Neta and I rolled her first 30 mile road bike ride yesterday. She absolutely killed it. We cruised from our house to the downtown REI and back in a little under 3 hours, if you account for all the traffic on the bike trails than that equals out to be a pretty stellar time. She's been going to town with her new to her Lemond CX bike, riding the loop around the lake across the street pretty regularly and I even found her bike in the trainer a few times. There's something special about seeing that girl rolling on a rad CX bike rocking out a BGR kit.
Coffee stop at REI downtown
I got out of bed pretty early today and rolled a gravel/dirt/pavement metric. It was all flat and the majority of the dirt was either sandy single track or wide open horse trails with maybe 7 miles or "real gravel" thrown in. The Schwalbe tires are blowing me away, they roll really fast on the dirt with around 60 psi in them and have some good cush to them too. I'll drop my pressure to 55 for the DK but everything I've ridden them at so far has been impressive, super versatile tire. I've really been enjoying riding south from my house lately, there's not a whole heck of a lot out there and the roads are pretty empty most of the time. There's also a gorgeous extension of the paved city multi use trail that rolls out that way for about 20 miles, not too sure why the city invested any money into building that since I never see anyone out there but I'll take it.
This bridge reminded me of Bundy's Hundy when we were all covered in mud and stamping/scraping our bikes on the first non-clay area we came across
It seems most Denverites all ride into the city or west to the foothills on these crowded paths or busy roads. I can't fault them, once you get to where your going on those road it's normally breathtaking scenery. But I can hop on my bike and never see another rider if I just roll south through the open farmlands. And the consistent view of wildflower fields, ranches and farm machinery shadowed by Pike's Peak in front of me and the foothills behind me makes for some scenery which I've just plain missed the last few years.
On a final note: I'm going climbing tomorrow. I haven't roped up in almost 9 months and am ready to start craggin' again. My job and goals for the year have left me pretty bicycle-centric but it will be a welcome relief to get on some warm granite. A few of my stone bandit friends from KS are out here for the week to celebrate the end of the school year and invited me along. They were actually the big inspiration for me writing today. They're on their way to Ft. Collins to boulder right now but dropped me off a case of BLVD beer on their way. I don't really know why I didn't just follow them up their and camp... probably because I know it will be cold tonight. Anyways, those events made me start thinking about how many friends I really have in the world, or even good acquaintances. I consider myself extremely lucky and I think it's absolutely stellar when you all roll through town and remember that I'm here.
So here's to gravel, girlfriends on CX bikes and my dirty climber friends.
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