Bike, Weather and Moose

I went on a 7.5 hour mtb ride this weekend in winter park. According to weather.com (the worst weather site in the world) it was going to be 50 degrees and sunny. Well...it was 30 degrees and snowing. But since the grandparents had the kids and my wife was taking a class and I had woken up at 6am to drive up to Winter Park, I figured I might as well go for the ride I had planned. I rode some really good trails I had never been on before, but the riding was really slow. There were a lot of roots on the climbs that were snowy and wet and my tire would spin so I had to get off an walk a lot. I also had to eat a lot because it was cold, fortunately I was prepared and ate 6 powerbars and a PB sandwich (no J). The snow kept falling off the trees and I ended up really wet, not to mention I was crossing a creek and I thought I was stepping on solid ground covered by snow only to find out otherwise when I was almost knee high in the water. I took a picture of a big bull moose and then it chased me scaring the crap out of me. I wasn't sure how to save myself from a moose, do I punch him in the nose, chuck my bike at him, climb a tree? I don't know when it stopped chasing me but I hammered for a long time before I realized I was probably safe. All told it was a fine ride. I had to cut it 20 miles short because I was traveling so much slower than I thought I would. I rode 50 of the 70 miles I had wanted to travel.


Driving over the Pass.


Clear cut because of Beetle Kill.


Logging trucks made a mess of the road, which made a mess of my bike.


Cool board walk.


Moose, it chased me after I put the camera away and started riding.


Lower elevation, great trail.



This must have been a nice house at some point.

PreRace.com

Fall Ride

I have only ridden my bike once a week for about 1.5 hours since the finish of the Breck Epic. So nothing worth writing home about until this past weekend.

A couple friends and I met up at the bus station in Boulder to catch the 8:10am bus to Nederland. There we met up with a couple other friends and hung out at the Happy Trails coffee shop of a few minutes. The ride was meant to be an epic cyclocross ride, but since I sold my cross bike earlier this summer I had to use the 29 inch Superfly. Everyone else was on a cross bike, but once all was said and done I think I had the right bike.

We rolled out and climbed up the Eldora Ski resort and headed over to Tennessee Mtn Hut. When we got to TMH we stopped for a break and out from under a pile of logs appeared a six pack of PBR. Josh, one of the riders in our group, had planned ahead and hidden six packs of beer at various stops along the ride. At that point I realized we were in for a long day. It was a great day of riding, with friends, beers, and great views. I got home 7.5 hours later having ridden about 65 miles.

Here are some of the pictures.







And as always the link back to PreRace.com http://www.prerace.com