It's only 'No Drop' if you can keep up

I've had a glorious couple of days of riding this weekend.

Yesterday, I set off along the foothills to Lyons, a town 15 miles north of Boulder. Some may know it as the home of Oskar Blues, AKA Dale's Pale Ale/Old Chub beer. It's a quiet little town, and a popular destination for cyclists, either as a pass-through or, like me, a turn around cafe stop. We've been enjoying more normal weather here which means that the riders have been out in droves.

I got about 2 or 3 miles from home when I realized that I'd forgotten my water bottle. Back I went (downhill to the house), and off again (uphill to where I'd made the turn). My legs were feeling particularly perky. Some guy passed me just outside of Lyons, then sat up. I imagine he saw that I was a chick and decided he couldn't just leave me alone up ahead of him. But when he slowed down, I had a sudden burst of strength (aided by a leveling of the road) so I kicked it into the big ring and blew past him. I held that pace for the next 3 miles, all the way to the junction of the turn into town. When I turned around to change lanes, the guy was just rolling up on my wheel again. I hope he was busting his lungs to catch me. Ok, he probably wasn't, but in my fantasy world of being an 'undiscovered talent', he was. He passed me at the light, so I sat on his wheel the last mile into town. I got to Lyons, stopped for my halfway chai, then set off for home.

My legs stayed fresh after the climb out from Lyons, so I started thinking that maybe I'd push a little more than 30 miles. There's a short loop that I do from home when I'm pressed for time but want a ride, and the turnoff for it was ahead of me. I knew doing another 12 miles was probably going to make the last few miles to the house painful, but I went for it anyway. I intersected with a couple of VeloNews riders near the end (bonus: again I blew past the same guy from earlier in the ride, in a small world coincidence) and held on to their wheel until just before my final turn. On the final stretch, the legs went. At the end of the day I did somewhere in the neighborhood of 46 miles. I haven't ridden that far on a road ride in...Shoot, I can't even remember how long.

I got home and had a phone call from Janis, the better half of Nat Ross. They live just down the road in Golden and wanted me to come out in the evening. I was all set to spend the rest of the night recovering on the couch, but was talked into going out by the tag-team efforts of Janis and my sister. In the end, it was a fun night. I got to catch up with some old friends that I wasn't expecting to see, and was invited to a ride this morning. It was meant to be a 'no drop' ride.

The ride starts from the Starbucks in downtown Golden. I knew I was in trouble when one by one, rider after rider showed up in full team kit. Among this group was one of the best road racers in the country. Riiiight. The good news, is that my ace friend Spot Chris Fuller also came out for a ride. This is a miracle in and of itself. He was wearing 3/4 baggies. Yeah.

Sure enough, The pace of the racer boy group was quick from the start. I had no illusions of keeping up with them.

Long story longer, Fuller and I wound up doing the big climb of the day up Bear Creek Canyon. Any road around here that has the word 'canyon' or 'gulch' in it means that it's going to be a very long, sometimes very steep climb. As this one went, it wasn't too terrible. The biggest issue I was having was a sore ass from fitting a new saddle only 2 rides ago. We climbed for 8 miles to the town of Kittrege, found a general store, and reloaded with a mix of chocolate milk, Gatorade, and roasted pumpkin seeds.

I have no idea how many miles we did today. I think it was around 30. Most of it was indeed uphill, and I was spent at the end. We all met up back at Nat and Janis' house and went for a huge Mexican feast. Chicken mole (pronounced: MO'lay) enchiladas. Mmmmmm!

I'm completely chuffed at the rides this weekend. I'm also completely wiped out and could easily have gone to bed at 9pm. The only thing that would have been better was to have ridden the dirt. The trails here aren't ready yet, though. Some are still buried under snow, and those that aren't are muddy from the big melt off. Soon though, my precious.

I hope everyone has had some good adventures on bikes lately. We must always remember these two things:

-Sheep Are Great
-Bikes Are Ace