In case you didn’t know we got dumped on with snow this past Thursday. Not your typical w inches, but more like a foot or more.

As such have had to think outside the box when it comes to training. Road cycling was out for a bit as they really suck at plowing around here.

Thus, put some extra time in at the gym. Legs are getting sore from the hypertrophy phase, but definitely feeling strong. Friday with the day off for work, pulled out the classic skis & hit the local trail down the road. Was quite fun & peaceful. Will make for a great place to do recovery rides this summer.

Since I had already been skiing the day prior, busted out the snowshoes, grabbed the dogs & headed in the opposite direction on Saturday. Ended up being super warm & was crazily overdressed. The dogs sure enjoyed it, but had Lake along & he hated every minute of it. But we did have fun throwing snow balls at each other.

Finally was able to get out on the road bike today. Was enjoyable & nice to get out for some fun, but my legs were jacked from doing everything but cycling. Was a crazy temperature fluctuating day. Was 45 when I left, then would hit cold pockets and dip to 30, then back to 45-50 a few miles later.

And they still suck at taking care of the roads around here. Seriously with these temps, one thing I can say is every upstate road would be clear of snow. Around here the plows rarely come out & as such loads of drifts & icy sections on a few roads. Don’t even try to ride a side road… but alas, I’ve got mad skills from many a days of negotiating upstate roads & ice (while we had plenty of plows, colder temps made it tougher). Always fun to dive in to snow/ ice at 20+ & see if you’re gonna hit the deck or make it through.

Solidly warm temps are here for a bit & hopefully can get in some more great time playing this week & weekend!

Last year I spent thanksgiving on the trails at Heil Ranch. Great day on the bike and some Clif bars to feast on. Thankfully this year, in had the family here and would at least get some turkey in my belly.

sunshine, sunshine

Still, was nice to be back out on the same trails and was a gorgeous morning for a ride. Leaving home it was 21 degrees, but when I hit the trails it was 45/50 and would warm up to 65/70 ish. As quick as I hit the trails I was stripping down to shorts and a jersey.

this years thanksgiving trail food was much tastier

Managed to tack off a few hours on the dirt and get back home in time to catch some football and enjoy the day with the family. Couldn’t be thankful for more.

Black Friday, wtf is that? A big group of us decided to brave the cooler temps and the (un)crowded trails around Golden. No need to pepper spray anyone to get what you were after. It was found in the pain and suffering up the long climb to kick off White Ranch.

up, up, up

It was nice to meet some of the Epic teammates & ride some trails that I’ve never been on before. Long climb up to the top & then some fun swoopy stuff. Kept it easy and never fired the pistons, knew I still had plenty more days of riding ahead.

great views from up top

All together was a super fun few hours on the bike. We rolled back to the parking lot and a few brave soldiers decided to keep rolling and hit up some more trail. I peeled it back and went home to put some more time in with the ol ball and chain.

After some time on the dirt, pulled out the road bike for some easy base miles. Wsnted to just keep on trucking & racking up the weekend hours both saturday and Sunday. Managed to spill over. On the road bike making u turn on the road. Could only laugh at myself for that one. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve crashed on the roadie. Included countless races where seemingly everyone played a game of “pockets full of rosy, ashes, ashes we all fall down” except me. I always found it funny that everyone would crash when someone breathed on them on the pavement…something to be said for all those days spent flying through the woods.

naturally went looking for dirt

Wrapped up a great weekend of riding & rolling forward with the training plan. Bit of snow out there, especially up high and looking to bust out the snowshoes & have some fun.

how I felt after the long weekend

That made for some fun riding on the trail Saturday at Hall Ranch. I had to get out for a ride, been dying for a few weeks to test out the new Quarq quatro. Trails were dry and it was fairly warm, so a little blowing of the leaves wasn’t going to keep me at home. Though it almost put me on the ground a few times. Never did have to resort to any walking, but definitely was blown off trail more than once.

