Today was another 3 hour road ride (on my mountain bike), but today I rode back to Boulder from Fort Collins. I am feeling my body start to adapt to the training load and thanks to my coach, Rick Crawford, I am feeling consistently good on the bike. In fact, I haven’t felt this good consistently in quite awhile. I am usually all over the place. Good thing I am adapting, because I got my new training schedule and there are some very big hour weeks coming up. I wonder how much my grocery bill will increase this month…

It was a lovely day today.
Flat to rolling roads. I was secretly wishing I was riding to the base of Long’s Peak(14,259′) and then scurrying to the top. Ok maybe not… that would involve ice pics and stuff. This guy is hard core enough to do it though, but I haven’t read how it went…awaiting that post.

Once I hit Gunbarrel, the wind picked up. I saw quite a few other guys riding out toward Carter Lake today.

Still snow in Boulder… still… and more to come on Sunday.

Guess what tomorrow is? Another 3 hour day! Wahoo. I want to make some peanut butter bars for the weekend riding. mmmm.

I got to have a change of scenery today and ride up in Fort Fun. I am still doing zone 2 rides and low RPM intervals. The chosen route of the day was toward and up part of Rist Canyon. I sadly did not have enough time to get to the top and have yet to see it!!

The roads in town were nice and dry, and it was about 40F outside.

Not a cloud in the sky…

Jeff had an extra team jacket laying around that I wore today.

Once I got to the canyon, roads were covered in snow so I was glad to have my mountain bike.

And some low RPMs

I didn’t see many people out, but I ran into Amanda raging up the canyon.

Here is a pic from Sunday’s ride that I forgot to post that is pretty!

The sun came out by the time it was time for me to leave on my ride, and the roads weren’t as snowy and wet in Boulder. I opted to leave out one layer of clothing – the fleece pants and Montbell Crag jacket. It was still about 25F outside, but the glorious sun turned my frown upside down.

The gortex pants were a nice option and my derriere stayed dry. Only 15 miles N of Boulder, the roads appeared to be dry and there was hardly any snow. I felt a little silly for wearing the gortex after that, but I kept them on as an extra layer.

The pack was great other than the fact that all the stuff IN the pack was weighing me down. Fortunately, the only time I could tell that I had 15 extra lbs on my back was when I tried to ride up some of the small hills. I had the shocks on the Rottie locked out and the bike rode like a rigid bike.

I decided to stay in FoCo for another day, so I will do my 3 hour ride today and head up Rist Canyon, and will ride back to Boulder tomorrow.

Oh yeah… I went to Odell Brewery yesterday and they had one of my all time favorite beers on Nitro – the Cutthroat Porter.
This beer is almost coffee flavored with caramel undertones… (in my opinion anyway!)
Nitro is a very special treat. It’s like drinking a beer smoothie. The head on a nitro beer is also so much better than CO2. So smooth, so soft. I just wanted to stick my face in it…oh, and I did. Too bad I was minus a camera.

The weatherman didn’t lie when he said the snow would start falling yesterday. It had barely melted from Thursday’s 8 inch snowfall. I was sincerely hoping it would only be a few inches, but when the snow started to fall at 4:30 PM yesterday and was accumulating to about .5 inch/hour, I knew I’d wake up to a lot of it this AM. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gorgeous and great for skiing, but going out on 2 wheels is less than desirable. For some reason, I sleep really terribly when it’s snowing a ton. I don’t know why, but it’s something I have noticed. Maybe I get troubled inside b/c I know how cold I’ll get the next day?

Well, I rode my trainer once last week, and this is a big training hour week – 18 hours of bike time. I do not intend to spend any of those hours on the trainer. Today, I am going to suck it up, bring a thermos of coffee in my pocket, and ride to Fort Collins. After all, there is some motivation – Mr. Kerkove will be waiting for me there, the brewery, good food, cute dogs. Not so bad right? I will be taking my Ergon BA3 Outdoor pack and using the rain fly to keep water out. What I really need for today and would be awesome in general is the Ergon BC3 cycling pack. “The BC3 utilizes a high-tech, heavy-duty water proof material (water proofed on both sides), with water resistant zippers, a helmet holder, internal compartments to keep you organized and a sleeve for a hydration bladder. The BC3 can carry your gear on an overnight mountain bike trip or your office clothes and laptop on an everyday commute. ” Sounds perfect for any assortment of rides. It should be available in the US sometime soon.

What else will I wear today?  Here is the plan, and I’ll let you know how it went. It is 20F out right now and isn’t supposed to warm up too much. I figure this is useful for those who don’t have all the fancy gear (like me!). I used to have only arm warmers, leg warmers, and a vest, and I would make it through the winters somehow. As funds come in, I will be adding to my winter cycling collections.   I’ll be combining some of my everyday/outdoor gear with my cycling gear. Why not?

