Ma nature scuttled plans for the Kokopelli trail recon so it turned out to be a double white rim weekend. Questionable at best...the weather was rough, the drive from D town to hole-in-the-rock looked like this:
The holy ground (or is that hell?) was warm enough to keep the snow off...but had received lots of rain. Flash floods left their traces all over the eastern side of the WR and the road was completely different in all tech/sandy spots. Very slow going compared to last weekends float conditions. Can you say arctic headwinds? Could be worse - I could be living in Park City and thinking it will be good for training.
It only takes one stop longer than 5 minutes to drive home the realization that stopping is not a good thing. If it's cold enough for water bottles of e-Fuel to freeze (high electrolyte content so it was really cold!), guess what happens to a skinny sweaty biker...
Day 1 was clockwise. Here's a different view of Hardscrabble:
This hill is darn steep in this direction!
Day 2 the weather was different - less clouds, less wind, colder. The puddles remained frozen for the duration, as did my bottles. Ice & fast riding is *really* fun. Keeps you on your toes. This was the last ride of a big training block, and I like to push it towards the end if able. The last 3 hours of this day were nothing short of magical. The MP3 was dishing out the goods and the wind was light, even a tailwind for much of it! Pizza was the primary fuel source today, and let me tell ya, ain't nothing better for long rides.
Weekend stats:
ride time: 14.5 hours
Pave: 206
Pnorm: 220
kJ: 10,621
miles: 208
The day 2 file is here.
The sunset yesterday was a beauty. Here's the parting shot of the WR in '05.