Sunday, I rolled over to Picture Rock for some more time on the dirt. Just a quick climb up to the top, around the loop and down. I’m easing back into the training with some shorter and easier rides. Plenty of time to lay down the miles soon enough.

Lots of stuff already out there on How everyone finished (2nd Place Overall-Team Omnium!)

-FasCat Blog

-303 Cycling

-Singletrack.com

CU Cycling mountain bike team kicked some ass at Nationals and I’m super proud of every single persons effort.  Whether they podium’d or not they were an integral part of the support team.  Also, all of the support crew were incredible.  Cooking dinners, maintaining bikes, helping set up and tear down the pits.  We rocked the house and Ft. Loosing is scared next year that we are coming for them and going topple their reign at the top.

I’m super excited for the Seniors (Peter/Claire) that had incredible races & pumped for all the riders that will be coming back next season!

Far and away we rock on the bike as a team, but we MOST DEFINITELY have the most fun.  When Sam was lined up for the short track and the official were counting down, it was awesome to have the whole CU team standing there shouting GO CU!! And singing the team fight song!  No one else even came close in school spirit!  You’ve seen the race pictures, here’s some fun pictures from the weekend!

Pre-riding the XC course in the snow and mud

Joey is all mud, blood and smiles on course

Sam is a bit dirty after the XC Race

Joey takes a moment to concentrate before his run

Was Successful enough for a 4th National Title in DH

I’m sure Baddick doesn’t want me to post this, those Brits are so shy, but we had fun at the costume party

Hunter S. Thompson came along with team for some reporting

You pretty much had to be there to understand this one

Raddest, fastest team around!

There’s a bunch more pictures, but they are not fit for the interwebs!!

Looking forward to returning with the team for 2012 mountain bike season and unleashing it on the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Conference & nationals again!

Side note: Training for me personally for 2012 has begun, will get a report up this weekend as I hit the trails with the new Quarq quatro and bring everyone up to speed…

They took the term ‘Skinsuit’ in France a bit to literally (From Cyclepassion calendar)

Having fun at Hall Ranch

I hope we’ll get out for a few more rides before she departs…

Laramie Enduro

Rolled up to Laramie this past Saturday night with Scott Upton and Randy.  Got there plenty early to find a nice lil camping spot by the creek, set up shop and relax some.  Ate some food, got eaten up by mosquitos and failed miseralbly at sleeping the night before.  Not really anything new, just have learned to accomodate not being able to sleep the night before the race.

Home for the night

Gorgeous sunset over the sagebrush

Woke up and rolled over to the venue feeling good and ready to rip for the day.  Race started off with a fairly steep dirt road climb into some singletrack, I had made the front group onto the turn of hte singletrack, but immediately had to back the throttle off.  Tons of dust was kicked up in the launch off the line and I was starting to have a bit of a coughing fit.  As I soft pedalled a few mintues into the race, was getting passed left and right.  Was able to keep moving forward but mostly at a tempo pace.  I was coughing so hard a few times in that first hour that I almost blacked out from choking.  Was seriously frustrated, I used to carry an inhaler for when this would happen in the past, but it’s been so long I no longer carry it.  I basically rolled it the first hour or so, trying to get breathing and effort back under control.  Everytime I went hard I would start coughing as my breathing rate picked up.  Finally I was able to pull it together around aid station 2 or so.  I started to feel fairly ok and wasn’t coughing anywhere near as much and able to push myself forward.  I started picking riders off quickly and moving forward, no idea where I was.  Was quite a bit near the rear, but felt like I was moving up nicely.  I felt really rippingly fast on the singletrack sections, but still felt dogged on the climbs.  I just worked on flipping my mind and focusing on moving forward and getting to the end of the race.

