In the computer game, Plants vs. Zombies, there are some zombies that walk with an open newspaper, wearing a sport coat, tie, and boxer shorts. Cindy says they remind her of me! Can you believe that? We don't even get the paper!
After a week of intensive mountain biking boot camp, in which we got out for a short neighborhood ride and/or run nearly every evening, we decided to give the mountain biking-in-the-mountains thing another go. Looking for some trails that would give us a nice mix of climbing and descending, without too much total elevation gain, we thought the Alderfer/Three Sisters Park seemed ideal. I rode here previously and wrote it up here. This park is really nice, with lots of trails of varying length and difficulty, all winding around among the classic Front Range rocks and boulders.
Click here to see the map of our route.
The little graphic below shows our speed and elevation by distance. We started with a pretty tough ascent, climbing from 7500 to 8200 ft in the first 2.5 miles. This was challenging for Cindy and the kids, but not excessively so. We made it up with the only casualty being a minor spill that Abbey took while riding through a rocky dip at a water bar right near the very top. The descent through mile 5 was fast and fun, but this time we rode with speed and control, in contrast to Quinn's descent last weekend!
Quinn did much better this week on the climbs, in part because we swapped the flat pedals that were on his Santa Cruz for the SPD 'clipless' pedals that he'd used on his Scott for the last few years. Last weekend, he'd had some trouble keeping his feet optimally placed on his pedals, which I think contributed to his struggles with the climbs. Obviously, being clipped to the pedals really helps with foot placement, and it makes it a little easier to pedal smoothly up hill. Quinn was immediately comfortable in the clipless pedals again, and I think they helped him out on this ride. He took one spill: riding up a gentle hill, with me right behind him, he took one hand off the bar for a few seconds, which he often does, but then his front wheel hit some sand and turned sharply. He went down pretty hard, but was mostly unharmed and mostly unfazed.
In the photo below, Abbey is following Quinn through a quick, rocky, downhill trail. Abbey is the only one of us riding a hard tail, about which she doesn't fail to remind us occasionally. She has gotten quite strong this spring and I never really have to worry about whether she's keeping up. Cindy was typically bringing up the rear, and feeling the pressure to clean the technical sections that the kids went through unscathed.
After a very steep, but short climb at mile 5, there is really nice mile of downhill that has some large rock slabs to ride over. The slaps are not steep enough to cause any trouble, but when approaching them it's not easy to see how steep they are, so they can be a little scary. Once again, Quinn was in such a hurry that I had to make him stop so I could get ahead to get some pictures.
With at least 1500 feet of climbing, very coarsely measured, and 9 miles total distance, this was a great ride. Great scenery and great trails. We all finished with big smiles, and lots of statements about what an awesome, fun ride it was, and how much we'd all like to do it again. I certainly can't complain about that.
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