine days that you dream about when you live in NY. As such, nothing to do but grab the bike and go do some climbing.

I haven’t been to Gold hill in a bit and decided that a nice ride up 4 mile canyon to Poormon to Sunshine would do the trick. All is well till mile marker 8 on the climb, when my bike wouldn’t shift into the 25.

So stuck in the 39×23 grinding up the dirt roads at the top was a leg-buster of a climb. It’s tough enough to get up, but add losing traction cause you’re torquing it a bit and makes for some fun.

On my way up, I just pushed a good tempo/sweet spot pace. No super charging efforts, just wanted to knock out a good solid 45 minutes of tempo. With the gearing though it was tough and had to push some solid wattages on the steep parts.

The climb is plenty scenic on the way up and is one of the great reasons to just go up to Gold hill!

That’d be the backside of the flatirons, looking out towards Boulder.

Still snow and ice in the shady spots of the climb, but since it’s a dirt road there’s plenty of traction

As a nice reward, the obligatory stop at the Gold Hill Store for some calories.

So lunch was loads of caffeine and a pastry. No I didn’t eat the butter! though it was a bit tempting…

So I saw this guy on my way back home, WTF? is that, coulda used it to push me up the steeper parts of the climb though!

All together the legs really felt spot on today, my form and fitness are incredible for this time of the year (back in NY you don’t start outside riding till March). Managed a solid 3.5 hours on the bike. Looking forward to resting up tomorrow and then slamming it at the Gateway ride Saturday, and heading back to the hills on Sunday as it’ll be upper 50′s!!