Random Recap

The “fun” thing about not posting weekly-ish is that I get to empty interesting photos from my phone and try to string them together in a way that makes some sort of sense/entertainment for you, the reader.

I’ve been a little low on bike motivation for a while. Given Indy’s need for somewhat constant care, I’m not making any large race/travel plans for this summer. I’m not going to board him, and I don’t have the disposable income to pay for personalized dog sitting. So, I’m having to look to other places for opportunities to set goals for the upcoming year.

A couple of weeks ago I watched one of my coaches at the gym win the championship fight for his weight class… in 47 seconds. To see the outpouring of support from the other coaches and students at the gym was incredibly moving. I’m looking forward to trying out for the competition team in two weeks. A sizable portion of the tryout criteria is conditioning. So, I’m trying to get that in however I can, though being sick with two different colds in the span of three weeks sort of put a damper on that.

My two favorite workouts so far are riding the singlespeed up Lookout Mountain…

…and, of course, riding indoors. Get on, warm up, kill it, cool down. Boom- One hour and you’re done.

In the meantime, there’s a little bit of change going on with my work situation.

(unrelated pics of SRAM’s Reverb service clinic)

Once there was a barn dog named Hank (bear with me for just a minute. There’s a point to this story). He wasn’t overly affectionate, but he was cool with most people. For whatever reason, Hank hated me from day one. From the moment I pulled up in the barn parking lot, he would growl and bark and follow me around giving me the stink-eye. No amount of coaxing, squatting, avoiding eye contact, and offers of treats befriended him. Maybe I smelled/looked/sounded like someone who abused him. Maybe he didn’t like the sound of my car. No idea. Lord knows it wasn’t because I don’t love dogs.

The service manager at the Highlands Ranch Elevation Cycles is a human Hank. Dave is an excellent mechanic, a highly skilled rider, and generally seems like an OK guy. Dave also dislikes me for, well, I have no idea why. So, I’ll spare you the gory details and just say that as of Wednesday, I requested to not work with him any more. Lucky for me, the shop Owner/Management is very understanding, and I very much enjoy the company of my coworkers at the other two shop locations, so I’ll be splitting time between the Downtown Denver and Boulder shops. I think Elevations is a great place, so I’m not going to let one unfriendable person out of a company full of nice people mess that up for me.

Having yesterday off actually turned out to be a really good thing for me. I was able to go to the 6:00 Jiu Jitsu class that I normally can’t go to because of work. It just so happened that it was belt testing/promotion night. I left with two more stripes on my belt than I came in with…

I know these guys would be proud.

After the subsequent Muay Thai class, one of the long time students/coaches talked to me about her plans for getting a women’s sparring/training group together. She’s pretty badass, as are the other ladies that are on her short list for the group. I’m honored, for sure.

January 1, 2016January 2, 2016 Andrea

Adventures on Hold

Aside from a little snow on Christmas Day, the Holiday season came and went with little fanfare. I did go for a quick Christmas day hike up Green Mountain. It’s close to my house, and gives you one of the coolest 360 degree views of Denver and the Front Range.

North towards Boulder:

South:

East Towards Denver:

IPhone pictures don’t really do it justice, of course.

The couple of inches of snow on Christmas day were a good excuse to bundle up and go for another fatbike ride the day after Christmas. I rode it down the Ruby Hill Park sled hill as a bunch of kids cheered me on then hit the South Platte River Trail before the snowplows got there.

I’d love to take the fatbike to places other than the bike path… bringing me to the point of my post today. Since it got too cold to leave little old Indy out to wander the back yard, I can’t leave him alone for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time because he’s reached an age/level of dementia where he can’t go any longer without pottying on himself in his crate. It’s been hard… there are a couple of nearby winter bike races I’d love to go to and a lot of days where I’ve had the time and good weather to go up into the mountains and explore, but, in reality, Indy needs me more than I need to do those things.

It’s occasionally frustrating, but he’s been my best buddy for over 15.5 years now. I picked him out of the litter when he was the size of a gerbil and his eyes were still closed. I chose him over the others because, as I went through and picked each puppy up, he growled at me (a 2-week-old puppy growl is one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever heard, so I was immediately smitten). He’s been by my side through a lot of really difficult times in my life… more than any person I know. So, he’s 100% worth sacrificing a winter of adventures. I’ve got a lot more winters ahead of me, and he doesn’t. I owe it to him.