Somewhere past aid station 3, I was told I was in 28th.  Right on the heels of the eventual female winner Gretchen Reeves.  I saw a few riders up the trail and focused on moving into the top 25, I easily picked them off on the next climb and got some distance between myself and Gretchen.  We’d been yoyoing for a bunch of the race, she would fly up the climbs and I’d bring it all back in on the singletrack.  This time though, I got some distance and kept at it.  The last 20 miles of the race was pretty heavy with singletrack and I was feeling great.  I kept my focus and kept pushing forward, I was slowly picking off riders here and there throughout the final miles.

Catching some air on the way down the HeadQuarters Trail descent (Cool photos by Action Photographic)

The final up and downs were defintiely starting to hurt, but I knew I was so close to the finish line, just needed to keep moving forward.  At the top of the final descent on the flats, made a rookie mistake.  Took a drink from my bottle and looked around at the scenery and managed to hook a tree with my bar with my hand off it.  Down goes Igby, in a cloud of dust.  Got up quickly, but was caught by the rider behind me.  He pipped me heading into the final descent.  Was able to hold his wheel without issue, but on a little rise a gap grew up and was held till we hit the dirt road that we originally climbed up for the start.  I gave it some gas and was flying down the washboarded dirt and closing the gap super quick.  Pretty sure I was doing 150 rpm as I was spun out just trying to close the gap as the meters to the finish line ticked off.  As we hit the corner to the line with a few hundred to go, I launched an all out sprint, closed the gap, but simply ran out of room.  Both of us in our haste almost took out the poor girls trying to take our number.  Ended up losing by half a bike length.  Ah well, I definitely finished the race strong.

After a crappy start and continuing to move forward through the end, I was pumped to have finished 15th.  I know I can do alot better than that, so the chances are pretty solid that I’ll be back next season to make some improvments on my time/finish from this year.

It’s wednesday and I’m still hacking my lungs up and waking the wife up at night with coughing attacks.  I’m either going to fix it tonight or be in far worse shape tonight after the short track!  Ah well, will have some fun…

Rolled into town in time to grab my packet and get a hotel room right across the street from the start.  The race course started right at Howleson hill, which was literally 2 blocks from downtown.  Super cool and had a great vibe for an early am start.  The course rolled right out of the gate and went uphill. I made it to the front group on the little pavement section to widen out, but then it went straight up the mountain on a loose rocky climb and I picked a bad line and fell in line with the group.  We then tucked into a few bits of singletrack and got held up behind a rider as he dabbed uphill. Things then spread into a long 2-3km doubletrack climb and I wasn’t really ripping it up the climb but was holding my own ok.  Dropped through the first of many meadows filled with wildflowers and then switchbacked its way up a long tortureous climb through the aspens/wildflowers.  You would duck into the woods and then float out through the all flowers, then back into the woods, back into the flowers.  Was kinda surreal but was also super cool.  Made the time pass easily I suffered and slogged to the top.  When I finally hit the top and the feedzone was happy to rip it down the descent.  Only problem was, we were bunched up and the guys in front weren’t very fast.  The guy behind me was yelling at me for a pass, but I was gapping him in easy sections, some griping about how he was a local, etc.  But I managed to get past the few riders and have a clear path to the bottom and ripped it solo.  What was that guy screaming about being a local and knowing the trail?  Well he shoulda practiced going down it some more as I had at leat 2 minutes on the group by the bottme!  The descent itself was awesome, just super long and super flowy and fast, lots of corners but super tachy dirt.  Crazy tall wildflowers though made it tough to see any lines and look farther than what was right in front of you.  Had to be a bit of a Jedi and anticipate what was coming up based on the flow of the terrain.  It was like descending blindfolded in a few spots.

