Another Hundy

My January goal for cycling miles is 600+ so I needed a big ride Saturday as I was sitting at 460 miles as of Friday night. A majority of my January miles have been on the single speed cross bike and running a 42x18 and sometimes a 17. A good gear for me for the most part for winter training. I opted to go over to Montrose and ride with TR as the roads are dry and the weather was looking good. There is so many roads between Montrose and Grand Junction; just pick a direction and get as many miles as you want. Incredible gravel grinding routes mixed with asphalt. The route was a perfect hundy when said and done when arriving back at TR's house. We rode toward Colona looped around on the east side of Montrose and rode gravel on Peach Valley Rd, over to Eckert, to Delta and Olathe area and back to the west side of Montrose. Not much traffic for the most part and saw only 2 others out riding. I need 36 miles today to get over 600 miles and I plan on doing some climbing miles and some hill repeats at Lizard Head on the single speed.


Peach Valley Road.

Grinding our way towards the Grand Mesa.

Leadville 100

Well, I threw my name into the hat for the lottery pick to get into the Leadville 100 MTB race this year. I tried a few years back and didn't get picked. I know its a roadies type of race and I have downplayed the significance of this race but I figured why not try it once. We will wait and see if I'm picked.

Quadruple Bypass

The opportunity came up to go back to Arizona this past weekend and ride the Quadruple Bypass Race/Ride. An underground type race that puts you over 4 passes in the Scottsdale/McDowell Park area of Phoenix. It was my first time down to ride this one and knew it would be a great early season effort. I had ridden most of the terrain we were to cover on this day with Shawn Gregory back in November. TR Larson came down with me as well as he is one not to miss a big fun ride. About 30+ riders showed up for this suffer fest. The mileage wasn't all that great with 34 miles but the elevation gain was around 7k for that short distance. TR, myself and Dave Brudette crushed the course in 4 hours and 44 minutes and set a new course record that had saw a previous record of just over 5 hours. Dave did have a flat tire at the end of Windgate and opted to ride it in on the flat. That rider I am told was on a geared bike. TR and I were on singles running a 32x20 gearing and Dave was on a Turner 5 spot FS. A 21 tooth would have been nice at times. Dave can downhill like a goat on wheels. Truly amazing skills. I was setting tempo for the most part with TR on my wheel and Dave right behind as we crushed the uphills. The route had us going over Windgate Pass to Bell Pass over to Sunrise Pass and dropping to the McDowell Park side to ride around and back over Windgate Pass and back to the Basha's parking lot in Scottsdale where we had started. The weather was perfect with temps in the 70's. Looking forward to more Arizona riding in February.

Quote from the MTBR Forum from a fellow rider: "Those two doods from Colorado just made us look silly finishing the ride in sumpin like 4:40"

All pictures below are poached from the MTBR thread. Thank you fellow riders for taking the time to stop and take pics as my head was buried hustling along.

Sedona Weekend

I was looking for a warmer climate to camp and ride in so we travelled down to Sedona for the long holiday weekend. We chose to look for some new camping places and picked the area south of Village of Oak Creek on Beaverhead Flat Road to explore for some fine camping. There is some great primitive camping a few miles into Beaverhead Flat Road and we find an ideal spot to park the van and set up camp. There are many forest service roads in this area. It was our first time to use the Rhino Rack Awning system besides me setting it up in the garage. It is much easier to use than an ez up and stores right on the van via attachments for the Yakima poles. Ingenious!! Also, with the nearly full size bed built in the van now it is a great camping vehicle. Laura loves it. We brought the mountain bikes and the cross bikes to mix up the riding. I didn't get in nearly all the miles I wanted but still had a great time. We also rode some new trails close by that I haven't yet ridden and some are meant for hiking only. Hot Loop Trail is one in my opinion. Kel Fox Trail is a great connector trail from our camping area and drops you down to what the locals call the Easter Egg house and than ride some pavement to get to Bell Rock Pathway to access the other trails.


Sunset.

Kel Fox Trail.

A nice watering hole on the Hot Loop Trail.

Laura navigating the Kel Fox trail.

Thats all for now. Keep pedaling or moving........................

