The best 30 miles of cycling on the planet (in my humble opinion).

The Alpine Loop has to be 30 of the best cycling miles on the planet. Even if you don't like hills the scenery is epic and takes one's mind off the suffering. From my Sister's house you wind up with around 65 miles and 4000 feet of climbing by the time you are done. Most of the climbing is done in one big hill.

Leaving Pleasant Grove and approaching American Fork canyon.

I was out of the house just after 4 am so I could be back by 9. It was a chilly morning but not too bad so I thought I would be OK. The temps leaving town were around 55 degrees. It was a nice ride down through the fields west of Provo. I saw one other rider who promptly dropped me after he got back on his bike after fixing a flat. I let him go as I was likely doing a much longer ride than him, and also on Saturday I did a pretty strenuous ride and I was pushing it to do this ride today 2 days later. The flat faeries paid me a visit right after. I elected to put a new tube in since I was in a hurry to get back before 9. I forgot to pick up my old tube though and felt bad about leaving it on the lawn of the industrial plant whose light I changed the tube under.

Just as dawn was peeking over the mountains I started my gradual climb through pleasant grove up to the entrance to American Fork canyon. Just before I got to the top of the hill a small group of cyclists pulled out ahead and rode off. I repeated to myself that I was riding my own ride this morning and it wouldn't do any good to blow up before entering the canyon and the big climbing. I stopped at the mouth of the canyon to take a picture of my bike with the national forest sign. While I was stopped a guy on a mountain bike rode by. I caught him pretty quick after I got back on the bike. I commented on the beautiful morning, and he commented on the wind. The wind was indeed howling out the mouth of the canyon but I figured that was just they way canyon mouths were. He said he was from Tempe originally when I mentioned I was from Mesa. He asked if I was going to the top, which of course I was. I pulled away and headed up into the wind.

Road near mouth of canyon

Spires and cliffs above road

Mountain stream by road.

The grade steps up to 6% pretty quick once you are in the canyon, but to make things more livable, the beautiful trees and swift mountain stream start up. It's wonderful to be breathing heavy and sucking in the fresh air and the smells of the oak trees alongside the creek. Birds are singing in the trees on the side of the road and majestic cliffs tower overhead. Soon I will tower over the cliffs. Up ahead I spot a cyclists who I slowly catch up with. Right as I pass him and exchange a hello I see A great picture of the river and stop. When I start again I catch him fast as he has stopped at a picnic area to turn around.

Paul is loving life at 6% grade

On up the canyon I move on. I pass Timpanogas cave national monument (not a lot of cave to see from the bike but the scenery is still wonderful). On up the canyon. The creek amazingly enough falls at the same grade the road does and creates a load roaring as the water slams into the rocks in it's rush to reach the mouth of the canyon. I pass small picnic areas nestled into the small spaces between the road and the canyon wall or the river and the canyon wall. Soon I am at the fork in the road where the Alpine Loop goes. From here the road is one lane.

Mountain View

The road climbs up the steep side of the canyon.

The road clings to the hillside

Looking up at Timpanogas

Waterfall on side of road

Another waterfall on side of road

In here the road ramps up to a constance 8% grade. I keep moving the pedals around and notice I am catching up with one of the guys from the small group I saw earlier. By the second switchback I have nearly caught him but stop to take a picture of Mt. Timpanogas. Around the corner his buddies have been waiting for him and they turn around to head back down. I still have miles more of this before reaching the top.

Paul working hard at 8% grade

Mt. Timpanogas' north peak

The road bikers equivalent to single track.

Aspen Grove a half mile from the top.

Mt. Timpanogas

The road clings to the cliff face as it rounds bend after bend ever climbing higher into the alpine air and mountains. Now we are looking down at some of the shorter mountains and looking up into the tops of canyons on the side of Timpanogas. Soon we are back by the creek and into the forest but the grade does not let up. Corner after corner we climb through firs and aspen forests. I spot the occasional deer. One even has some antlers growing. I also spot a guy on a horse down in the forest as I get into the last mile of the climb. It's cold in the shadier parts of the climb. My thermometer reads 43 degrees at one point. If it weren't for the fact I was working pretty hard I would be cold.