(photo from Singletrack.com)

We kicked out onto a fire road at the bottom of the descent.  Even though I just ripped the descent my legs weren’t ready to go hard with the group in front of me so I sat up and rolled up to the next climb.  A super long singletrack climb, pockmarked by hoof prints, enough so that on the 2nd lap I opened my pro pedal valve up to get some more cush!  Felt ok going up this climb, I had to pee so bad on the first lap that I stopped and took some time.  Got passed by a few riders, but brought them back as I liked the flow of the climb.  Mostly wooded, but would have a few breaks and small descents  carrying speed into these steep uphill sections and could just sprint over the top.  Once you hit the top of the climb, the view was just epic.  I literally stopped pedalling and just was awesomely wowed by the mountains and the area.  Was amazing, reality set in when Katie Compton came ripping by at the top.  In hindsight should’ve stuck in front on the descent as we got in a small group of 4 and no one was going forward.  Would’ve been nice to have hit it alone.  Though the 2nd descent to the finish line, made the first one look sad in comparison.  Huge wildflowers lined the trail all the way down and tons of curves and berms and jumps and just FLOW, more FLOW and your cup runneth over with FLOW.  Barely needed the brakes other than when an unexpected corner came up that you couldn’t see with the height of the wildflowers.  Lots more Jedi descending tricks were utilized to make it down this descent.

Came through in our small group to the finish and went to grab drinks and food out of my cooler.  But some jackass had moved it!  Seriously who moves someones cooler when its just leaning agains the fence?  Rummaged around and finally found it and threw it back into place.  Some lady said she’d move it back (I presumed she was the one who moved it in the first place) and I told here I had riders on course that may need it.  I wasn’t lying as Anna was behind me and there was a spare tube/co2 and some food for her just in case she would need anything.

Second lap was a bit more of the same, except I was mostly alone.  I payed my toll for the heat at the top of the climbs and the legs finally showed some semblance of effort 4.5 hours into the race midway up the 2nd climb.  Ugh, was just a little too tired coming into the race as my heart rate would never creep past 150.  I ended up finishing 30th, not shabby but not like I know I can perform.  Such is racing.  Sometimes up, sometimes down

Ah well that’s racing.  The upside is, this was without a doubt one of the coolest race courses I’ve ever ridden.  My words suck in comparison to how the support, volunteers and the course itself really was.  There was so much FLOW on this course and so much fun.  Wildflowers, Aspens, MEGA climbs, MEGA descents, just awesomenesss all together.  I’ll definitely be back for this one!

On the way back home, I just lollygaged and took some photots and had some fun.

Looking down on the Valley after rolling out of town

Rabbit Ears Pass

North Park

More Mountains

Moose!!

Big honking moose

Pretty certain the moose congregate here so they can people watch

Off this afternoon to Laramie, Wyoming for the Laramie Enduro.  Hoping for much better legs and some fun this weekend!

Bike Riding

I did manage some great bike riding this past weekend.  Saturday, I pulled out the Road bike for a great climbing day.  Hooked up with Nate Brown (who worked with me well at the Bailey Hundo) and a friend of his to put ins some miles and climbing in preparation for the Inaugural Steamboat Stinger this coming weekend.  Plan was to get in some good climbing work and some miles.  Managed to do just that.  Started off with a long climb up Lefthand into Ward and then rolled over to Nederland and up the Shelf Road climb to Eldora.  Never had done that one before and was more awed by the views than chasing Jim up the climb.  We rolled down the Canyon back into Boulder and I was seeking out some more miles, so I hit it up Flagstaff and then rolled down to head to Jamestown.  Thunder boomers were moving in so I decided to go up and over Lee hill.  Problem was 5 hours into the ride and 90+ degree temps I absolutely cracked on Lee Hill.  Came damn near to a standstill and was almost walking it.  Like Phil & Paul say to the climbers who go off the front, “One Mountain too far!”

