Oval and Estes Park Rides

With temperatures hovering around 55degrees this weekend, I made sure to get some saddle time in. Ended up with 9ish hours and 160miles total. Saturday I hit up the Oval ride. This ride draws all the local pro's and fasties out to throw down for 4+hours every Saturday. I've done this ride a few times now and have never made it over the "Windsor wall". This hill is pretty steep, but short. This weekend I made it over the wall and then some. I think I lasted right around 2hrs with the group before the lactic acid in my legs built up. I did get dropped before that, but fortunately there was a red light at the top of the hill. A few of us stragglers latched on and stuck with the group for a little while longer. I made it to just outside Berthoud before I popped. People were attacking and the pace kept increasing. Jeff Kerkove caught up to me in Berthoud and we rode back to Fort Collins. Right around 4hours of saddle time with about 75miles worth of riding.

Sunday was supposed to be a "group" ride with a few different people. Ended up just being three of us Iowan's showing up though. Andrew Carney, Jeff Kerkove, and I headed to Estes Park. Unfortunately, Andrew's rear wheel blew up about 3miles into the ride so he had to head back to town. Jeff and I saw him heading up to Estes Park later on as we were coming back down. The ride was pretty tough at times. Jeff was supposed to average a certain wattage, and I was supposed to ride in certain zones. To do this, I had to sit in his draft most of the time because his workout was harder than mine. We had a pretty good tempo going up the first part of the climb to Estes Park. Then the headwind came. The ride got tougher as we gained altitude, especially outside of Glen Haven. There's some super steep switch backs up there. So steep that you almost wonder how vehicles get up and down them. Arrived in Estes Park to snow. It was weird though because we saw blue skies and the sun behind us and nothing but gray snow clouds in front of us. Either way, once we headed back down, the temperatures increased and the snow stopped. Ended up with 5hours (3 of which were climbing) and right at 85miles. Here's some pictures from today's ride:

A few weeks back, we saw this gravel road that looked pretty sweet. Jeff did some research on it, and found out where it took us. So we rode it today as a "short-cut" to Highway-34 (which goes to Estes Park). Pretty sweet road, even though it's short. There's no guard rails and probably a 100foot drop on the side.

Jeff setting tempo at the beginning of the climb.

"Hi, my name is Amanda, and my legs are getting tired."

That's a really steep hill. You're already climbing, and the grade kicks up quite a bit. The switch-backs start at the top when you turn to the left. Ouch.

Pictures really don't do justice.

Yay! Snow...

This coming weekend is the first race of the collegiate season. Still not sure if I'm going though. I have lots of stuff to do (school) this week. The race is in Albuquerque, NM, which is about a 7hour drive from here. Not sure if I want to spend 14hours in a van/car to race in a crit, ITT, and TTT. We will see though. It all depends how much studying/homework I get done by Friday. That's all for now. Have a good week!
-A