3 Rides, 1 Ski

Friday I rode a loop over Suncrest with JE. He brought his TT/Tri bike, and as I suggested possible routes he liked Suncrest so off we went. A bit of wind from the north kept it cooler than the bright sunny sky suggested. JE did fine on the south side climb up Suncrest - it seems his TT/Tri bike with a double has pretty standard road bike gearing so he had some low gears for the climb. We chatted about various cycling subjects including triathlons (I almost got to do a Tri last year and I'm registered for the Salem Spring Triathlon this year). It was good to meet JE for the first time and do a ride with him.

Mark called me as work was wrapping up and I met him for a nice ride in the south west end of the valley. Mark did some intervals and I tried to keep up with him, but I was lacking oomph from the ride a few hours earlier. Still, it was nice ride and great to get out again.

Saturday at 10 am I joined the Utah Velo Club for a nice 47 mile ride around West Mountain. The promise of Spring brought out a good crowd - 35 cyclists. It was a nice sunny day, but colder than it looked - I don't think the temperature hit 50 for the whole ride. I was a bit late getting there and the main pack left a few minutes after I arrived. I joined some other riders to catch them. After catching the main pack and regrouping at the 10 mile mark, I wanted to at least ride with the medium speed riders so I moved up. The group I started with wasn't going quite fast enough for my taste so I tried to bridge up to a faster group before the gap got too big. I worked for 2.5 miles before I finally caught two other rider who had dropped off the group I was chasing. I rode with them to the 20 mile regroup spot. I wasn't blown, but I was concerned about how much energy I had chewed up with the ride only close to half over. I got in with a group going a nice speed, but a couple of us tried to catch the fast guys - it was a fun effort, but futile. We settled down and just rolled along at a moderate pace. At the 30 mile mark I decided to just take it easy on this last leg. At a 4-way stop there was some confusion as most riders rolled through it but one new rider stopped and Randy crashed into the back him - it was low speed so no injured people or damaged bikes, but it was spooky. I moved around a bit at first, but settled in with Randy and we rolled it back to the start. I pulled most of the time and it was nice to do those 27 miles at an even, sustainable pace (about 19 mph) to put in some good base miles. Back at the start I bought a big chocolate milk and chugged it down on the drive home (if it's a good enough recovery drink for Kenny, it's good enough for me!).

After I got home, Jolene and I went for a little cross country skiing up American Fork Canyon. She wanted to get in one more ski and I agreed it was a good idea. There's still a lot of snow up there, but it's melting fast on south-facing slopes.



We came across some snow caves - probably built by some boy scouts.





The Granite Flat loop was fun. The snow was pretty much Spring corn with icy stuff in the shade, but it was OK to ski on. We took the road down and that was a wild ride. It was all "whooped up" from the snowmobiles and the corn snow was fast. We both laughed all the way down as we were barely able to control the chaos of skiing through a minefield of bumps. Jolene fell once and I can't believe I didn't fall - I had a half dozen close calls. We ended by skiing down the tubing hill - it was much nicer to descend with easy snowplowing.

I'm really enjoying getting out with the weather improving, as the flurry of activities the end of this week shows.