Porcupine
I love the dirt. I was born to ride in the dirt. It's just like everything else - just ain't good at it. Still, there is something about riding my mountain bike that makes almost everything...........alright.
This past week was way busy. Work, work, work commitments, and more work. Getting ready for a busy trip out to Michigan, and its gonna be busy until then. With time for only one ride this week I took a few liberties and decided on a long ride I'd never done before - but always wanted to do just the same. Tuesday night I spent a few hours going through the fleet of mountain bikes; tuning, adjusting and adding racing sealant in the tubeless tires. So Wednesday was prime for a 40 mile trip to Porcupine reservoir and back. 3600 feet of climbing and roughly 2500 calories - an effort.
Porcupine is in the next valley to the north, across the Avon-Liberty divide. I usually ride to the top of the divide road early in the spring before the gate opens, but not when I have a broken ankle - like this year. Needless to say, the ride to the top was kind of nice - just to say I was back. From there it's another 8 miles down what is called South Canyon, and into Avon proper. To the top of the dam is just a shade over 19 miles. The last 7 miles (or so) is on rough oil, but still pretty good. The last mile to the top is steep, rough, rutted dirt, but still a service road. A beautiful ride this time of year - for sure!
A couple minutes to snap some picts and back on the road home. Not sure what to expect, I called a friend that lives in Avon to see if I could swing by for some water - if needed. I left home with one bottle in the cage and a 74-ounce hydration pack on my back. At the turnaround, I still had more than half the bottle with Zipfiz and 3/4's the hydration pack. Still, I stopped by his house to chat for a minute - kind of hoping he'd want to hop on for the climb home (the guy is a machine). No luck, as he was committed to a soccer practice with the kiddos. Riding home alone gets kind of old, but when you have the entire South Canyon to yourself.............well, you kind of forget about everything else. It was the break I really needed and it was fantastic. Making pretty good time, I consciously decided to push the bike for a while, simply to just take more time. If you could put this in a bottle, it'd be against the law to sell it.
Rides like this make it all worth the effort to get and stay in shape. Later that night, I was online looking at the rides I'd really like to do this winter and spring. At the top of the list is "True Grit" - the race I busted my ankle getting ready for (bad grammar). True Grit is far more technical, but about as long time wise and distance - unless I'm stupid enough to think I can bag 100 dirt miles in March. Who knows................whoa, what am I thinking? It's stuff like this that gets me into trouble. We'll if I'm gonna act stupid, let's try to get into Leadville - again. Man, I'd love to ride Leadville, but then again, I'd fight the toughest kid in the school just to say he kicked my butt. What is with me? Forget about it, Leadville is next to impossible to get into by lottery alone. Still......... I'd do it in a second!
I've only got two days this week before I jet off to Michigan. I've got to ship all my gear tomorrow and take care of a few loose ends. A meeting Tuesday morning and a little thing with my daughter that evening. I need to get a solid ride in before I leave Wednesday morning. I scheduled this as tight as possible, getting home way late Saturday night just so I can sleep in my own bed. I hate hotels. With 12 -18 hour days scheduled all week, doing some fairly detailed and difficult tasks, I'll be scorched come Sunday morning. Better get a long ride in before I leave.
A few things to tie up with the Porpoise, but for the most part, we're already looking at next year for something bigger, maybe way big. We'll see.
Don't ask me why, but this link seems to fit the mood after 40 miles in the dirt.
Ride HARD!
