Weekend recap

Had a couple of good rides this weekend. Friday we stayed close to home and hit Granite. Did the same loop as last weekend, but did one section in the reverse direction. It was pretty hard. It felt like alot more climbing!!! Zach was a little crabby...which you can see from one of the pictures. He wasn't feeling so great.

Saturday we did the Skull Valley Loop (we did a portion of it last weekend). It's a 54 mile road loop with only 2 turns! It starts off at the Safeway on 89 (South side of town) and heads north. The road twists and turns and changes names a few times through town until it turns into Iron Springs Road. We made our way through a short patch of construction and started climbing. Up, up, up, up and uuuupppppp Iron Springs for a good....10 miles give or take. Amazing views from the top. Then you start heading through some ups and downs, and then down for a good while into Skull Valley. Hang a left at the Kirkland bar, cruise along for a short bit, and then hang another left back onto 89. Once you are back on 89, it is a long grind up to Wilhoit. I was holding about 8 miles an hour. Really wiped on that section for some reason. Zach was going nuts. I could not hang on to any acceleration.

I was so grateful to see the Corner store in Wilhoit. I brought one dollar. Forgot to bring food. Went inside and headed straight for the candy bar aisle. Politely asked how much the candy bars cost...I only have one dollar. They are all seventy five cents. But if there is anything else you need, you just go ahead and take it and you can pay me back next time you're through. We get all sorts of you riders in here and that's how we do it here.

How about that. I went right ahead and grabbed a diet dr pepper. Gave her my dollar and promised to pay the 50 cents back next time we were through. (Zach quickly informed me that I should have gotten a regular instead of diet). A snickers bar and diet dr pepper never tasted so good. That did the trick.

Once you reach the corner store I think it's still a 3 or 4 mile climb up before heading back down. I never thought I was going to make it.

The road twists and turns along the side of the mountains so there are countless switchbacks where you can see the road heading up on the next mountain side. Nothing too terribly steep, but mentally it is a challenge to see those climbs approaching. Zach loves it because he can spot other riders and speed ahead to try and catch them. The first group he found he quickly came back and told me that I could catch them. Funny, that was all it took and I somehow seemed to find a little pep in my pedaling. It also helped once I shifted into the granny. I know, kinda pathetic, but I've never been proud. I love my granny gears...even on the road bike. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can ween myself off of it. We caught that first group of 2 as they were pulling off the road to regroup with their other riders. They had a support van (I wonder if they did the full 100?). A few of them didn't rest for long; they were trying to bridge the gap back to us but we didn't let that happen. One of these days we'll take the camera and get some pictures on that loop. It is really breathtaking.

Sunday deserves it's own post. More later.