Flowers near the summit

Finally I see the top and get there after stopping to take a picture of some of the alpine wildflowers. I stop at the trailhead at the summit to look for a garbage can where I might find a clean garbage bag tucked inside under the bag but there are no garbage cans. I will have to freeze on the coming descent.

The noble steed, with custom taillight (see previous blog entry for details)

A frosty Paul at the summit

The descent is beautiful and I stop several times on the way down to snap pictures. There are many unsigned hairpin turns and it behooves one to stay at a reasonable speed to avoid shooting off the edge of the road. There are other cyclists climbing up this side and I give each one a nod as they pass. This is a tricky road to descend as it is steep and the turns are sharp so one needs to be careful.

Dropping below majestic canyons and peaks I am rocketing through the lodges of Sundance ski resort (Robert Redford's digs). The road below is shaded and hits 9% as I speed down the road and slowly get colder and colder. A few more switchbacks and I am approaching the junction with Provo canyon where the sun is shining warmly. Provo canyon is warm but due to a 4 lane highway it doesn't quite have the same atmosphere and panache of the loop road that towers above it.

Mountains above the south side of the loop

All too soon I am back in Provo getting stopped by traffic lights and navigating through traffic. I pass a commuter who does an amazing job of keeping up. I think she has one of those electric bikes, then again, she just could be really fit and waiting for unsuspecting roadie snobs like me to intimidate with her ability to keep up on a frumpy commuting bike designed for short little jaunts. I eventually drop her after an embarrasing moment when I got in the wrong left turn lane not realizing both lanes turned left (fortunately they let me through). Soon afterward I am climbing the hill back up to my sisters house. It is now 71 degrees, a much different temperature than when I left this morning or even than I was riding through an hour ago.

Mountains above Sundance Ski Resort

In the end I climbed 4000 feet rode 65 miles in 4 hours and 35 minutes for an average speed of 14.4 mph. I won't brag that it is an awesome time, but I will say I am happy with it. I stayed strong throughout the ride and I was not expecting that since I pushed so hard on Saturday. I guess my eat anything that looks like food strategy on Sunday worked for recovery.

Tunnels in Provo canyon

Epic Climbs of Insomnia

Looking down on Utah valley from high up on the Nebo loop.

What happens when you set your alarm for 3:30 am it's daylight savings time and your biological clock is mixed up from driving all night the day before? You wake up at 12:45 MST/1:45MDT and think you have overslept by 15 minutes. I didn't discover that it wasn't 4 o'clock until I was down the road aways. Getting out this early did mean I would be able to do the whole ride I had intended this morning. I had to be back by 10 so I thought I was going to have to settle for an 80 mile ride instead of the 100 mile ride I had intended.

So, 2 AM, after I have told my son to go back to bed again, I was out pumping up my tires, adjusting the headlight and then came the time to turn the taillight on. Hmmm, it seemed something was missing. Yes, I had forgotten my taillight. I had my ankle reflectors, my sam brown belt, and my spare headlight but no taillight. This was a bit of a deal breaker when you are going to be riding for 3 or 4 hours in the dark. The thought occured to me that I could hang the spare headlight off my seatbag and set it on flash, of course, it is technically illegal to have a flashing white light on the back so I searched the back of the van desperately for something red I could put over the light. I found a Lightning McQueen water bottle that one of my kids had brought. So I stuffed the throat of the bottle over the top of the headlight and put it on the seatbag. It was a little funny looking but it worked.

I was off into the night. A few miles down the road I would start to get preoccupied with the fact I had forgotten a windbreaker. Temps were in the upper 50's and I wasn't too cold now. I knew that as I climbed up the mountain it would get colder. My other concern was thunderstorms. It had rained at my sister's house overnight and I was worried I would find more weather as I went on. Fortunately I didn't run into any rain, just wet roads.

I was a little disappointed in my speed heading down to Salem but my legs didn't feel bad so I chalked it up to headwinds and climbing. I kept a vigilant eye open for a gas station where I could top off my bottles before the big climb. One thing about little Utah towns, they completely shut down at night. I was at the edge of town when I realized I was going to have to get creative as I headed up the road to enter Payson Canyon. I had inspiration as I passed the last set of houses before heading into the canyon. It occured to me that every one of these houses probably had a garden hose. I was careful to choose a house with a for sale sign as the house was probably vacant. I managed to top off without any uncomfortable confrontations with gun wielding homeowners.

