bikin' around
I've been biking a lot lately. This isn't because I've fallen out of love with running, or because I'm too injured to run - okay, I'm a little injured, but it doesn't keep me from running. But Britt and I, and four friends, will be doing the San Juan Huts Durango to Moab ride at the end of the month: that's 215 miles over 7 days, mostly on secondary dirt road, with a whole lot of elevation gain and loss. So we've been getting our butts in shape by riding a lot of steep high-elevation jeep roads and dirt roads, and a bit of single track.
Here are a couple of me crossing snowmelt streams (these are actually two different places) on the Endlich Mesa road spur to Stump Lake. The main road is one we've driven a number of times because there's a trailhead at its end, but it's a terrible road, bumpy and slow, and it generally takes about an hour to drive its ten-mile length. (It did take longer on the bikes!) I mostly enjoyed this ride but I am not a fan of crossing icy streams. As you can see. The elevation is around 11,000' which is why there is still so much snow in June!
This past Saturday we did a local loop we've done a number of times, known as the Dry Fork Loop. This mostly-singletrack route makes a rough triangle, one leg of which is a portion of the Colorado Trail, which one could take (and many do) all the way to Denver, some 440ish miles away. We did not go that far, but we did turn off our route to ride the Colorado Trail to a spot known as High Point (for the obvious reasons) before turning back and rejoining the triangular route.
Today we took a longish lunch, packing a picnic and riding out on the paved rec path along the river, then up first a steep paved road (which was part of the course for the half marathon I ran last August, fortunately in reverse) and then up a steep rough dirt road to the summit of Smelter Mountain, site of a large number of antenna towers and an awesome view of Durango:
It's certainly a lot of fun riding my new bicycle, and yeah, I'm getting stronger and better at it. But I am looking forward to getting back to running more, after the big ride is over.
Originally posted on my primary journal at http://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org/158686.html; please comment there. OpenID and anonymous comments are welcome.
Here are a couple of me crossing snowmelt streams (these are actually two different places) on the Endlich Mesa road spur to Stump Lake. The main road is one we've driven a number of times because there's a trailhead at its end, but it's a terrible road, bumpy and slow, and it generally takes about an hour to drive its ten-mile length. (It did take longer on the bikes!) I mostly enjoyed this ride but I am not a fan of crossing icy streams. As you can see. The elevation is around 11,000' which is why there is still so much snow in June!
This past Saturday we did a local loop we've done a number of times, known as the Dry Fork Loop. This mostly-singletrack route makes a rough triangle, one leg of which is a portion of the Colorado Trail, which one could take (and many do) all the way to Denver, some 440ish miles away. We did not go that far, but we did turn off our route to ride the Colorado Trail to a spot known as High Point (for the obvious reasons) before turning back and rejoining the triangular route.
Today we took a longish lunch, packing a picnic and riding out on the paved rec path along the river, then up first a steep paved road (which was part of the course for the half marathon I ran last August, fortunately in reverse) and then up a steep rough dirt road to the summit of Smelter Mountain, site of a large number of antenna towers and an awesome view of Durango:
It's certainly a lot of fun riding my new bicycle, and yeah, I'm getting stronger and better at it. But I am looking forward to getting back to running more, after the big ride is over.
Originally posted on my primary journal at http://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org/158686.html; please comment there. OpenID and anonymous comments are welcome.