Long, cold ride

Jung, Scott and I set out from Boulder at the late, late hour of 12:30 today to try to ride a biggish ride. Weather looked threatening, so we figured we'd go uphill until it got bad, then flip it and head home. 45 miles and 4800 vertical feet later, I'm toast - we climbed up Boulder Canyon/4mile/Wallstreet/Penn Gulch to the Peak to Peak highway, and then rode back on jeep roads and a bit of singletrack. Sounds fine, right? Well, except that it started snowing/sleeting/raining hard right about when we got to the top of the climb. It took me 10 minutes in the shower before I could really feel/move my toes! I'm pretty sure we were all close to hypothermic.

Good thing the race tomorrow got canceled due to the rain (and kudos to Team Evergreen for caring more about the trails than a few bucks). I would have sucked bad after this sufferfest.

Anyhow, blah blah blah. Here are some pictures. Scott was breaking in his brand-new Johnny Cash black Waltworks singlespeed today, too. I think he likes it.


This first shot is Jung and Scott after this poor motorist buzzed us. Don't mess with guys on mountain bikes, man. I especially like the orange flags - in case someone ELSE is crashing their car off of the road into this drainage ditch, you want to make sure they see the car that's already in there in time, right?


Scott grunting up Penn Gulch. There's about half a mile of this "trail" that's just not rideable on a singlespeed. Scott and I managed most of the rest, though my legs are furious with me now. Jung, the sissy, rode quite a bit more on his geared bike.


Speaking of Jung, here he is. Jung and I installed a brand new drivetrain on his bike just before this ride. Nice move. I think the mud and snow/slush/rain probably took about half of it's life off on the first ride. Whoops.


Final shot of the post - Jung and I celebrate with whiskey upon completing the climb up Penn Gulch. I'm not normally a whiskey drinker (note the look on my face), but this stuff (can't remember the name, but it's made right down on Blake St. in Denver) was wicked smooth. Kept me warm for about 30 seconds, which is when the snow started coming down.