So, without further ado, I was off into the night with the red flashing waterbottle hanging off my saddle looking like a crazy chinese lantern. Entering the canyon I would surprise many deer. I would actually get within 10 feet of one before he realized I was a person and ran off. I also startled a bunch of fawns, and may have seen a lynx but it ran off before I could be sure. The road in the lower canyon goes along the side of a creek with green trees and the occasional house is still on the side of the road but soon I am stopping at the first parking area looking for a garbage bag I could possibly use as a wind break for the descent later. Unfortunately the bathrooms were locked.

After the simple 2-3% grades of the first few miles the climb ramps up to the 6-9% grades that will be a constant over the next 15 miles. Not too long after the initial climbing I found some open restrooms but they didn't have garbage cans. So back onto the road I went again. I was getting into the groove now. Occasionally I would stand and pedal for awhile to rest the back and use some different muscles. Even so this climb takes everything you got. Last year it took me almost 4 hours to climb this hill. In some respects the hill went faster than last year climbing it in the dark. First comes the 7000 foot sign signifying you have climbed 2400' since the bottom of the hill. It's an important milestone that lets you know that though your legs have been burning for the last hour + you actually have something to show for it at this point. The flip side is it gets you looking for the 8000' sign which now seems to take forever to come up.

As you approach the 8000' sign you start to find the switchbacks are ending and the terrain is starting to mello out enough to allow places to camp. Between here and the other end of the loop I must have seen 10-20 family reunions out camping in the greeen meadows off the side of the road as I climbed further up. The hill changes past the 8000' foot mark. The quad crushing spirit damping constant leg burn gives way to short flat stretches between steep hills as you stair step up to 9000'. Most of the hills are 9-11% grades. So although you get to rest a little in between you are working harder when you climb. Even so I found the compact crankset was doing pretty good. I had a lot more energy at this point then I did last year. Amazingly enough I was able to keep enough juice coming out of the generator to keep the light on. When i stood up the light would pulse as I shifted from foot to foot.

Around this time the first hint of dawn was coming and the mountain birds started singing. I recognized many of the calls to birds that would sing outside my window in the mornings when I was growing up in Flagstaff. The Aspen and fir trees actually took more form, and the green meadows and forests started to appear out of the darkness as I climbed. Not a soul was stirring in the campsites at the side of the road. Occasionally I would see a light in the camp as I passed but not a soul. I had only heard one car pass while I was in the restroom further down but besides that I had not seen a single car. I had started the hill down in the cottonwoods and sage and had climbed up through fir forests and now I was entering the aspens. I had stopped seeing deer, perhaps that was a result of seeing more campers, or perhaps there just wasn't as much grazing area up here.

The final 7 miles or so of the hill walk up a ridge going over and around knobs. I was hoping I would get up onto this section before sunrise as it is this part of the road where you start looking down at the other mountains around and you get a clear view of the sky to the east. I made it actually and as I rode eastward towards the mountain I would watch the sunrise unfold behind me in my mirror and when I would stop occasionally to take pictures.

I was amazed at how much more energy I had up here. I was in a lot better shape this year. I also looked at my watch and noticed I might be able to get to the top in 3 hours which would be about an hour faster than last year. There are six false summits on this climb which can really mess with your psyche. I find it is easier if you know they are there. This year the climbs up over the nobs did not seem nearly so big. I still had good power and the beautiful mountain morning was invigorating. It was about 47 degrees up on the mountain and I was in shorts and a jersey. It ended up working but I think a windbreaker still would have been handy.

Approaching Nebo

Around another corner and I saw Mt. Nebo lit up in the rays of the morning sun and stopped for a picture. Around here I would start to see occasional cars, but I only saw 3 or 4 before I was down the other side of the mountain. In 2 more nobs I was at the road's summit. 9345 feet, I hadn't really noticed the altitude as much this year. Probably because I am in better shape. Anyway, it was 6:30 am and I had climbed the hill in 3 hours. I still felt pretty strong too. Being this early it also meant I could go forward with the original plan of dropping down the other side of the mountain to the town of Nephi and head home from there to make a hundred miles exactly.