Here’s some pics of the day

Rolling through Nederland

Heading up the Shelf Climb

After the hike, wanted to really test out my new Stans ZTR 29er Race Gold Wheelset.  Even though my legs were super crushed from the previous days ride and the hike, decided to head over to Hall Ranch and sneak in a quick hour or so on the dirt.  Rolled up antelope trail at a good clip, but really drilled it all the way up the Nelson loop.  Man, I could really feel how much quicker the bike felt underneath me.  Nice and snappy and accelerates super fast on the climbs.  Got up to the Nelson loop and took 2 cracks at it, I think I even bested Von’s time on the loop though there’s 2 different KOM’s on the Strava page.  Weirdly felt really good to go out and just smash it hard.  I ended up trying another crack at Antelope but was already smashed, but still gave it a good go.

The course is a fairly short loop, although slightly changed from last year as the bridge was closed.  We got a monsoon rain show in the afternoon and left some wet spots on the course that made it tough to corner quickly and having not ridden in mud for so long, had to relearn how to slide around.  Course starts in the ball field and follows the perimeter for a few hundred meters and then dumps into some tight singletrack.  Quite tight, few sharp corners that make you scrub all your speed then re-accelerate.  Coming out of the first singletrack section, we had a two-way bridge crossing that was a mandatory run.  The downside to this was right after the bridge was a straight up loose, rooted climb meaning 7x would have to lug the bike up the steep climb while running, remount and head into the second section of singletrack.  That section was a bit more open and quick to pass through, though it got super tight just before the climb.  Literally had to come to a dead stop to corner 120 degrees around a tree, over some logs and a quick descent to the new climb section.  Brought you along the backside of the hill at high speed with some off camber bench cuts, then a tight steep switchback climb.  Once off that, quick little technical descent and then weaving through the trees along the creek.  Drop out and run back across the bridge back into the start field and then drop back into the flat singletrack.  Was really fast through here, but the corners were slick and required scrubbing speed in order to not blow them.  Then a quick off camber slippery climb that takes you back out and rolls along towards the start field.  Overall was a solid course and would be fun to race.

Got some practice laps in, and felt good and ready to go.  I knew getting into the woods first would be critical as would have first chance at the run-up (which I suck at).  No room to pass for a bit and I wanted to be out front.  I hit it hard off the line, got out front and got into the woods in the lead without issue.  But it was tight and twisty and slowed us down, I actually felt really great and wasn’t breathing hard at all (sea-level air) and was just surprised at being able to go anaerobic like that without dying.  Got up the run-up without falling on my face and was being chased hard by Andy August.  I hit the base of the switchback climb and accelerated a bit to get some separation and put a few seconds into Andy.  Rolled through the first lap with about a 5 second gap and kept moving forward.  Somehow or other I lost my rear brake, it was straight mush to the bars.  With the millions of tight corners and the mud I needed to set myself up nicely to hit the corners smoothly.  But that was no longer happening, was basically barrel rolling into corners at speed and trying to use my front brake to scrub speed, but had horrible setup coming out of the corners and basically had to soft pedal till I could get my line.  I knew that I was losing time in the singletrack so I made up for it on the climbs and out in the grassy field.  We caught some lap traffic and I think Andy got caught up, but my gap went up to around 20 seconds and from there I basically went into maintenance mode.  Conserving energy in case of a dumb crash or slide-out in a corner but just working my way through the course.

Had tons of family on hand to watch both myself and Lake race and was getting awesome splits and able to keep my pace and just have fun racing my bike around the course.  Felt great to walk away with my first Victory of the season, have some fun riding my bike and show some family a new sport.  Of which most were super excited to see and had a great time.  Thanks to everyone who came out and had fun

SoGnar

Updated with Strava Chart

Southern Greater Naples Area Ride- with the Geneva Bicycle Center Crew.  Definitely what I was looking for!  A big day on the mountain bikes with friends.  We rode up the Orange Trail backwards on the race course, down the carriage trail (past the Jayhole!) took the road over to Bristol, climbed up the backside, dropped Off the Radar, Dugway to the Stid Hill Creek bed, to some unholy steep 4 wheel trail (3 garmins confirmed 51% grade!), then dropped the switchbacks, took the long lonely road back to Cutler and back up the carriage to drop the Orange Trail

Was super awesome to ride with my greatest riding buddies, have some fun and rip some of the most fun trails ever.  Sidenote:  It’s rained a ton and these fellas have been ripping moto’s instead of dirt, which meant mega hard descending.  Friggin A they were bombing stuff, I may have gone harder downhill on some super loose, muddy trails than I did uphill!

