First road ride of the year

I got home yesterday, and was in sleep deprived, weird airplane feeling for most of the afternoon. Did a little video chatting with Tori who's flights were all messed up due to that east coast rain, then Shawn called and asked if I'd meet them downtown for a bit. Good call, fun night. I'm going to have to drop by 1410 a few times this summer, or whenever I need a flashback to Euro cycling trips.

With daylight savings today, it felt like we got started fairly late, but at least it let the air temperatures rise before we departed. Shawn and I met at Cadence, then went up the hill to try to find the guys who were riding from top of Edworthy. Didn't find that group per se, but we did find Jon Wood scoping for other riders, so the three of us made a group and headed out. At the Lower Springbank/22 intersection we bumped into Craig, which was another awesome bit of luck. The group we had thought we might find caught us as we neared Bragg, so it was right up to a big group of riders. We decided to not make a full stop and just rode out Highway 66. Craig had 'cross bike setup and was riding further, so eventually he did his own pace, while I tried to my best to "ride the Shawn train". I'm gonna do that a lot this year, and say it a lot, to see what kind of response I get. Beautiful day for riding out in K country to say the least, and the coast back to Bragg was fast being mostly downhill and with a tail wind, not to mention the magic of this skinny tired road bike wonder machine (the pure efficiency of a road bike is an absolute marvel) I was riding relative to the mountain bike in NY or the 'cross bike on snow most of the year thus far.

Jon had ridden out a ways after coffee to meet us, he was keeping it under control today after the hammer ride the guys had yesterday and his incident descending the COP switchbacks - had a wrist that wasn't too fond of crossing all the cattle guards and rumble strips.

We stopped into Cinnamon Spoon on the way back, I guess I'm a bit of a bike nerd when rolling into the parking lot from 20 feet away I could already tell that Pat, Gerry and Steve were inside drinking coffee.

After a little refuel, we held a good pace home. The mild decline from Bragg, plus having Shawn and Jon as group partners was awesome, that's a pretty good duo for powering out the flats at high speed. There were a few groups ahead of us for bait, so I just tried to hang on, and managed to do so until the incline on 22 north of the traffic circle. Jon flatted on Lower Springbank, so all the little groups passed us again as we fixed the tire... leading to the "necessity" to re-pass them all. Shawn pulled a "failed Toyota gas pedal" manoeuvre an left it pinned for most of the way back. We split up, Jon and I riding over to the TransCanada to shortcut in, where the mix of conversation and the few last hills had him reaching for some emergency stash powerbars to make it home. I felt ok just spent.

Other than the inevitable spring foot of snow that randomly dumps, it's feeling more and more like this winter is history!

Not too many more months and it'll look more like this.

And I thought I'd put this up just for fun. I have no idea who they are, but when I typed "highway 66 bragg creek" into google images, this is the first hit. Go figure. Maybe that'd be a good post ride leg stretch. Bragg Creek is enjoyable to more than just emaciated and over caffeinated cyclists.