The ability to bring him with me has been the #1 condition of employment at my previous and current jobs-

On a less “my eyes are feeling leaky” note, please visit your local bike shop. Your bike likely needs a tune-up, and by bringing it in, you’re preventing boredom that leads to desperate activities such as mopping, campy shifter rebuilding,

and whatever the hell Brian is doing here…

Oh yeah, and speaking of bike shops… everyone at mine got one of these at the company holiday party:

It will likely see the sidelines of the gym before it sees the trail. I’m having a blast training MMA again. It’s definitely helping to maintain some fitness while it’s cold/dark.

I have a lot of incredible training partners (one of which has an incredibly bony back that I hit my chin on when we were drilling takedowns/sprawls). Most of them are bigger and/or stronger than me, but I’m used to that from back when I started road biking and would go on the hammerfest group rides with the dudes who raced a lot. It was hard as hell, but it only made me better.
I’ve figured out that the hammering you get on a group ride is way more ego-driven than one you get with good training partners practicing MMA. On the bike, it’s very much wanting to inflict pain on your group-mates, drop people, and show off how much stronger you are than them. In the gym, when you’re doing it right, the goal is to make both you and your training partner better. You can train solo to be fast on a bike. You can’t train solo for combat sports, and you can’t improve very far past the ability of your training partner.

The saying at the gym is, “Together, we are stronger.” It’s a beautiful thing.

August 6, 2015August 6, 2015 Andrea

Ready to Rock

I think it’s been one of the busiest recovery weeks I can remember. That last Winter Park race was rough- and rightfully so. I basically was lumping race days in with more long training days, recovering during the middle of the week, then repeating the cycle over and over. Each time, the block of training days felt a little harder until finally, right on schedule, I went to race the last XC race, and my body was like, “DUDE, WTF???!?”

So, I took a few days off, and I’ve been riding on a more “normal” schedule since then. I even went for a nice hike on Fairburn Mountain, which is just across the street from my neighborhood. I could hang around in the aspen tunnel all day…

I also found this in the middle of the woods. No trail, no other sign that people had even been there for a long time-

Last week, Jessica and John from Texas came through while she was on a big road trip. I showed Jessica my favorite trail in Golden Gate Canyon- the Mountain Lion trail. It’s one of my top 5 favorite descents, ever. There aren’t many people I’d take straight to that trail, because it’s got some rocks, roots, and plenty of places where you can hit your front brake and see those things up close. However, Jess excels at rocks, so I knew she’d be game.

The next day, we went to Rollinsville Pass. I wanted to show them the train trestle on the Winter Park side, but a storm cloud began gathering and growing as we neared the top. So, in order to avoid the lightning and hail I’d encountered before, we turned back at the Needle’s Eye tunnel.

Monday, Kenny from Memphis also made a road-trip stop-through. Matt and I rode with him at White Ranch. My legs finally felt like they’ve turned a corner and started to feel really good. I pushed the pace a little on a climb, but kept the ride short and sweet after that. Kenny and Matt went on to ride some more, and I went home to eat and recover in the Elevated Legs.

Side Note- There will be an Elevated Legs squeezing station at Breck Epic. It will cost a little money, but considering how much you’ve invested already if you’re doing the race, it’s chump change. I will be nearly living in my set of Legs when I’m not racing because they really work to get rid of that heavy, dead, post-race feeling. You should check them out for sure.

It’s definitely a tough to balance between recovery and visitors, but I seem to have come through it successfully. It’s a good thing, too, because the ladies’ singlespeed division at Breck Epic is small but strong. I’m full of beet juice and awesome right now, though. I’m also going to be racing this totally kickass bike-

After the Steve Domahidy episode of JRA (one of the best ever, BTW), I hustled my way in to him letting me borrow one of his Domahidy Designs titanium frames. I put my Pike on it along with all my singlespeed parts, and it rides great. It makes me even more excited for next week.

July 16, 2015July 16, 2015 Andrea

One Last Jet9 Adventure

This week, I’m replacing my trusty Jet9 RDO frame with a Mach 429sl. The Jet’s been a pretty badass bike. I’ve used it to win two Tennessee State Championships, climb huge mountains, climb small mountains, tackle rocks and roots from Memphis to Colorado, raced two enduros on it, and basically turned to it any time I wasn’t sure what sort of challenges I’d face on a given ride or race. If you refresh the page a few times, you’ll see that the Jet is a reoccurring theme in a lot of my adventures.