Mt. Nebo from east

I had to make one more rest stop before dropping down and was dismayed to find no garbage cans with a bag I could use. So I steeled myself for a long cold descent. I stopped at the last mountain overlook to take a picture next to a guy looking at the mountain through a spotting scope, then I was off. I stopped once to put my energy mix into my remaining waterbottle so I would have something to burn to keep me warm on the way down. I'm experimenting with putting soy protein in my maltodextrin and it seemed to work pretty good.

Nebo from southwest

It was a bit of a treacherous descent. Around many of the corners there were rocks that had rolled out into the road from the rainstorms that night. I was getting spray kicked up onto me from the road and that was pretty cold. I had to ride my brakes pretty hard as it was a steep twisty descent and if you go too fast the mistake could be disasterous. I stopped momentarily to look at the devil's kitchen but I think it was a little overrated, of course I am probably a bit jaded since the great red rocks of Sedona are in my neck of the woods, and this didn't compare to much to those.

Nebo south face

At one point the road was cut to one lane as the other lane had slid down the hillside in a landslide. Occasionally there were bands of dirt across the road where they had dug something up and it made for a bit of white knuckle fun when you hit them at 30 hoping your wheels wouldn't slip. There was a wet cattle guard too that gave me a bit of a tense moment. I did make it through the steep stretch safely though.

The south side of the loop is a lot less green and what trees there are, are just blackened trunks remaining from a fire. The geology is more of a clay/Shale type of rock. The road was a lot straighter though so I was able to build up some speed and shoot on down to the highway where it was 4 miles to Nephi.

The devil's kitchen

The Utah valley has a whole handful of little farming communities spread out across the flats. The first of these I would get to was Nephi. Just about every one of these towns takes it's name from the Bible or the Book of Mormon. This was one of those from the latter. If you ever want to wander into a little town similar to what you might find in 'The Music Man'. Theres a main street with an old firehouse, an aging used car dealership. Today there was a rip roaring community carnival getting put together in the town park. All the streets are lined with small brick houses with large trees out front. Fortunately I did not encounter any of the dogs that usually wander this type of town. Opie Taylor could be lurking anywere.

Downtown Nephi

Leaving Nephi I am out into the farmland mostly flat with the occasional gentle hill to break the monotony. There are green fields with occasional farms and silos. I am keeping my speeds above 20 most of the way across the valley floor. To my right are the mountains I just went over. After I pass through another small farm town called Mona I catch glimpses of the peaks of Mt. Nebo. I am still strong and I think I might have enough drink left in the bottle to get me back to my Sister's house. In Santaquin I guess that Main street is the street I should turn on since they have not signed the highway numbers. I guessed right fortunately.

Flat Country

More Farms

Toto, something tells me we aren't in the mountains anymore.

Silos and Mt. Nebo from the West

A Lavender Farm

It is a quick drop down into Payson from there and it would take me less than an hour to get back to Springville. The temperatures were still in the 70's when I got back and they were eating breakfast. Mmmmmm, pancakes.

Sister's home sweet Sister's home.

So to sum up, I took an hour off my time to climb the hill, rode 100 miles, and had over 6000' of climbing. Not too bad. Now to eat like no tomorrow so I'll be ready for Monday morning when I plan on doing the alpine loop.

Spanish Fork Reservoir from up at play area

The hardest part of training...

Well, I tried to do an interval workout on the way into work yesterday but my legs just wouldn't get the oomph back into them. Though my heartrate was at record lows (45 bpm) this morning I think I am a bit overtrained, or calorie deficient. I hopped the light rail to get to work so I could cut a few miles off and was dismayed to find I could have probably ridden faster in. Oh well. I need to get the legs juiced back up before Saturday as the climb up Nebo is seriously intense and long. I'm taking a few days off and eating like a pig. I think the problem is I have been shorting myself on too many calories, especially last week with the extra mileage I did. So today I am taking it easy and going to pack the new steed into the back of our van amid the luggage (carefully of course) and drive to a land of epic climbs and flat farmlands. Utah is really quite a land of contrasts. On one side you have all the 1950s apple pie Donna Reed, Richy Cunningham, Opie Taylor Mormons and on the other you have the Ski towns on the opposite end of the spectrum with the night life and beer commercial backdrops. From a cyclist's perspective there is the flat rides of the farms and valleys, and yet, a few miles to the east you can be sweating at 10%+ in steep canyons climbing the Wasatch front range in aspen and fir forests amidst high mountains with patches of snow on them into July. There are 2 epic climbing routes within 20 miles of my Sister's house. One is the Mount Nebo Loop which by the time I ride to it, over, and then back through Nephi I will have as much time riding on flats as I will climbing the 5000' foot hill, it should be about 100 miles and 6000 feet of climbing, almost all of it in the one hill. The other epic ride is the Alpine Loop. It's not as much climbing but the scenery is epic. It goes through Timpanogos cave national monument on one side, and down through Sundance Ski area on the other. You circle Mt. Timpanogos in the process. The climbs though not as tall are steep and the air is thin. I hope I am recovered. I am eager to see how I handle the climbs with the new compact crankset. We'll see. Now to rest, the hardest part of training.