Weekend Wrap-up

The short weekend was pretty good. OK, not short but 2 days just isn't enough to do everything I want to do. Friday night we just chilled and stayed in with the fire going and I had visions of riding a hundred miles somewhere. At first thought I was going to travel over near Moab/Monticello and ride some roads I hadn't ridden before but after seeing the local weather in Rico/Cortez was going to be sunny with only a 30% chance of snow I intended on staying local. So, I panned on riding from the house to Cortez and back to Rico for an easy hundy. I departed the house a bit late around 10.30am with a temperature around 12-14 degrees. I finally arrived in Cortez around 1.30 pm and rode to the Kokopelli bike shop to try and hit the 50 mile mark before I turned around to slog back up the highway to Rico. Paul Adams was there working and had some tasty french fries for me to chow down. They hit the spot. The ride to Cortez from Rico is mostly a downhill grade with a few climbs totaling about 500 feet of climbing. All of the climbing is going back. I was riding a light gear (42x18) which turned out to be favorable with my legs getting tired at around mile 70. And with the new cyclocross Kenda Kwickers on the bike the fresh knobby tread wasn't fast by any means. I had told Laura come look for me if I wasn't home by 6.30 or so. I had rear flashers on the bike and only a little frog type front white light for oncoming cars to see me. It didn't do much good in the dark for me to see the road. At around 5.20 I was up to Scotch Creek and only a few miles from the house when I see Laura out cruising for me to see if was close to getting home. I told her I was good to make my hundy so she went back home and I arrived in Rico with a couple miles to go to make a hundred so I did a few laps in the dark in town and arrived in my driveway at exactly 100.00 miles. Took awhile with a time of 6 hours and 53 minutes. I wasn't on any record breaking pace and ended up with an average of 14.5 mph and just a smidge over 4k of climbing. Nothing to brag about I guess but I obtained my goal of a hundred miles with no inclement weather to speak of. Just cold blue skies. This was also my first ride with the Bar Mitts and what a difference they make. I wore lightweight type cold weather gloves and the hands never got close to being cold. If you get these get the large as the smalls I first got were to tight. I need the mountain bike version of these as well. I didn't take any pictures but here is one of the bike after I got home.








Sunday I piddled around in the morning and made it out of the house around noon for a 6 mile snowshoe run/hike with Shady right out of the house. The temperature never rose above 25 for the day with snow blowing off and on. Once I climbed from the house for a gain around 500 feet I get to a graded fire road they groom for skiing and it goes for a few miles to the North side of Rico. It is a nice out and back from the house. I had to punch through some deep powder below the crystal mine and fell a few times as the running snowshoes aren't exactly made for the deep powder. I got even more of a workout when I got back home by scraping snow off the house roof with my snow rake. I a great upper body workout.



Shady waiting for me to hustle up.

Shady having fun rolling around in the snow.

Old mine building.

New Team

This is hilarious!! Paul Adams made this up for me today. The funny thing is that I would actually wear a picture of myself.

Envisioning

Get my Run on.....

Did a 7.5 mile run last night after work. With Laura and I car pooling together it makes it convenient for me to jump out of the car on the way back to Rico and do a nice run on the highway. Not much climbing but a great long distance run. On this particular run I hopped out of the car at the Dunton Road turn off. It did get a bit cold and when I arrived home just before 7pm the temperature was a balmy 14 degrees.

Tonight Laura and I are going xc skiing at Lizard Head on the way home from work. It should be clear skies and cold at 10k.

12 Hour Races

I am signed up now for the 12 Hours of Dawn til Dusk and for 12 Hours of Mesa Verde. These two events will sell out quickly in the solo categories so do not delay registering for these two primo events.

http://www.dawntilduskrace.net/

http://12hoursofmesaverde.com/

SnowShoe Fun with the Dawgs

I had Monday off of work so I made a trek to Cortez to grocery shop. Living in a remote area such as Rico you have to make do without most amenities that you folks in bigger towns have right around the corner. I had brought my cyclocross bike but the roads to my surprise were in far worse conditions than up in Rico. I decided not to ride and go back to Rico and take the dogs on a snowshoe hike. The beauty of living here is if so chose you will not see a human being at all. Pick the right area and go where no one has been since the snows have fallen. Today's choice was Ryman Creek. I considered this day to be my 'off' day of working out and still burned a fair amount of calories busting trail with the dawgs. Paradise is where we live and it surely has it's trials and burdens but I wouldn't live anywhere else for the time being. No stop lights, no pollution and no crowded roads and trails.

Nacho checking out the tree well area.

Lucy and Shady having a ball in the powder.

Sorrel's and MSR snowshoes are perfect for this type of snow hiking.