In my quest for Breck Epic prep, I decided to do a huge ride Sunday to stack some fatigue on top of my sore cross country legs. I went with 92Fifty Team friend Shane, who wanted to ride the Cougar Slayer course. Per Shane’s recommendation, I took the Jet9 because A) I wasn’t sure what the trails would be like, and B) I figured it’d be a nice final epic ride for that bike before I sell it off to the next person. We planned a shuttle, and he loaded the course into his garmin. He figured it’s take us somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 hours.

Easier said than done.

Within the first 30 minutes, we were searching for a turn off of a forest road and on to a trail. We eventually found it when we saw three random old dudes on circa 1995 mountain bikes riding through the woods on a trail not far from us. One guy’s canti brakes were howling as he picked his way down a long descent. The trail dumped us out at what looked like someone’s driveway. Luckily, no one was home.

We were somewhat lost other than knowing we were west/northwest of Nederland. That’s basically how much of the adventure went until we arrived at the Sourdough and South Saint Vrain Trails. I’d never ridden them, but Shane was somewhat familiar. I lost my front wheel on a rock climbing up Sourdough and fell on to more rocks. Luckily, I wasn’t any worse than bruised.

Soon enough, we were back to only having a vague idea of where we were… somewhere near Ward. After some more forest road riding, we found ourselves on a moto trail near Gold Lake. It was pretty terrible. We were both getting to be death-march tired and were only 30-something miles in to the course (the course being 62 miles plus another 10-ish to get back to his house from the end). I did get a nice picture of the view from the top of a ridgeline climb.

Soon after, I wrecked again near the bottom of a descent that was so blown out, it was basically a chute full of loose rocks and sand. Still just bruised, we descended more of the same stuff to Lefthand Canyon Road, where, at mile 40ish/6 hours, Shane brought up the option of turning left instead of right to leave the course and head back to Boulder. After a few minutes of hemming and hawing, we decided to go back to the house (the tipping point for me was that I’d left Indy on his porch, and I was a little worried about him).

It was a tough day. We finished up with 54 miles and 5,500 ft of climbing… though, if I had to make an educated guess, about 5200 of those feet were climbed by 35 miles into the ride. I was beat. And, to top it all off, pulling up at Shane’s house, I realized that I’d left the keys to my car- our shuttle vehicle back to Nederland- in my purse, in Shane’s car, in Nederland. I had to call Matt to come up after work and give us a ride to get Shane’s car.

At least Indy was perfectly fine. On the way home, I stopped and picked up a pint of cookies and cream ice cream and ate the entire thing. Those two things made the day more tolerable.

I needed a brutal beatdown of a ride like that. I need to get at least one more of those in my legs before Breck Epic, and several more of them before Vapor Trail 125… two months from now.

July 8, 2015July 8, 2015 Andrea

Firecracker 50 Race Report

Since my last post, where I laid out a kickass plan for some overload leading up to Breck Epic, things haven’t gone exactly I’ve expected (though, when do they ever??). The Firecracker 50 race was excellent. I last minute teamed-up with Liz Carrington, a fast lady from Durango who I met at Team camp in Moab back in March. The Firecracker race, which is one of the biggest ones in Colorado, is two laps around a 25ish mile course of forest road and trail. It’s a good mix of climbing and fast rolling/descending. For the duo category, each team member rides one lap. Liz wanted to go first so she wouldn’t have to sit around waiting and being nervous. I wanted to go second so I wouldn’t have to deal with as much trail crowding. So, it worked out really well.

The race start is also the start of the Breckenridge city 4th of July Parade. Each category goes off down the main street to a crowd of parade-watchers and kids wanting high fives. I opted to roll with the start and pull over at the end of main street (an option extended to teammates who are doing 2nd laps), though I didn’t high five any kids. Kid hands are gross.

The waiting around wasn’t all that bad. After a couple of hours, I ate a Gu and started rolling around to warm up. It was a little more crowded in the team start area than what I’d expected, so I couldn’t really see who was coming through and tagging out. I just watched for Liz’s yellow helmet to come down the switchbacks behind the park. When she did, I elbowed my way into the exchange area, and she rolled up saying we were in 2nd place.