Rosebud.....

Well, I've never been a fan of Mr. Jacksons music. I have been thinking of the parallels of his life to that of the guy portrayed in Citizen Kane lately though. Supposedly they both regretted the loss of their childhood. Wonder what his last words were? Was it the name of his sled as a kid? Maybe the name of his bicycle? The world may never know. In the meantime here's the write up of this mornings ride.

Yucca plants in bloom

I didn't get to bed until after 11:30 last night and I needed to getup at a quarter after four. Lets just say a new bike is a powerful motivator. I hid some cinammon rolls I had bought yesterday from the kids and ate one on my way out. I had the bike all setup and ready to go so all I had to do was shove the pump in my jersey pocket fill the water bottles and go.

There wasn't a whole lot of lovin going on in the legs this morning. I think I hadn't quite recovered from the extra mileage last week and I also think that I may have been behind on a few calories as well. I normally take Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays off but I rode on Wednesday this week plus I did over 50 miles on Tuesday. Whatever the cause I was struggling to hold the group back up into the Superstitions but towards the bottom of the first hill things slowed up a bit. I managed not to be the last guy up the hill. But I was the last guy that went all the way to the end of the pavement.

Ocotillo in bloom

I am still getting used to this compact crankset. You have to muscle up the hills a little more with it as the gearing is not quite as low as a triple. The back of the pavement is a brutal hill whatever you have really. I decided I was going to not do a repeat today. I was planning on doing a 200k the week after next but on this ride I though perhaps I will cut the day short a bit and try and get a century in up at my Sisters house in Springville next week including a trip up Mt. Nebo in there. Now I just have to figure how to pack the new bike into the back of the van so that it won't vibrate against anything and the kids can't goof with it (would just take the folder but I am a little eager to take the bike out onto a big boy climb, Mt. Nebo features a 5000+ foot climb over about 20 miles). Wish I had a roof rack.

Yours truly in front of the view at the end of the pavement.

I cheated and stopped to take few pictures on the way up to the top. I figured there wasn't much of a group left anyway since the paceline heading up here this morning wasn't that big (about 15 -20 riders) and over half of them had turned around at Tortilla Flat. Besides I had decided I was going to take it a little easier today since I would be doing a big ride next Saturday.

Whats wrong with this picture?

It started to get hot climbing up to the end of the pavement. My thermometer read low 90s when it was in my shade. I stopped in Tortilla flat to put move all my steerer tube spacers under the stem to give me a little less agressive position on the bike since my back was hurting. I think I am going to have to work on my core strength more before I can ride along that low. Anyway, I decided to get some nice cool water out of the machine there before I left. I stuck a dollar in, it wanted two. I put a second dollar in, it forgot I put 1 in already. The third dollar was the charm, I paid $3 for a 26 oz bottle of cold water with just a bit of slush in the top. It was good I'll admit but $3 is a ripoff.

At Canyon lake marina I doused my head and face in water to get the salt crystals out of my eyes and to cool down a bit. I refilled the water bottles, bringing my count up to 5 bottles I would consume through the day. Having taken care of the water situation I was off for what would be a hot climb out of the canyon.

Descending down the last big hill I suddenly had a sinking feeling and my seat slid back. I figured I was close enough to the Needle vista area I would just stand and pull in there. I hadn't been into the needle vista since Susan, Bruce and I had been back in there during our first running of the 'Legends, Superstitions, and Ruins' permanent. I made quick work of redoing the seat and hoping I had gotten the torque right headed off.