Here’s some pics of the day:

We love our Osprey Packs

Heading to the top of that hill in Cutler

Holy Crap is everything green!

Start of the climb on the backside of Bristol Mt

Muddy, loose, rocky & uber steep

Rolling through the Hemlocks

Climbing up the creekbed, this really sucked and seemed to go on forever.  Now I know why I never went this way

Back to Cutler on the Orange Trail.  A trail I may have ridden more than any other as it was once the 24 hour course

All together some awesome riding for sure.  Was seriously amazed at how good it felt to ride back home (the humidity notwithstanding) but never really went anaerobic.  Wish I felt like that all the time on the bike.  Was quite a bit of a difference riding in the thick woods.  So much ground cover and mud, really had to be on your game to know where to put the tires.

Peak to Peak Highway

South St. Vrain… Raced the river on the way down

Strava Route

Afterwards grabbed the whole family and rolled out to the Eagle Trail in Boulder.  Even got Bridget out there on her Giant 29er.  Still learning the ropes and would be a good chance to run the dogs.  It’s one of the few trails that dogs & bikes can both be on in Boulder.  We just rolled down to the reservoir, let the dogs get in and rolled back.  Too warm to go fast for the dogs and a little too much uphill on the way back for Lake.  Poor Lulu was so cooked by the end she was running zig-zags and I don’t think she knew where she was.  Lizzy was barely panting and asking for more!

Lizzy and Lake heading out on the Eagle Trail

Wrapped up the day with some steaks on the grill and beers in the backyard,

West Magnolia

Sunday, headed out to the West Magnolia trails with Frank and Von.  Had heard about these, but never had ridden them.  Drove up to get some extra time on the dirt.  Rolled into the lot, hooked up with Scott Upton & Randall.  They were both sporting some singlespeeds and wanted to romp around a bit on the dirt and check out the SSUSA course that had occurred on the trails the prior day.

Frank was on the gas from the go

Frank took off like a rocket and we chased him around for a bit on the super dry and super fun trails and decided to make our way up to the “Toilet Bowl’, no idea what it was, but I was just following

Wonder if Chris is home?

Went up the trail known as ‘schoolbus’ and soon found out why.  So we decided to explore a bit and check things out.

Boarding the bus

Well, if it got dark we’d have shelter

Seem like we’re on the right bus

We kept chugging upwards and onwards and found some even cooler stuff.  An old abandoned mine & equipment.  I could’ve spent hours checking this stuff out and.  Was super cool to see

Frank the Tank

Built to Last, well over 100 years old I’m thinking..

No thanks, good with plain old dirt

As we went up higher, started running into snow

We kept creeping upwards and were continually running into snow drifts that were a few feet deep.  This was a first for me.  75+ degrees and deep snow on the trail.  We made a bunch of crossings and then reached a point around 9500′ ft where the snow just made the trail unpassable.  We jumped up to the road and tried to make our way up via alternate routes, but the road was just wet and muddy.  Got up a ways to where we needed to access the trails and I believe the quote was ‘There’s a waterfall on the trail there!’ so that turned us around and we just ripped around the trails down lower.  We lost Scott and Randy to a whole bunch of flat tires and rolled on for some more over to the DOT trails.

Gorgeous view of the high country were abound

Strava Route

Ended up with just shy of 3 hours of bike time.  Trails were awesome and by far some of my favorite trails I’ve ridden around locally.  I’ll definitely have to head back.  It’s a pretty intricate network and gonna have to learn those for sure!  All together was a great way to finish of a nice solid block of training and prepare for the Bailey Hundo!