I hadn’t seen the other team make the exchange, so I had no idea who I was looking for on my lap. Everyone was supposed to have calf markings with their category, but it seemed like half the women I caught had no calf marking. I didn’t care. I just charged. I felt like a bull raging down the trail. I’ve only ever ridden Breckenridge on a singlespeed (between my first Firecracker 50/Marathon Nationals, Breck 100, and two Breck Epics). I was motivated by how hard I could go on the flatter/rolling spots on a geared bike. I also laughed int he face of Little French, the infamous steep and rocky climb that takes you up to somewhere around 11k feet of elevation. It’s a relative piece of cake when you have a full suspension and a granny gear.

The only disappointing part of my lap was the two dudes that dove in to the final descent ahead of me and another women who didn’t have a calf marking. The last downhill is a bunch of awesome banked turns into Carter Park. The dude in front was terrible at the turns and wouldn’t let anyone by. It meant that there was another dude, the non-marked lady, and myself all rubbing tires going down the last mile of trail. I don’t now if she was aware of my presence, but I decided that I was going to sprint past her on the final 50-ish feet of straightaway before the finish line just in case she was the person I’d been chasing the entire time. She looked at me funny when I did that, but I didn’t really care. It’d be a terrible way to get 2nd place if she was the person I was trying to catch the entire time.

She wasn’t, though. We were second by a pretty stout margin (about 15 minutes) behind Jamie Brede and Kelly Boniface. I didn’t feel bad, though. I am really happy with how hard I rode and how steady I felt over my 2 hours and 18 minutes of ride time. I was totally gassed by the end. It makes me feel a little more confident in m fitness and nutrition (a.k.a. a flask full of Roctane gel) to go harder in the other XC races I’m planing on entering. Also, 2nd out of 34 women’s duo teams isn’t bad at all.

The effort left me pretty weak for the next two days of planned overload. I went out for an easy-ish ride with JRA Superfan/92Fifty Temmate Jake on Sunday, then tried to show Rollins Pass to Matt on Monday, but we ended up getting caught in the rain on a long descent, so it turned into “get coffee in Rollinsville and death march home” instead. We had enough rain gear & warm clothing that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

It’s basically been raining since then. It sucks, because it’s not the typical “20-minute storm then sun” pattern. It’s just cold, grey, rain. It should lead to a pretty sloppy Winter Park XC this weekend, but with my singlespeed and meaty tires, I’m sure everything will be fine.

July 1, 2015 Andrea

Epic Prep Time

From the “don’t try this at home” files…

The Breck Epic, a 6 day stage race out of Breckenridge, CO, is a burly task. One that, if someone is going to race it, they generally plan and train far in advance. I’ve been hoping to get in this year, and I found out late last week that I’d be racing it. That gives me exactly six weeks of prep time. I’ve raced it two other times (won it once)… the siren song of its official-ish self-declaration of being the “singlespeed stage race world championships” drew me to race singlespeed both years. If you told me two years ago that I’d have to take on such a task with six weeks of focused preparation, I would have balked a little. However, I have come to realize that A)being acclimated to living at above 9000ft will mean a lot, and B) I’ve developed a good bit of “old woman power” to fall back on when the race exceeds my current level of training.

Old Woman Power (and likewise, Old Man Power) is a somewhat abstract combination of physical and mental abilities that give you an almost-mythological power over your younger opponents. I’m just now getting experienced enough to tap in to the edge of it, and it’s pretty awesome. It’s worth mentioning that my riding since I’ve come to Colorado, while done without any real structure or plan other than “ride a lot until you’re tired and then take a break,” is conducive to a successful Breck Epic. I’ve done lots of climbing, lots of back-to-back big days, and the 4-5 hour outing feels pretty normal to me now.

So, these last few weeks before I need to taper back and rest ahead of the start will basically just involve a little more focus on back-to-back training days. For example- I raced Winter Park on Saturday, went out for a 3-hour singlespeed gravel grinder on Sunday, then rode four hours of front range stuff from down in Lakewood on Monday. I’ll mostly rest/recover this week, then repeat the process over the weekend when I race the Firecracker 50 (as part of a relay duo) on Saturday, do a long, high singlespeed ride of some sort on Sunday, then another played-by-ear hard ride on Monday. I’ll add in another mid-week hard ride on Wednesday or Thursday, then race Winter Park XC again on Saturday and repeat the weekend pattern of 3 hard days before simmering the volume down a little bit each week leading up to the race.

