whoa! what an excellent two days it has been. yesterday was rangeview's high school graduation ceremony at the ritchie center in d.u. very classy job of speaking performed by our principal and a classy choral work of the dude called five for fighting work. 100 years was the name of the song. i don't know if pam arranged it but it was well done. i'm not a big fan of that but it was tolerable if not classy. once the ceremony was finished we (alec, billy, and i) bailed! we went to waterton canyon, with our goal to go to the south platte trailhead and back. didn't happen. once we got onto the motorcross portion, it was felled tree-o-rama. it got old after the fifth bike portage over some pretty cumbersome obstacles; plus, billy had to bail to eat mehican food with his familia.
the climb, once we were on trail 1776, was great! i want to actually train (which at this point is just riding hard) on rides now. so, billy, alec and i gun up the trail in our middle rings. alec pops first because the pace billy and i established was pretty nutrageous. billy's climbing has improved dramatically and i hear him breathing behind me as we climb like richard virenque on epo, so (as with all possessor's of testosterone) i had to climb just a bit out of my comfort zone- vacillating in and out of my lactate threshold (aka lt). we're going pretty steady and he cracks and goes into his own climbing, active rest rhythm. i kinda let off the pace now that i have a gap and kinda go back below lt. before that happened though, on the way up, we notice some freds (poseurs) who were resting when we're climbing. once they spot us, they get on their bikes and crank it uphill. billy and i notice this (and without any communication between us) this inspires us to catch 'em. it's like a shark smelling blood on a wounded animal. ever so slightly we apply more pressure on the pedals and one switchback at a time we eventually crack them. they actually get off their bikes when we pass and they say something friendly; but, the evil dickhead roadie (edr) in me does not acknowledge their penance for their nefarious transgressions. instead we blow by them, rocking the middle ring. billy says some perfunctory biking cliche to them (i think), whereas i conceal my heavy breathing and continue to look up the trail. at lenny's roost (billy's colorful term for this bench at the top), it's me, billy less than a minute back, and alec ('bout a minute and change back). yea alec! he passed the freds and is continuing to improve his skills. the next landmark on the trail is called the abyss (again, it's billy's term). we descend and some of the creek crossings are roaring. i'm such a weenie i don't want to blast some of the crossings because it's above the height of my bottom bracket and will definitely soak my chain (yes i know, i'm a weenie). so i portage my yeti over the water and continue to climb out of the abyss. it's steep and scree-like. fitness will get a hominid over the scree on the bike. we ain't fit; therefore we walk. boo-hoo! did i tell you my shoe's are wet from the creek crossing i decided to cross and my poor toesy-woesy's are cold (boo-hoox2)?
we hit the downed tree-o-rama part and it sucks. so, like my bentley, audi manual used to say, we do the reverse procedure. the descent from lenny's roost is fun. alec get's a head start and we can't catch him. we get close though...alec's using his super-g skiing skills on the descent...
i tell them to not coast on the downhill to get used to spinning a big gear. near the the end, i tell billy i'll lead him out in the sprint. i wind it up, he slingshots past me. a great end to a great day. my right knee is kinda sore from all that spinning. need to buy some glucosamine chondroitin.
billy's gps said we did 20 off-road miles. i'll take it...
