Epic

Went for an epic ride on Saturday, truely epic totally!!!!! We left the house, rode over to the park and got in a couple laps at tempo . . . epic . . . ok, that's enough of that. It was a big ride though. A few of us opted out of racing the Leaving 99 Crit to get in a long day in the hills.


I had to trick some of the teammates into the death march, telling them it wouldn't be much more than about five hours of riding. It wasn't really, I swear, depending on how you count. Everybody met at my house and in an attempt to show them that riding with me wasn't all about punishment and suffering, I fed everybody some buttermilk and cracked pepper biscuits that I made special for the morning. We ate a little, drank some espresso and headed out.

The general plan was Denver -> Morrison -> Lookout frontage -> Evergreen Parkway -> Squaw -> Idaho Springs -> Casino Parkway -> Peak to Peak -> Golden Gate -> Golden -> Denver . . . or something like that. I wasn't out to set any records, just wanted a long day in the hills and that's what I got. I was impressed with both Randy and Chip for hanging in there over the course of the day. There are times along that route where the fun of riding disappears and you start to question just about everything. Once you get to Idaho Springs, there is no getting home without some tough climbs. We opted for the long route through Blackhawk and fortunately the weather held despite threatening a couple times.


Despite the snow piled up at the side of the road, it was quite warm out on Saturday. Even the descent down Squaw into Idaho Springs was quite pleasant. Saturday was also a good day to test out some of the new equipment and I have to say, I am quite impressed with the Edge Composites fork. It dampens enough to keep the ride comfortable, but you can feel the road much better than you can with most of the other forks I have ridden. It felt nice and snappy on the curves and what not. It was also the first day on the Speedplay Zero pedals which took very little time to adjust to. My teammates were nice enough to make fun of me struggling to get into the pedals at the first few lights out of town . . . they got what they had coming to them.

Sunday's ride was much shorter with the goal of just opening up and getting off the bike shortly thereafter. Nothing like following Mike Carter up High Grade while he's toodling along in the 53x17 . . . after about 25 minutes of that, I felt "open" and rode home with Pinkerton and called it a weekend. This week should be decent for getting some rest and recovery since the weather forecast is calling for nothing good.