• Smartwool beanie

• longsleeve baselayer (I need to get a thermal one)

• jersey

• Montbell Crag Jacket. I wear this jacket everywhere anyway, so why not ride my bike. It will take the place of a long sleeve jersey and/or thermal vest.

• Endura Stealth Waterproof thermal jacket

• Pearl Izumi Amphibian gloves, and a pair of light running gloves underneath

• The Royal Chamois

• Fleece (fitted) running tights and because it’s going to get wet, I may choose to wear Mountain Hardwear gortex pants. If not, then I will pull leg warmers over the tights.

• Swiftwick wool socks

• Cycling shoes (Man I wish I had a pair of these)

• Toe warmers or Full sock shoe cover

• Neoprene shoe covers – I am waiting on a pair of new ones from Endura

I think that my feet will be the coldest. I probably will overheat, but it’s better to have too much, and since I have my BA3, I can always shed a layer and stuff it in the pack. It will not be totally loaded down. What will I put in my Ergon BA3? Since this is just an overnight trip and I am not camping, I don’t have to worry about packability.

• My laptop (in some plastic) – this will be the heaviest item since it’s 3.5 years old and heavier than newer laptops. I need the Macbook Air or Ipod Touch for short trips so I can stay connected

• 1 pair of pants

• 1 shirt

• Montbell Neige Down Jacket (actually IS nice and packable)

• extra socks

• extra gloves

• extra hat

• shoes

• if I had cookies, cookies would go in there too.  I will have Larabars in my pack which is almost as good as cookies.

I probably forgot some stuff in this list since I haven’t actually packed it yet, but I figure, this is mildly entertaining!  I will eventually be doing an overnight cycling trip including camping.  The pack list will be very different and more fun too!

I need these if it continues to snow and get worse! AWESOME!

Yesterday was about a 5 hour ride with Survivorman and partly with Mr. Kerkove. The sun was shining, but it was 28 degrees out when we left. I was severely overdressed for the majority of the ride and was tying clothes anywhere I could to have more ventilation. I ended up shedding a thermal baselayer (that I borrowed from Jeff), rolled up my leg warmers a little bit, had my gloves off, and had my Endura Stealth thermal jacket tied around my torso. I definitely needed it coming down Poudre Canyon, but it was nice and warm for about half the ride. With warmer temps comes the melting of the snow, so we all had a dork stripe of salt stains up our backs.

My Endura stealth jacket is not only waterproof, but also is snotproof. hee hee. I am a snot/mucus factory in the winter, so good thing.

I was starving by the time we got to a gas station, even after enjoying a Key Lime Larabar. Beef jerky and a rice krispie treat would do the trick. Not a whole lot of calories as I found out, but temporarily satiating.

Grrrrrr.

Today will be 2.5 hours in the saddle – warmer and drier!

Today I had everything I needed to ride the trainer deep down in the depths of Jeff’s basement.  I kept telling myself that it was better than being out in the slop and completely messing up my bike.

That would be my Cannondale Supersix and Old Reliable (my trainer)

Jeff rode the rollers for  30 min too.  “BRING IT!  STEP UP!  WHAT YOU GOT?!”

I bought this Blackburn trainer 4 years ago off craigslist for 20 dollars.  Rickety, yes.  Still works?  Yes.  Do I need a new trainer?  Probably… but I don’t ride it enough to make it worth it.  My trainer is like my car, old school, looks like it might break, I don’t use it too much, but is still functional enough to keep using.

To keep myself amused, I was alternating every 10 minutes doing low RPM- around 50, and then high RPM – around 100.  I thought it was cool to see how the power at low RPM was around 173 and 125 at low and high RPM respectively in upper zone 2.  FUN!

Tomorrow, I will be heading outside for 3.5-4 hours to make up some lost training time this week.  Supposedly the temp will be around 50 so it will be a bit wet and fun outside!
Carnizzle will be dragging my ass on this route.

LITERALLY! haha Well… I rode on Wednesday, but I woke up Thursday AM to this:

and the snow continued to fall all day long, blanketing the ground with 6-8 inches of powdery white flakes.  I usually ride my bike to work, but I didn’t want to mess up my drive train, so I walked for once.

This was around noon.

One of the many little creeks in Boulder.

