Back on the Single Speed

Went out for a warm fall ride on the San Jose and had a fun ride. Got a little off-road action in and all n all a fun ride, nice to feel recovered.

Did my first Endurance race Saturday, it was the Ring the Peak race, part of the Colorado Endurance Series. It was a pretty hard one, 72 miles and over 12k of climbing with lots of hike a bike. I rode my single speed Couch setup as a 69'er and geared 32x20 and wish I was at 30x20. It was a beautiful fall day and the aspens were in they're grandest color. We had rain, hail, snow, sunshine, warm temps and freezing cold! I took a couple of wrong turns and had to backtrack to get on course again. And each time the wrong turn took me downhill so I had to climb back up to get on course. I figure I rode an extra 18 or so miles and put me about 2 hours behind schedule. There was close to 30 miles of climbing, 10 miles of flat, and 28 miles of downhill plus the extra bits that I had to add in for the fun of it. Most everyone had full suspension rigs of either 29 in. tire or 26 in. and one other single speeder with suspension fork. I was the only one crazy enough to do the race fully rigid and ss. I finished 14th overall, 2nd place single speed and it took me well over 12 hours to finish but I still felt good about the race and was the oldest rider that day! I trained pretty hard for this race and in the end was glad I choose to not ride the fixed geared bike. I had a great time with three other riders descending off Mt Baldy (Almagre) they had full suspension bikes and a lot younger than me. When we started they were not sure of the turns so I said I would lead them down. I was able to stay ahead of them for most of the time. Some of the very techy sections I got off and ran with my bike and still managed to stay ahead. Those boys were very tired by the time we hit the pavement and happy to see Mc Cabes. At Mc Cabes I had a very warm welcome from Julie and all of my friends who had to wait the extra 2 hours that it took me to finish. After all the welcomes and congrats I was ready to eat and have a beer! 2 beers and a big dish of corn beef and cabbage (it's an Irish Pub) I was feeling mighty good. All in a days ride and it finishes with beer now that's a race. Here's a picture of me headed to the first steep hike a bike trail section.:

Pikes Peak-RPT live update

At the top of Mt Esther trail @ 9:00 right on time.
Now on to Catamount res.
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