Well, it’s been a while since I wrote about some of my
rides, so I figured I’d play a bit of catch up…
HUNTING: So on Friday, I decided to go do a bit of
hunting. Armed with my 29 caliber and my
game bag(GPS), I set out to hunt for a few KOM’s in Phoenix Mountain
Preserve. Yes, I am admittedly a Strava
addict and KOM’s (and PR’s) are my crack cocaine. Parked at 40th Street, TT1 on T100
was my first target. I rolled over to
Tatum for a nice little warm up then hit it hard…little over 10 miles. At the end, I checked my timer and it seemed
that I may have “bagged” that one… Then
a nice stroll back to the east, Chutes was my next target. I leisurely did one lap then hit it super
hard the second time… false start on try 2 when my foot came out of my pedal on
the first little techy section. Back to
the start…ok…that was better… Rode back
to the truck at an easy pace and loaded up the bike. My bounty was safely captured in the memory
of my GPS and I anxiously drove home to upload and see the fruit of my
effort. Sure enough! KOM on both segments! That was a good hunting trip!
Great thing about Strava is not only getting a KOM, but
losing it as well. Getting knocked of the
top makes me go out and do it all over again. Now, would someone please go take these KOM’s
from me? I’m not worthy to be holding them...there are far faster people.
HORNY TOADS and HARD GEARING: Last weekend, I raced the new AES Flagstaff
race, Aspen Asphyxiation, with a 32x19t. Last summer with all my Flagstaff
riding, I felt like the 20t was almost too easy and I lost a bit of power. So, I decided to put the 19t on for this
summer; the question is, why did I do it the night before a race? Chalk that up to stupidity. We had some super competitive people show up
even though I gave it 110%, I still ended up with a mid-pack finish. But, all things considered, if I can stick
with the 19t all summer, I should be much stronger come fall.
Yesterday, me and the 19t headed up to ride on Mt. Eldon and
do a bit of suffering. Sure enough, the
suffering was a plenty. Up Schultz Creek
(not bad), then up Climb 3 (which sort of parallels Sunset). It’s a great, lesser traveled trail that
serves up plenty of pain. Then down my
favorite trail, Upper Brookbank and down my least favorite trail, Lower
Brookbank to Mt Eldon Road. Suffer
session #2…climbing Mt Eldon Road. As it turns out, they’ve done a lot of work
on the road and the surface is much nicer than last summer. The climb was good and this time I did a bit
of exploring up near the towers…great views up there.
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| Looking down on Flagstaff from the top of Mt. Eldon |
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| Momma Horned Toad |
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| Baby Horned Toad |
BACKYARD EPICS: Although I love riding up around the peaks in
Flag, it is a 40 mile round trip from Munds Park and adds about an hour simply
because of driving. So I’ve created some
routes I do starting in Munds Park that travel some lesser traveled forest
roads over to the AZT by Mormon Lake.
Today’s ride, I wanted to do the AZT from where it crosses Lake Mary
Road just north of Mormon Lake all the way south, almost to where it crosses
back over Lake Mary Road. I’m sure most
people aren’t the biggest fans of forest roads, but I have to say that when the
scenery is nice, there’s no cars to kick up dust, they really aren’t that
bad.
Finally after I reached the AZT and proceeded to head south
on some really sweet singletrack. The trail
in many places is on the old railroad bed that is built up on stacked lava
rocks. I can only imagine the labor it
took to pile all those rocks up! The
trail is in great shape with the exception of some dead fall. I rarely see anyone on that section of AZT
but saw a few tracks. In some cases,
there were tracks through the mud now dried which I suspect were the AZT750
racers from a month ago. Very cool…just
kept thinking of how stoked they must have been riding that section of trail
after the HAB from hell a little further south.
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| AZT where it crosses Lake Mary Road north of Mormon Lake |
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| Sweet Singletrack |
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| More singletrack...ahhhh |
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| cacti? at 7000ft? very cool |
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| great place to stop, lay in the grass and listen to the creek | | |
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http://app.strava.com/rides/8961087