As I headed up the next hill my thighs were hitting the seatbag, not remembering that happening before I realized I hadn't slid the seat forward when I had levelled it out. As I stopped to fix it the last of the Brumbys that had done repeats on the EOP came by and asked how I was. I said fine and he headed off. I actually caught him a few miles down the road though.

I passed him within a few miles of the dash in and he hopped on. When we turned onto Brown he mentioned he didn't feel too good and felt like he was going to Yak. Having an aching back and deciding this was more of a less intense ride I held back a little so he could hold on. He was hurting bad. He was the guy who went down on the bridge a few weeks ago. This was one of the fast guys and for him to be needing a pull like this meant he was in a world of hurt. I sat back and made the biggest wind break I could as we rode across Apache Jct. He took a pull for a bit but I ended up pulling again after the light. I didn't mind. It was 90 degrees, the wind seemed cool to me, and I was actually not doing too badly, besides it was nice to have someone to talk to. I ended up riding with him a little farther than I had intended but it ended up putting me at a nice 80 miles when I got back after parting ways with him at Greenfield road. I figure with 3 miles left he was good and I needed to get back around 10 and I was going to be a few minutes late if I turned around when I did (I ended up being 5 minutes late as I kept really good time up Broadway). 5 hours of riding 82 miles, just under 4000 feet of climbing. Not to bad for a bad legs day.

There goes the bus......

Well, I worked late last night and rushed through the heat down to the bus stop hoping to catch the bus. At the last light I breathed a sigh of relief seeing as I had 5 minutes to go. The sigh abruptly stopped as I saw my bus enter the freeway entrance despite my wild gyrations. I had missed the last express bus of the day. My legs were tired since I had hammered the 33 miles in this morning pretty hard. I had just ridden 9 miles to the bus stop and was not in the mood to miss the bus.



First thing I did was head downtown to get a meal. I ended up at Baja Fresh as most other affordable places were lunch only apparently. I took my food over to the light rail stop to enjoy it but was annoyed to find a large chicken bone in my burrito. I elected to eat instead of getting on the first train which would have saved me a good evening ride if I had boarded the first train as I missed the 7:30 link by 5 minutes. I was hungry though so I guess it was the right call in the end, even if I did get an extra 12 miles of riding in (and about 15 minutes in the dark without a headlight).



On the train there was a college kid with a fixed gear, and then some big guy with his arms totally sleeved out with tattoos that came in with a k2 mountain bike with BMX handlebars. I couldn't quite figure that one out. The fixed gear was an old Nishiki with a lugged frame, the perfect candidate for a fixed gear modification.



After getting off the train I was again too late. Upon discovering I had missed yet another bus I elected to ride home as I would still beat the next bus home. I think this was the first time I had ridden through downtown Mesa at night. I pass the Mormon temple off to the right. There was no 'concerned Christians' there shouting obscenities at people trying to watch the Easter pageant like there were a few months ago (incidentally Mormons are Christians, they just don't believe in the Nicene creed which is a medieval document and not part of the New Testament). But now it is once again peaceful and a couple sits out front on the lawn.



Down the road I ride by Pat's Bike shop with its bright neon sign inviting folks to come in and get some wheels. Across the street, not to be outdone in their neon glow is the big apple (a barbecue place). It's a warm night. I begin to wish I had put my jersey and shorts back on before leaving work. Of course when I left work I didn't figure I would be riding 20 miles either.



Around 8:20 I finally arrive home in the dark. Fortunately I had left my taillight in my bag from a few days ago, so I at least was visible from behind. Interestingly enough I was not hungry at all when I got home so I gave what was left of my chips to the kids who descended on them like a pack of wolves.

His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way

To ride and pass our long love's day.....

-Andrew Marvell

Well, the good guys over at Paragon Cycles got my bike in and built it up last week. Aint she beautiful? It's a Cannondale Synapse 4. Seeing as the entire country seems to be drained of Synapses they got ahold of a Synapse 6 and stripped the tiagra components off and put Sram Rival on. The downside, which is kind of an upside to me really is the fork is carbon but has an aluminum steerer, the 4 usually has a carbon steerer. Being a rando kind of guy, the aluminum steerer is a good thing as it means I can adjust the stem without a torque wrench out on the road somewhere if I have to. The upside is they got me Rival brakes too which replaced the tektro junk that came on it. I must say I almost went over the handlebars the first time I put the brakes on. Good brakes work!

