My crotch hurts…

After about 15 hours of riding in the last two days, I was pretty tired and ready for some R&R.   You probably already read Jeff’s post, but if not, you can read his take.  My Cannondale Scalpel was perfect for the ride. I never stop saying how much I love my bike.

We started at about 8:30 AM with the perfect mantra on our way to Winter Park.  🙂 Cannibal Corpse- Shredded Humans. haha  Oi ya ya!   Oi ya ya!  Listen to it, you’ll see what I mean.

We rode up Boulder Canyon to Magnolia Rd, followed by Peak to Peak Hwy to Rollins Pass.  The first day was 7000 ft of climbing which seemed like nothing after riding 9000ft  of climbing on Sunday. 😉  We rode at base mile pace…nice and easy so we didn’t miss any views.

The road up to Needles Eye Tunnel was a steady grade and not very steep.  I was easily cruising in zone 1 and 2.

The hardest part of the ride was not that my legs were tired, I felt like I could ride forever… it was my bike seat.  I don’t know what my deal was, but even after marinating in a big handful of chamois cream (and my seat was even glistening with it b/c it had seeped through), I still was missing some very precious skin and a growing large chami sore named Herman.  I was trying the best I could to alleviate the pain, but I had to stand a lot and was thankful for the hiking near the end of the ride.  I even tried to shove an arm warmer down there to stop the chafing. hahaha.  That didn’t work.   9 hours is the longest I have ridden, so it was kind of mentally taxing due to the nether region pain, but it was definitely doable and I had a great time!!!! I have been wanting to do a ride like that for a long time and oh, I will do it again.  I’ll just do it with a seat that has the center cut out!!!!  Bring it on Kerkove. 🙂

Meep!  Meep!  I felt like I was in a Looney tunes episode as the coyote and the train was going to run me over the second I stood on the train tracks.  Up, up, up we went to 11,000 ft….  I watched the number on my Suunto steadily increase.

Hiking up over the tunnel.   Weird to think we started in Boulder and were suddenly way up in the middle of the moutains, with all our things for 48 hours in our Ergon packs.  I used the BD2 . It was loaded down to full capacity, but I was able to fit lots of warm clothes for riding, nutrition products, flip flops, a 70 oz bladder, a bottle, my dignity, and some street clothes for later.

oooooo. ahhhhh…

road loot.

Yes, that is the new Ergon Outdoor BA3 pack. One of two in the US at the moment.  Some hikers were like, “ohhh. you know, it’d be way more extreme if you rode that.”  Says the hiker who won’t even HIKE up that slope.  P-shaw.

Can’t get much higher than the tundra below our feet.  It was so quiet.  All you could hear was the wind in your helmet, the rocks crunching under your feet, and your breathe.  It’s times like these that I appreciate the serenity and getting away from traffic, my cell phone, my computer, the bustling of the city, my desk at work.  Nothing quite like that feeling.

Dinner reward after our 7 hour trek… Italian and a pitcher of vino. 🙂 hee hee

Tressel.  It was kind of scary riding across b/c the boards were kind of moving around and it looked like cliffs all around you.  Heights make me nervous, so I high-tailed it across. I felt like I was in an Indian Jones movie.

Heaven…. (yeah, my seat is shining, and that is the little road loot we found that is shoved in my stem)

Epic views!  I wanted to do some backcountry skiing up there….minus avalanche risk. 🙂

Kodak moment!  A little above treeline.

I had to stand the majority of the ride back.  I now have even more respect for singlespeeders.  My arms and feet were tired today from all the standing.  It was the first thing I noticed after my much needed slumber last night.

We took Jenny Trail back which as you can see, is very rocky.  It spits you out at Eldora ski area.  It’s kind of crazy actually!  Weird to think you can just ride over the mountains like that.  It was clouding up really fast, and the trail was kind of hard to follow.  I’m glad the ride didn’t get to the point where we were huddling in our gortex under a tree while hail and lightning fell from the sky.

All that said, I’m so glad I got to do that ride and look forward to many more rides like that.  I’d love to ride the CO Trail from Denver to Durango.  It’d be really challenging and awesome.

The rest are on my flickr account.  I’m glad you all liked my title.  I am one of those sweet, yet sarcastic, yet brutally honest people who might provide excess information.  It’s like a train wreck, you can’t look away.  🙂