Last weekend's rides (Feb 11-12)

I know weather isn't great for riding in a lot of places, but it's our main riding season here in Arizona. Saturday, I did a ride west of Tucson over Gate's Pass- which offers a short but very steep climb, then rode around through beautiful desert in the Tucson Mountains on the McCain loop drive. Flowers are starting to appear- over the weekend I saw Brittle Bush, poppies, Desert Chicory, Lupines and a few others by the side of the road.

Sunday I rode the Picacho Peak Century- my 3rd century ever. It was a pretty nice ride for the first half, mostly sunny with temps in the 50's and 60's, but some clouds rolled in and the wind picked up considerably after 11 am. The first 46 miles were mostly flat (one 500 foot hill, up and back down). We had a tailwind that helped us up a long but relatively mild grade (1300 feet over 18 miles) but wind of 20 mph with gusts to 25 from the west meant stiff crosswinds over the next 20 miles (including a steeper climb with 550 feet in just a few miles) and then headwinds for another 20 miles. The only relief was in the last 3 miles. Still, I feel pretty good today in spite of fighting with the wind all afternoon. Total time was just over 7 1/2 hours- riding time only 6 1/2 hours.

Predictions here in NE were for a snowstorm on Saturday, with estimates of 3-6" of accumulation. I'm REALLY glad we didn't bet the farm on that one - we didn't get any snow, and it turned out to be a terrific day.

Unfortunately, given the forecast, motivation was a little low at our house. DH and I set out, however, to ride at a park I have never been to before. After almost 3 hours of MTB riding on some really fun trails (twisty, fast, rocky, little elevation change and nothing so technical I was over my head), it was time for some dinner out. We lucked out - the sun came out while we were riding, and the temps were in the lower 40s.

Sunday dawned bright, but cold and blustery, putting a road ride out of the question. While waiting for the temps to rise a bit above the 15F mark, we went for a quick run in the woods. We just got back into running recently (yes, I think that h*ll has frozen over). We went to a local trail system, and as I was thinking about how I needed to be careful about my foot placement, I had the most spectacular endo ever - while RUNNING! Managed to hit both knees and the palms of both hands on some good baby heads, but got up and finished the run.

With temps still below 20, we set out to do some exploring of local conservation lands. We are very lucky where we live to be able to piece together close to 100 miles of riding - mostly off road - right from our door (for context, I live 15 miles from Boston). We're always looking for new chunks of land and ways to connect different trail systems. Sunday found us unable to warm up, but lucky that it was cold given that most of the cons land we were exploring was swamp. Definitely NOT rideable the other 3 seasons of the year.

After about 2.5 hours, we got home with fingers, toes and faces pretty much freezing. Despite the sunshine, the temp never went higher than 20.

Good back to back days on the MTB though. I'm having a great time riding for the joy of it right now.

SheFly