It’s worth mentioning, I take recovery pretty seriously. For general well-being, I go to yoga two days per week, try to sleep at least 7-8 hours a night, and visit the chiropractor. Acutely, I make sure to follow all of my back-to-back ride days with a recovery drink and 30-60min of time in the Elevated Legs. I can tell a difference if I skip those things during multiple days of hard riding. If you’re going to invest the time, effort, and money in to bike racing, you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t do things that maximize your recovery. Those things are my not-so-secret weapons against feeling like crap on days 2 and 3.

Speaking of products that give you energy, I have some other cool, Epic-Related news- If you’ve ever skipped the products at an aid station because you hadn’t tried them before, then some of you may be in luck. I’ll be handing out free samples of Gu Energy product to anyone that is registered for Breck Epic and either comes to the shop or finds me at a race (I’ll be racing regionally most weekends up until August). That way, you can try it out and make sure the taste/digestibility works for you, and you’ll be able to confidently take advantage of Gu’s sponsorship of the Breck Epic event. If you’re interested, shoot an email to andrea at brickhouseracing dot com or comment below (make sure you enter a valid email address with your comment)

I’m super excited. Breck Epic is one of my favorite races for sooooo many reasons. It can’t be August soon enough!

June 25, 2015June 25, 2015 Andrea

Indecisions (photo heavy)

I’m sitting around the RV right now wringing my hands about what to do this weekend. I’m entered in the Snowmass BME race. For whatever reason, my motivation to go to said race has fizzled out. I’m not really sure why- it’s sort of a combination of the thought of being in a ski village for a few days combined with the fact that the race is mostly lift-serviced. I’m not criticizing the organizers for that second one, but, personally speaking, it’s not nearly as appealing to me as non-lift serviced riding. I could race Singlespeed XC at Winter Park instead, and it’d be a cheaper day trip as opposed to a three day/two night stay in the land of $17 hamburgers.

On the other hand, it’s been ingrained into my psyche for as long as I remember that you don’t just back out of things because you’re feeling wishy-washy (see pic of Gerald in my previous post). That personality trait makes more sense for children and teenagers than it does for an adult making a financially and personal preference-based decision, but it still makes me feel superiorly guilty to consider backing out.

The last week of riding was such a beautiful mix of both styles that it doesn’t help me much. The day after the Beti Bike Bash, I met some new friends at Keystone. Along the way, I stopped for an impromptu hike up the mountain from Loveland Pass. I can’t get enough of being up that high. It’s one of the most beautiful experiences on earth.

There are tons of tiny wildflowers blooming. It boggles my mind to see something so delicate in such a harsh place.

Keystone is gnar. Only the bottom half of the mountain was being serviced, and no one wanted to pedal up higher, so we stuck to the lower trails. They were chunky and steep. It’s the sort of stuff that, on the right day, I am pretty damn good at navigating… especially on the Mach 6, where I’m more limited by my nerve than by my machine.

Mid week, I took the singlespeed out for some gravel riding in the backcountry. I discovered some pretty nice “roads”

… including one that was basically a 1000ft descent on a blown-out chunk atv trail that I was sure would be gated off with a no trespassing sign between me and where I wanted to go. I was mentally prepped for a hour of hiking back up if that were the case, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the “use this road, but hurry T.F. up” sign.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the snow had melted off of Dakota Hill (the place where I’ve experienced my recent “lost in the snow” adventures).

Bookending my week, I went with Matt to Winter Park to do more lift riding. It was fun, though I wasn’t feeling the chunk that day like I had at Keystone (which isn’t too terrible, considering there isn’t as much chunk at Winter Park).

There are a ton of tabletop jumps, which I’ve never actually learned to do (and actually wrecked on one at Keystone). I definitely improved while I was there. I can now leave the entry jump and land both wheels at the same time on the top part of the jump. I even made it smoothly across a couple of the smaller ones. Matt, on the other hand, was riding BMX before I learned how to ride a bike, so he’s pretty cozy with them.

To balance the pre-packaged adventure of life-service riding, I ventured into the backcountry again yesterday. It’s been really warm here (in the low 80s!) so I wanted to see how far up I could go on Rollins Pass. Aside from a couple of snowy patches on the way up, it’s not totally covered until about 10,700ft.

In the shop this week, I overhauled our Mach 6 Demo bike so it could be sold. It’s buttery smooth now. Anyone interested in purchase can email me andrea at 92fifty dot com. It’s a medium, 2×10, and in good shape other than the usual bumps and scratches. Asking price, $3800.

