Craig had a big ride in mind, despite the variable weather. I just said "in" and wanted to know where to meet. Why aim for a small ride when you can go for the whole enchilada?
COP meeting zone ended up being just the two of us, so we drove out to Barrier Lake and were on trail by 10am. Idea was for a 3 pass day.
We did Baldy, nice long climb with some snow. Paced sensibly, but there's parts of the snow covered, rooty, rocky trail that Craig climbed like a motorcycle. It was ridiculous.
From there we took the Waasatch Creek trail over toward the Nakiska road, then did about 4k on highway. From there it was up Skogan Pass through some snow and over to a traverse of Pigeon Mountain that was full of super fun technical steeps. Awesome!
Except for my awesome meter died out way before then. The slush at the top froze my feet so I was way less coordinated on the technical down, plus I started bonking.
We came out of the rifle range and into the Husky gas station restaurant where we asked the girl if we could eat and pay with credit card number from memory. The excellent server said sure, then it didn't work so well as my fried mind couldn't regurgitate the number properly and the store manager didn't see it as all ideal, but we got it figured out with promises of good intention, exchange of info, and promise to call it in when we reached the car. Note: carry more cash, ID and credit! Oh well... the 2 cokes, 2 hot chocolates and stack of three pancakes with ham and eggs changed my world. Craig gorged on a similarly delicious quantity of calories and we were off.
TransCanada trail back to Heart Creek then up Quaite Valley was good, except for the 4 times I had to stop and dink around with a tear in my tire. Finally got it rolling, coincidentally about the time the pancakes kicked into high gear, and also coincidentally the same time we started the Quaite Valley gravel climb. Bam! Best energy level of the day, finally felt like a real bike rider, couldn't empty myself if I tried.
We crested Jewel Pass and I had one of the little Belgian gels the guys left me - as far as I could tell it had a mild dose of "A" game in it. Railed the downhill, then powered through the Stony Trail climbs along Barrier Lake like there was no tomorrow - those things usually hand us our asses at the end of a long ride, and today we were having none of it (pancakes flatten hills...).
Sprinted in, jumped in the lake, and realized how awesome 8.5 hours of adventure on two wheels is. With probably 6.5 moving on trail, plus just short of 2 hours of single speed at Nose Hill yesterday, I'm actually feeling like a bike rider... should be about 16 hours in three days.
Also, some totally generous mystery bike magician did some trick upgrades to my bike while I wasn't tuned in - a new rear tire and granny ring that doesn't chain suck endlessly. Life is good (and thanks)!
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