Alpine Loop For Breakfast

If pain is weakness leaving the body, I have a lot of weakness.

Recently Rick mentioned his morning group ride schedule with Thursday being a ride over the Alpine Loop. Aaron asked if he could come along and Rick affirmed so I figured it was an open ride. I would have asked too, but one of my many weaknesses is sleep so I didn't want to commit to getting up early to ride. The Alpine Loop is one of my favorite rides, but I'm not a morning person. I figures if I were awake at 5:45, I'd probably go. Commitment is another of my weaknesses.

Amazingly I was awake at 5:30. And as I lay in bed, two parts of my brain groggily considered the options:

1 "I could just go back to sleep - ah, sweet restful sleep!"

2 "But the Alpine Loop is fun, and all the other guys are getting up to ride."

1 "Fun? How is it fun?"

2 "Sure, it makes me breath uncomfortably hard and my legs get tired and sweat drips down my face, but the scenery is nice and there's just something satisfying about making it up a long climb. OK, I don't know why it's fun, it just is. Some things should just be taken on face value and not dissected and analyzed."

1 "Sounds like some form of insanity."

2 "Maybe fun isn't sane. But I need some fun or I'll go insane for sure. I need to pee."

1 "I don't know why I bother trying to talk sense into you."

2 "Well, I'm up so I might as well ride."

1 "I'm going back to sleep."

Yes, I know, with my gift for dialog I should be a writer.

I left my house in Orem around 5:45 and headed north. No wind, 70 degrees, quiet - perfect for cycling. Why don't I ride in the morning more often?

1 "Because you stay up too late, moron!"

I arrived at the mouth of American Fork Canyon at 6:20 and was greeted by a nice wind coming down the canyon. Climbing AND a head wind - nice. I waited patiently, then went over to look at the stream, then rode down to see if I could see cyclists coming - hey, here they come! Dan was first. He lives in American Fork and said the wind was bad. We chatted a bit and then the big group came and we jumped on the back.

The 10 minute rest was just long enough for my body to assume I wasn't going to riding anymore so it was shutting things down. Jumping onto the back of a group that was warmed up and rolling kind of hurt. After a mile or so I was warm again and rode stronger. The pack had broken up and I tried to leapfrog from one rider to the next. I caught a couple riders just before the flat below Tibble Fork. I'm not a fast climber when it gets steep, but on the flatter stuff I can't help but crank up the speed. Elden called out "Kris is off on a break". I shook my head - I'm just taking advantage of the mellow grade. After a while I looked back and I was towing a line of riders. Well, that's cool - I'm usually just one of the guys in the pack following a wheel.

After the turnoff for Tibble Fork it turns steep again. I went a ways and then dropped down into the small ring. Elden and two other guys passed me. I kept in contact with the two, but Elden, rolling his single speed road bike, was gone pretty quick.

The rest of the ride was a solo grind. I coated the top tube with drops of sweat. But I did glance away from the road several times to admire the beauty of my surroundings. Simply gorgeous.

At times I'd close the gap a bit on the two guys ahead of me, other times I'd lose ground. I arrived at the summit about 30 yards back from them. Here's most of the gang:




Once most everyone had arrived, we went down - some back down American Fork Canyon, myself and others went down the Sundance side. It's very curvy and I flowed pretty well through the turns, but hacked through several of them clumsily. Still, a very fun descent. After Aspen Grove I tucked low and let loose the speed to catch up to Jon. I followed him through the switchbacks down to Sundance where we got behind a big delivery truck. Jon made a bold move to pass the truck - I chickened out and tailed the truck all the way down to Provo Canyon. We rolled a fast paceline (30 mph) down the canyon as one of the Omniture guys did a monster pull. back into Orem I said goodbye as I split off for home to shower, eat and head to work.

I very much enjoyed the ride. Who knew mornings could be fun?