After work, I braved the roads and drove up to Ft. Collins.  I saw several cars off the road, some with people still in them.  D’oh!  The tough little bastard made it without any problems.  The roads were just as bad in Ft. Collins, so I attempted to ride my trainer.  That didn’t work out so well because my trainer is from 1938 and needs a special vintage rounded skewer.  I didn’t bring one with me.  Then I decided, “hey! maybe I have one in my car!”  So I trudged through the snow to check in my car.  Score!  I saw a skewer… except it was for the front wheel.  After that plan was denied, I laced up my running kicks and headed outside for a run.  I love running in the snow.  Again, I was wearing running tights, but they were just spandex with no insulation so my butt froze again. hehehe   I ran for about an hour and my face was so numb that I coudn’t feel it, and there was snot running off my face because I didn’t even know it was there.  I was uber sexy.  I got inside and checked the the temp – a balmy 12 degrees and with windchill, 4 degrees.

After dinner, I convinced Jeff to walk to the coffee shop which was about a mile away.  We suited up in our warm clothes since it was less than 10 degrees out, and made the short journey only to be disappointed:

SuperTarget was across the street and there was a Starbucks in it.  Not my first choice, but in dire times, I can support the Starbucks machine.  They may not have the best coffee ever, but the chai is the best.  The Toblerone (one of my fav treats) was on sale, so I had to bring a log of that back.

“It’s huge!!”  errr…. that’s what she said.  And yes, that is my awesome new Montbell Neige down jacket.

And then Jeff took it away from me so I had to climb a snowplow mountain to retrieve it.

Today is a little wamer, but the roads are still pretty gnarly. It has warmed up from 1 to 10 degrees this AM. It might be a hiking and trainer day. Yeah, I’ll go get a vintage skewer so I can ride Old Reliable (my trainer)

Well, it’s 23 and the air is moist in the land of the Front Range. Unless it is seriously wet outside, I will not ride the trainer. I wasn’t excited to go ride, but it was definitely bearable thanks to my new Endura Jacket and new ipod playlist I made last night to get me through the next couple of days. It’s only supposed to be colder tomorrow and I will most likely be riding in sub 20 degree temps. I am not liking that idea, but it’s fun in a way.

The Flatirons looked like plateaus.

Fortunately, the roads in Boulder were dry… at least compared to Ft. Collins. There were no icicles hanging from my bike! I was wishing I owned a pair of thermal bottoms. My upper body was plenty warm with my jacket, jersey, and base layer. I wore a smartwool beanie under my helmet, and Pearl Izumi Amphibian gloves. The bottoms, however, was a different story. My upper legs and butt were so cold that they stung the entire ride. My booty was bright red when I got in from 2.5 hours out in the cold, and even in the shower, the water was turning cold on contact! I doubled up on knee warmers and leg warmers which seemed to do the trick. I had booties and wool socks on my feet, but my toes still got cold.

Today I did some power intervals while keeping the HR in zone 2 and tried to stay warm and happy.

My bottles froze, which sucked b/c I was kinda thirsty. My core was sweating a little bit.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow… At least the temps will shoot back up soon. Just one more day…

Yesterday, I rode to Gold Hill. The clouds were moving in on the ride and it was uber windy, so it wasn’t as warm as I would have liked… but by golly, I was wearing shorts on Dec 2. Today is a much different story. We aren’t even going to break 30 degrees and the ground has a dusting of snow. Crazy weather out here. NM is the same way as you saw in previous posts.

Riding to Gold Hill is one of my favorite rides. I can get over 3000′ ft of climbing in less than 2.5 hours, out and back. I liked it so much that I did that ride 2-3 times a week in the dead of winter last year. I will NOT be repeating that trend because all it did was make me really tired by the time it was interval season. I am still planning on riding up there maybe once a week, and if I take the mountain bike, I can do the climb in upper zone 2.

Skies were clear around 6500′

and not so clear up high.

I really love riding my Rotwild. That was ride number 2. The whole bike locks out, which is great for the paved roads. I unlocked the front fork for the gravel, washboard-y descent. The lockout is located on the handlebar. I am so used to reaching down to the fork for a lockout that I forget it’s right there at my disposal.

I ran into 2 of my friends on my ride yesterday. Chris Jung on the bike path and Steve Iles in 4 mile Canyon. “What’s new?” they asked. I said, “Well, I GOT A NEW BIKE! LOOK!” Both of them had the same response, “Wow. That is a sexy bike.” My coworker also had the same response. So my Rottie is very sexy… very sexy indeed. Mmmm hmmm.

I was reading Bicycling Journalist and friend, Mark Harrison’s blog today. I was unaware of Bush’s new proposal to try and ruin all my fun… once again. If you didn’t click on Mark’s site, basically Bush wants to drill for oil in Moab, Utah and possibly shut down all of our favorite trails. IMBA has taken action and has a letter you can fill out and send to the Utah Bureau of Land Managment. Click here and please participate. We don’t want our favorite singletrack have oil drills jabbed through it. Hurry, hurry. This must be submitted by TOMORROW.

Thank you.