Spring is just around the corner. Spring's pretty little face is trying to come out from behind the mask but winter keeps bearing it's ugly mask of a face still. I have been able to enjoy a little spring time riding here while still hitting the trainer pretty hard in the basement to get ready for the season ahead. Besides hitting hard workouts of about 2 hours each on Tuesday and Thursday, I got outside over the weekend for two completely different kinds of rides.
Saturday-
Today was a try out the trails kind of day with lots of thawing all week and then a good blast of cold to freeze up the snow and wet trails. Started off the day riding River Trail and headed up into Van Pennen for a time. Trails got progressively worse as the day went on as I hit trails with glare ice and also trails with 3 foot drifts and ice on top. The riding reminded me of trying to ride on a skating ring, treacherous!!! Went down many times and one time ended the day when I hit the deck, sliding on pure ice right into a tree hard with my right knee. Although I thought I was crazy being out there, ran into two crazier college guys from Lacrosse who were giving there go at trying to find a place to ride south out on the trails. Not on Pugsley's but rather 29ers. Hats off to these two for giving it a go! Hopefully they can venture down again for when the trails are in more ride able shape! Pics from Saturday follow.
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| Roller Coaster- Hard Crusted Snow-- Cleaned it! |
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| Rocky Road- Hard Crusty Snow Again--- Cleaned it again!!! |
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| Little Big Horn- Glare Ice and Frozen Trail-- Barely able to walk most of this trail, let alone ride it!!! Challenging!!! |
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Sunday- Fun Day
Well today brought a whole different adventure as I decided to head out for some gravel and eventually road riding. Day started off absolutely gorgeous with temps right around 30, very little wind and sunny skies. Ended up getting about 40 miles in today with the legs feeling fairly lively. Gravels ended up starting very fast and dry at the beginning as they were still frozen from the night but by the end I was riding through muck and loving it. Great ride and spring time feel to the ride. Looking forward to getting some more of these types of rides in along the way until the trails clear up. Route and pics follow!!
Gravel Ride 3.6.11
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| Start of the ride outside of Freeport- Still good!! |
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| :) Beautiful Scenery makes for great riding!!! |
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| Again Scenery and Hills begin!! |
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| More Hill and Some Ice!! |
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| A little road riding was thrown in the middle!! 10 miles of so of road riding in total! |
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Well that is about all I have from my wonderful life. Another 4 day work week with Rollarskating beginning at New Hampton. Main challenge is making sure I don't hurt myself!!!! Enjoy the ride!!
