First ride of 2007
What a gorgeous day. Not ideal for (road) cycling....unless you go one speed. S0, i unhooked 
the single speed today from its perch in the car hole and bombed for about 2.5 hours through some awesome scenery. Some road, but lots of through-the-woods that have been nicely matted by Nordic skiers. This route I go on is epic. You can literally do an almost 3 hour ride from the front door without touching pavement. Take this in context as it's not like living up in Breck or Santa Cruz when you can roll from your door and do 5 hour epics. This is the 'burbs baby and ya gots to do what you gots to do when the weather does not cooperate.
So I jammed this route which leads from Elk's Lodge in Boulder traversing due East towards Longmont almost 100% rad scenic dirt path (covered in snow now and matted by nordic track as I said). I hook this section up with some back ass trails in Longmont which start to lead South then over to Mesa in S. Boulder and on home back North traversing more dirt and bike paths, up Boulder 
Creek path then up Four Mile to Poormans. That last section on Poormans before it crests and you traverse back down to Sunshine lemme say is a beeatch. Dirk Friel I think has some stats on the elevation gain and grade. He does a lot with that fan dangle GPS stuff. Gotta ask him. It's especially hard when you run a retarded 36 x 16 like I do (gotta change this, this year...) on my single speed. I forgot that hill. I use it at the beginning of cross season traditionally. I start at the bottom of that beast and alternate riding-->dismount-->run 15 seconds uphill-->remount-->repeat. All the way up the mile or so. It make you strong like bull.
Anyhoo, great to get back on a bike again after taking time off. I've been pumping iron these days and allowing my wife to take me to her 'girly' weight class where it is anything but girly and am a certifiable wussy. The flogging is maddening. This little pint sized chick instructor has this cartoonish amount of weight on her bar and I have like two bagel sized weights. I'm weak.
I'm stoked on 07 already.
Monday, January 1, 2007 at 5:38PM
Reader Comments (4)
36x16??? In Boulder? I have to agree that is retardedly insane. I live on 34x18 - I'm such a wuss.
I miss snow. Eat some for me.
Great photo of the SS.
Dude, you're correct. In no way am I trying to be a hero. I built my SS on a poorman's budget and have always run 46/36/24 for my MTB set up. I whacked the big and little rings when I set it up for SS and left a 16 cog on 'cause it felt right'. HA! So whiel it is fun for peetering around flat land, it's a beeatch on any climbs...espceially technical climbs. I'm goonna go 34 18 for sure. Speaking of, check out Ken Bloomer's site at http://www.34x18.blogspot.com/. he does a TON for local CO 'cross advocacy.
in washington dc we make due with what we have
Ah, indeed we make due here. Imagine if you would a Wednesday AM during CX season...approximately 8AM. Imagine further that (no kidding) 60-80 people show up to train on these mornings from Tim Johnson, Lynne Bessette, JHK all the way through to local beginners who want to learn from the best. Imagine this circus traveling through town like a caravan showing up en masse to a local park where dog people are doing their business, runners are running, hikers hiking, etc etc and we park it, set up barriers and 60 people begin to race full gas around the park. So what picture am I painting here? Well a totally rad one to be honest but one that is getting so big and popular, we split the Wed AM training group in 2 last season. First time it was ever needed. We've been makin' due with our beautiful surroundings here for years more or less under the radar and now the popularity of CX has ballooned into something white hot. We don't want to piss anyone off any more (2 times last year the park rangers were dispateched to ask us to leave avrious parks). So, I guess we're just trying something new here (like other places in the UK...oh and Lousiville KY!!) let alone Belgium who have deidcated places for CX (and like multi sport) training so we do not bother any one. We'll see what happens!