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.