So...confession time. My longest ride this summer was 70 miles and it was in June. It also involved a stop at 50 miles with Coke and a stretching session in the grass and a very long pep talk to myself.
So yeah. JUNE. I would like to say that I've done a century or two but dude. I have kids. And a husband who also rides a lot. Timing just doesn't work.
Both Alexandra and I felt the need to get a longer ride with more climbing under our belts. She chose the Black Canyon Rim, picked me up at a ridiculously early hour on a Saturday morning (dude. kids. husband who also wants to ride.) and up we went. Literally.
If you start at the Blue Mesa Dam, your warmup is a 2000ft. climb. Granted, it's a fairly low-key climb and won't cause you to cry for your mom or anything but have I told you how I like to warm up?
I like to spin easy for at least 30 minutes. Preferably holding a latte in my hand and engaging in good conversation with a riding partner. This irritates many a riding partner (ahem, BRIAN), many of whom like to hammer right out of the gate because warmups? Those are for wusses.
Whatever. It works for me. And I am happy as hell to climb forever and a day after my warmup.
This warmup was not my style. But choices are few once you hit a hill on your road bike. There's only one way up and it is...up.
We of course had to pose at the top.
From the top, it's a rolling downhill to Crawford. The kind of downhill which makes you shift every five seconds, so you're working hard. On a downhill. While it's about 3000 total vertical feet of downhill to Crawford, it doesn't FEEL like it. Could have been that headwind. Or maybe that it's stretched out over 20 miles.
Regardless, the chips I ate at the gas station seemed like a really good idea at the time. Until they weren't and I wanted to vomit.
Note to self: No eating chips on big rides.
Eventually, we had to turn around and go home- back up and over the rim of the canyon. And that is where I almost lost my resolve. None of the climbs are HARD per se. They are just rolling, which means you will gain some vert, lose some vert, repeat a gazillion times. This is hard on your ego.
And then there's the "downhill" back to the dam. Again, rolling. Damn I was really starting to hate that stupid rim. Could I please, please just get a solid downhill for a significant amount of time? I would even have taken a long gradual uphill- just not one that continually tricks me in to thinking I was actually making progress.
By the time we finished, 80 miles and 6100 feet of vertical later, I was at the point where being on the bike almost felt better than being off the bike. This is a good thing?
Yeah, I don't know. I just know that 80 is 50 less than 130. I also know that my glutes and lower back are more angry than they have ever been.
Despite that, I have to cheesily admit that I felt a rather small sense of accomplishment. It WAS a great ride. And in Portland, 80-mile rides were pretty much never part of my repertoire. Yeah, my explosive power was better but 50-mile rides there took a lot out of me. Now, 50 miles is no problem.
The week ahead looked almost entirely devoid of riding so I guess that was my shake down ride before the West Elk?
I consider myself shaken down.
