Rad ride today, but I am a ball of mush tonight. Another Ned-pic today with the boys. Bus up, climb in and up and traverse goodness at altitude. 5 hours, lots of miles covered and wasted legs.

We again hooked up some National Forest with some magical singletrack and used some ‘classics’, Sourdough and South St. Vrain, to connect even more.

The week was a bug’un for me with tons of early AM sessions on the fatty tires…even a session on the skinny tires. Riding today never felt good. No power, rhythm, flow. I attempted in vein to hike up my big girl panties but to no avail. Riding Sourdough is like this 6 mile slog over a gigarntic rock field. Rhythm is hard, constant power spurts to climb up and over small lips and riding clean…OK, I’m complaining again. It was sickeningly beautiful but you need to be on your A game which I wasn’t. The pay off is that you pop out at Brainard Lake at 10,000ft  at the end of Sourdough and it’s rad. I recommend that whole area as well for camping and hiking. Insanely beautiful.

From Sourdough we traversed through the Brainard Lake Park area on some great singletrack and you start losing altitude. We’d end up dropping about 5K of elevation by the time we’d get home. We hooked up with South St. Vrain and the trail was exactly the same as Sourdough, except it tilts downward. ‘A’ game was an absolute necessity to keep concentration over the rock fields and drop offs…else you will bury your mug in a large granite rock. It’s sick though and if you have some skills, I recommend you rail this trail at some point.

My body is taking a mad abuse it seems though. I love my hard tail, but I need to get back on FS at some point. These long rides are taking it’s toll on my carcass. I get somewhat  chub-ified over the WB’s S-Works. 22 lbs and a perfect amount of travel for the epics that we do week in and out. Oy. I need to save my pennies…sell some bikes (and a kidney) and maybe I’ll go hunt something like it down.

This buttercup is going to rest up. Git back  on ‘er when I feel all rested up.