We’ve also got a stack of MBR stickers

And, your bike hates you…

Now that I’ve typed it all out, I realize that what it boils down to is that Enduro seemed like an awesome idea until I realized that my fitness is decent again, and I can’t help but fall back in love with riding singlespeed. Don’t get me wrong- I really enjoy enduro racing… I just don’t have the motivation to spend the time and money traveling to do it right now. Other than feeling like I’m a giant disappointment of a human being for bailing on something I’d already committed to, I think I’m just going to bail on it, anyway, and go race SSXC in Winter Park on Saturday.

June 13, 2015June 13, 2015 Andrea

Rest, Explore, Race

In the absence of a structured training program (which I dropped last Fall when I found myself too freaked out by the thought of training on the road and limited by weather for consistent training on the trail), I’ve taken to riding hard for a block of time and laying off when the rides start to get arduous. Following the rides I posted about last time, I found myself needing a break from the epics when Matt and I went for a Golden Gate Canyon ride and I fell apart after the first hour.

I will say, though, when you’re having a hard time, and you open up a 4-pack of Gu Chomps to find that it’s a magical 7-pack, it can lift your spirits a tiny bit.

So, I’ve been taking it a little easy. I make sure to go to yoga twice a week almost no matter what. I’ve dedicated my ride time to exploring little offshoots and mining roads that mostly end up being extended hike-a-bikes up scree fields. Sometimes, the hike-a-bikes end at nothing in particular. Other times, you find a an outcropping that over looks the entire valley in which you reside and you don’t want to leave.

Pictures never do these things justice.

Other discoveries include a mining claim of some sort-

As well as one of my favorite trail features of all time, the aspen tunnel-

I still have some places to explore. I pushed/rode to this split the other day, and because of weather and time constraints, had to turn and go back-

Then, when I went back out the next day to find that spot, I ended up on someone’s horse trail (more accurately, a path through the national forest land on which someone has repeatedly ridden their horse) and found this spot-

I’ve borrowed a hand-held GPS from my dad so that I can go out for more adventures and be slightly less lost.

Now that I’m rested and relaxed, I think it may be time to test my legs out. Tomorrow is the Beti Bike Bash in Castle Rock. There’s a singlespeed category. If everything goes as planned, I’ll drive down in the morning and give it a go.

June 6, 2015June 6, 2015 Andrea

Adventuring

I put some good time in during the last week. Sunday, I rode with Jon and Tim Lutz. We made he Grand Loop of nearly all the trails in Golden Gate Canyon.

While I wasn’t feeling particularly fast that day, I was for whatever reason, full of endurance energy. I saw moose for the first time while we were out.

It was a hair under 30 miles to ride from the shop, and about 5k feet of climbing. The trails out there are pretty great. Lots of ThunderChunk. My favorite. Afterward, the three of us went to a local bar/restaurant and consumed an exorbitant amount of food.

Monday, I went out for an adventure up high(ish). I have been eyeing a loop that goes up Apex Valley and eventually comes out at Rollinsville Pass Road. I was in the company of thunderstorms all day, though the only time one actually got me, I found a place to hide out for a few minutes while it passed.

The last two times I’ve scoped the route out, I was thwarted by large amounts of snow. This time, I wasn’t as thwarted, though I still found large-ish amounts of snow. The first pic is a short push at the top of the big climb of the day (about 10.5k’ elevation).

On the other side, I was hopeful that it’d be pretty clear

That wasn’t the case, though

I did eventually get to Rollinsville Pass Road. After tourist-ing around at the Moffat Tunnel entrance, I decided to see how high I could get up the pass before I hit snow.

Answer- about 3 miles

I headed on my way back down to Rollinsville and back south towards the house on another county road. I was greeted at the top with another half mile of snow.

I’ll probably save riding this loop again for sometime in July. It’s exceptionally gorgeous up there.

That evening, I saw another moose. He was HUGE and just chilling out in the field behind my house. From what I gather of locals’ information, moose are basically gigantic angry horses on steroids and are not to be messed with. I got close enough to zoom in and get a few pics before retreating from his territory.

Tuesday morning, I wanted to go on another Apex Valley Road Adventure before work. In the hopes of keeping the ride at non-epic-pre-work length, I planned a route that would keep me somewhat close to the house. I was feeling the previous two days in my legs for sure, so I took it easy up the first climb

I saw a compact car full of young adults coming down from where I was headed. When I got to my turnoff from the main road, I saw what looked like their camp. They’d left their campfire not actively flaming but still red hot and smoldering. So, I dumped some snow on top of it.

