Yesterday's "classic" ride was interrupted by some sort of beat-the-snow building spree going on around Park City. We still managed to get a lot of miles in, plenty of climbing, some Paris-Roubaix training, and all the exhaust fumes one could hope for here in Utah. And while the training benefits were probably all I needed, it was one of the more unpleasant rides I'd done in these parts.
We rolled out on to perfect fall weather and climbed Little and Big (the East Canyon version) without incident. Dustin would accelerate away from me at every opportunity. On big, we had a couple of rabbits. Dustin went after them, dropped the first guy, and stopped short when he realized the other one was Jeff Louder, our best local pro who'll probably be riding international next year. As Dustin put it, "I wasn't about to pass Louder on a recovery ride. I'd feel like an idiot."
They turned around as we dropped off the back of Big and hit the "flat" dirt road leading to Jeremy Ranch. This road kind of sucked and wasn't close to flat. As Dustin put it "this is hippie riding. I hate this kind of shit." After a few miles and a county change, the soft gravel gave way to more compact dirt that felt like riding over cobbles. I told Dustin it would prbably best great training for Paris-Roubaix. His reply, "that race is for poofs."
Next we spun up to Park City on a stretch of road that's always a little crowded but it seemed pretty bad considering we're smack in the middle of the off-season. After a burrito and beer (birthday challenge training is more than just exercise) at El Chabasco, we began the climb up to Guardsman's Pass.
The traffic on this small road sucked--really sucked. It was a non-stop procession of work trucks in both directions. By the Silver Lake turn-off I'd had enough. Plus, it was getting late, we didn't know the condition of the dirt section of the climb, and knew we wouldn't get phone reception in Big Cottonwood on the decent. The safer option was to turn around and ride down Parley's. This would suck, too, but at least we knew where we were going and would have phone reception.
Climbing up to Summit Park, on the freeway, was actually more pleasant than the road up towards Guardsman's. This was saying something; actually, it was crying out "this ride friggin' sucks". To heighten the grim factor, as well as hasten our trip home, we decended the freeway all the way to the outskirts of town. Good fun, let me tell you.
In the end, we rode for 5:30 and covered around a century with around 8,000-10,000' of climbing.
Call it what you want: wet work, termination, sanction; it all adds up to the same thing.
3 comments:
hey is that dustin, was in the airforce and climbs rocks too, dustin? if so, say hi from marc and suzanne! sounds like a not-so-fun-but-necessary-for-the-sake-of-training-ride. regardless, bike time, no matter how f'd up the route, is happy time. keep up the good work.
marc
That's the same Dustin. He's not climbing much these days 'cause we can't get him off of his bike. Can't even get him on a hippie bike, for that matter. He's turned into a full on roadie.
I'll tell him hello.
Hey All -A Steve Edwards Birthday Challenge Update:
it's Saturday, November 24th and brother Steve (double entendre) is in the thick of his 24-hour Bday Challenge. Here's the update of what Steve's accomplished so far today in the past 12 hours:
Ran 18 miles
Biked on the Fixie 27 miles
Mountain biked another 27 miles
and now he's off CLIMBING.
Just another day in the life of Steve.
WOW!
did I mention he's still going strong? He's a Maniac!!!
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