 Temps were cool to roll out but plenty comfortable, been up Sunshine Canyon a bunch this year, but typically roll down Poormans. Forgot how tough that road gets after you pass Poormans, some steep sections in there. I was actually looking forward to the dirt section of the climb.

The legs felt a lil bit sluggish and took some time to bring them around. Just worked on putting down a solid tempo pace without blowing myself up. 9 miles of climbing, 2,900ft elevation at an avg grade of 6.2% to open the gates of the ride

Rolled up to Gold Hill, albeit slowly and comfortably. Grabbed some food and made my way down Lickskillet road, even on a mountain bike that thing was uber steep & almost ran it off the road at 45 mph on the dirt. 

Once off of Lickskillet, just rolled the pavement over to Heil Ranch. Must’ve passed at least 100 riders making their way up Lefthand, had to be some kind of group ride going on or something, it was just a long steady flow of riders making their way up. Heil Ranch was in great shape, I felt really good climbing up Wapiti and just ripped it coming down Wild Turkey and Picture Rock

Ripping Picture Rock was loads of fun and I was feeling great coming off that descent. Rolled over to Hall Ranch and climbed up via Antelope trail and hit the Nelson Loop, just outright shredded that descent and down the front side of Hall Ranch. I promptly flatted coming down it and I think for the record, that was my 3rd straight flat and they all occurred in the exact same spot? Just broke the bead on the tire and was able to hand pump it up and get rolling out 

Once out of Hall Ranch, made my way back up and over Picture Rock. Was feeling great, had been really staying on top of eating and hydrating nicely. Pushed it at a nice ‘Sweet Spot’ up the climb, was really just chasing a singlespeeder up the thing, but it was a nice motivator and caught him a few minutes up and just kept pushing the pace all the way up & through Wild Turkey and ready for the descent. No matter how tired I am, a ripper of a descent always seems to bring my legs back and fire up some added motivation

Once off the Wapiti descent it was onto the road, 2 miles up Lefthand and then up and over Olde Stage. It became just a fun game to chase down all the roadies on the climb with 60 miles in my legs. Was chuckling too myself as I passed each one & kinda made it fun, was feeling great and hit it hard at the end

 All in all was an awesome ride, definitely one my favorites and might have to head back and see if I can squash my time on the route. Felt great to finish strong for once!

Dbb-Blue Sky Sunday

Sunday, I rolled out to Devil’s Backbone & Blue Sky for some more mtb action. Put the right off till the afternoon to give the legs some more time to recover and to be able to spend some time with Bridget & Lake. Give the legs a little more time to recover, plus it had rained just a tad saturday eve. We ended up heading into Boulder and riding the Boulder Creek path together and had some fun.

Got home and headed over to Devil’s Backbone and just rolled it up the first steep climbs. Legs felt plenty stiff & just rolled up the climb to open the legs up. I put some gas down on the Indian summer climb as I knew it was short and wanted to open the legs up and see what I could do. I felt fairly good, but could tell I was super tired. Heart rate barely climbed into tempo and that really told me just needed to take it easy. I headed over to Blue sky and just wanted to rip that trail at speed. Dirt was so perfect. ‘Hero dirt’ is a bit of a cliche, but literally never needed to touch my brakes on the out and back. Tons of fun just to rip the trail. Back up and over Indian Summer Trail and just as I was nearing the top of the climb, quick little descent and flatted. Ended up having to tube it up, but was kinda pleasant to sit there in the late afternoon sun, quite, peaceful, no riders on the trails and just enjoy the time to myself.

The flat tire kinda took the wind out of my sails and frankly I was just pretty tired. Ended up just rolling it easy on the chunky rock and making may way out.

All together was a pretty fun weekend. I think I’ll do another one again this coming weekend as the Bailey Hundo is on the horizon!