Turns out, the road I wanted to take was uphill and covered in snow.

So, I tried to find the same road on the other side of the mountain, where it’d be downhill and covered in snow (way easier to hike through). However, all I did was get pretty lost. The jeep road I was snow-hike-a-biking on just ended at a creek. So, I bushwhack-hike-a-biked down the mountain to a county road I could take back home. Once I was at the road, I stopped to gather my thoughts.

I can get in to more shit on a three hour bike ride than what most people will get into during their entire lives. This place is amazing like that. There’s basically endless access to getting “lost” in the mountains around here. It’s awesomely soul-cleansing.

June 1, 2015June 1, 2015 Andrea

Lower Porcupine Rim Handicap World Cup Race

Jakub and I wanted to do some sort of a shorter and more intense ride on Monday morning so we could hit the road and be home at a decent hour ahead of some of the Memorial Day traffic. He had the idea of riding the lower portion of Porcupine Rim that you access from a jeep road turnoff about 5-6 miles up Sand Flats Road (if you were doing the “real” Lower Porcupine, you’d go 7-8 miles up, and for Upper Porcupine, you’d go 9 miles up Sand Flats and turn left for another 20ish minute climb up the Kokopelli Trail). He said he could do the lower loop in just three hours.

I had the idea of starting ahead of him and, at first assuming he’d catch me somewhere along the way. He wanted to give me a 25 minute lead since, on the second day of the trip (when I was having a bad time), he’d caught up to me on Sand Flats with me getting a 20 minute head start. However, I started to joke with him about the possibility of his not catching me.

Just a note about Jakub… he’s raced World Cup races for the Czech Republic. He’s fast. Really fast. He’s also young and hasn’t fully grasped the concept of Old Woman Power… something I’m just beginning to tap in to.

I played some head games with him-

Me: You want to hide the car keys here since I’m going to get back here ahead of you?
Jakub: Oh, yeah, sure
Me: What, you’re doubting yourself now?

It went on for most of the morning until I rolled out of camp at 7:55am.

I didn’t totally hammer… even the “short” loop was a long climb, the last few miles of which are a steppy, steep jeep trail. Blowing up early would make that section incredibly difficult.

I was watching my Garmin to note where I was on the climb at 8:20am. Then, my Garmin ran out of batteries somewhere around 8:40am. I’d just have to pace myself off of feel. I ate a couple of Gu Roctane gels on the way up. Side note- it’s not often that you’re gonna read me straight up schilling my sponsors, because honestly, that’s pretty obnoxious and transparent to read. However… Holy crap does Roctane give you a boost for the sort of intensity I was turning out. Seriously- it makes a hard effort feel less tiring. I’d be happy to give anyone a couple out of my own stock for you to try during your next interval workout. It takes normal energy gel to a whole ‘nother level.

I made it to the jeep road turnoff and the road behind me was still empty. I allowed my intensity to creep up just a little, because I knew that if I could rock the techy stuff, it’d keep me ahead. Along the way, I told a group of people to chant “USA” at Jakub when he chased by them. I reached the end of the jeep road at its intersection of the Porcupine Rim trail, and still no Jakub. I stopped and donned my knee pads.

Most people take a picture of what’s behind me here, because it’s gorgeous. Duty calls, though.

From there, it’s a little bit rollling before the trail goes mostly downhill. I hammered it out and let loose as much as I was willing. At that point, I knew the trail well enough to know where the scary stuff was and where I could go all out. I only looked back a couple of times, and no Jakub. I actually got just a little worried that he’d wrecked in his chasing. The last part of the trail gets a little hairy with some ledges and exposure. I was sure that I’d get caught there, but, lo and behold… I made it to the bike tunnel at the bottom, still ahead.

I checked the time (10:52am), took my picture, rolled through, and sat down on the rocks on the other side to take my knee pads off and eat a snack. About the time I was getting up to roll back to camp, Jakub came through the tunnel (10:57am). He’d gone all out. We high-fived and rolled back kinda easy on the bike path.

Perfect wrap-up for the trip. I’m finally feeling some fitness coming back. Not being able to go back and look at power numbers for the ride is a little disappointing, but I could tell on the harder jeep road stuff that my legs still had some juice, even after a 5 mile road climb. My descending is still just OK. Being alone that day, I took all of the “easier” options down the trail and avoided what drops I could. I gotta work on that.

brickhouseracing

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