John’s Ramblings

Getting lazy about writing, almost so with my riding. After a January of very low mileage, I managed a respectable 247 for February (although 113 of that was a single ride). The “ride come hell or high water” spirit that marked last winter has been missing this winter. Part of that was the amount of exertion associated with HIT training twice a week, and part was due to the slow fizzle-out of the Use It or Lose It rides. I’m getting back into a groove again now, riding Tuesday nights, many Thursdays, and on the weekends.

Last night’s ride became somewhat of a hill challenge, 5 riders heading out to do a couple of our local west-hill climbs over the course of 20 miles. The gung-ho climbers soon left Russ and myself in the dust as we headed south against a 15 mph headwind. We did a bit more groaning and grunting than we’d care to admit, but we were still a bit fatigued from a 50 miler on Sunday, and I had done some weight work on Monday. We’d turn out of the headwinds soon enough, however, trading wind resistance for gravity as we headed up the climb known as “little italy”. Nobody I’ve ever talked to can tell me why it’s called that, but it is. Up the hill, across the western ridge of the valley, down to Peasley Canyon, back up the hill, then home. My HRM read 20 miles and 900′ of climbing at the end of the night.

I plugged the route into Map My Ride this morning, and was disappointed to see the elevation gain stated as 500 feet. Wrong. All the hills in this valley are at least 300′ of climbing. We did two complete ascents of the west hill, plus some other climbing here and there along the route.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.