I chose the Synapse because it is designed with a more relaxed geometry to keep the rider more comfortable. The Carbon Fiber layup is also done to maximize road vibration and bump dampening. I must say the design works good. I kind of feel a little sheepish on it. This is a lot of bike. I mean it's not a 4-5000 dollar team bike but it's not a entry level bike either. I'm still pinching myself.

A new bike should be properly broken in of course. I figured I'd do a longish ride today. The Brumbys were heading out the Bush hwy to the Beeling and I hopped on. I kept to the back since I was still getting used to the Sram 2 click system and the brakes that actually worked (as opposed to my old road bikes 'squishy' brakes). I think the back gets almost as much work as the front since they get to yo yo. It's really kind of an interval workout back there.



I managed to stick with them through the first hills even though a lot of people got dropped coming up Lil' Kong. Around the Saguaro lake hills I fell behind the group but among the guys that lagged, I wasn't the last one up the hill and I made it into the short regroups at the tops of the hills. This is huge for me. These guys ride fast and to stick with them has always been a personal goal. Granted I am among the stragglers on the hills, but a straggler among super strong riders is not that bad a thing. It won't be too long before I don't straggle.

Somebody flatted coming down the beeline and I stopped to make sure he had everything he needed and then moved on. By then the group was a ways down the road. A few of us banded together and kept pretty good time down to the Verde river. At the first light I asked the guy if that was the way to rio verde and 9 mile hill, he said 'yes'. I think he misled me a little and didn't realize it was actually the next light but that's ok, it was a pretty detour.

After I got some water at the gas station I headed off into the Fort McDowell indian reservation along the verde river. It was a pretty ride and eventually I came to a dirt road. Figuring that rio verde was not up a dirt road I turned around and wandered westward along forgotten paths. Incredibly I actually managed to meander into the houses of Fountain Hills (the hills is in that name for a reason) and onto Fountain Hills Blvd which of course runs out to rio verde.

It was nice to spend some time alone out on the road with the new bike. I determined when I got to the McDowell mtn park turnoff that I didn't have enough time to go down to rio verde and 9 mile hill so I decided I would ride up into the park. It was a nice 3 mile climb up to the campground where I would pull into the empty camground host's parking space and sneak some water out of the faucet there.

It was kind of amazing that I wasn't in more need of water on a day in late June in Maricopa County Arizona, but here it was! It had been 65 degrees down by the verde and temps where starting to climb into the 70s. Just a beautiful summer day! You can't buy weather like this.

Going back to fountain hills I cast my manliness aside and asked for directions. The way out was over a couple of pretty steep rollers, the steepest of which topped out at 10%. Soon they were gone though. I was pleased with the fact I was doing good on the hills despite losing my triple. Yes, fair reader, I am now a 2 chainring guy. It's a compact though.

The ride home was windy and at around 80 miles I had to work a little to keep the speed up despite growing fatigue. Still though, I'd hold the average speed at 18.2 mph for the day. I went 92 miles in 5 hours and 2 minutes with 3000 feet of climbing. I think it was a good first ride on the new bike. I am very happy with it so far, and my that carbon monocoque frame is sexy!

Merciful June

Back of the pack

I hopped on with the Brumbys this fine morning in June. It was a beautiful summer morning with cool temperatures and a forecast high of 94. Some Saturdays in the summer it's 90 degrees when we start out at 5 AM. Not today. Most of the sadistic fast guys were on the other side of town today riding back to Bartlett lake and up a mountain. So today the pace was a little slower than it was a few weeks ago heading across town. The group probably had 30-40 riders this morning.

I managed to stay with the group today and was not even the last one up a lot of the hills to boot. I didn't feel particularly strong and I have put on a few pounds over the last few weeks but I managed to stick with the group for the most part (or at least get to the regroups before they left).

Hill going up to the end of the pavement.

Only about half of the group pushed on past Tortilla flat. I figured I go to the end of the pavement and then head back since I was coming off a weeks rest and I had not felt overly energetic this week. I left canyon lake with the group and made it to the regroup just before dropping off the last hill. We formed a paceline of around 7 or 8 people heading back to Apache Junction. I think I got 2 pulls by the time we got to Crismon road.

Just after 9 I was feeling spunky and had another hour left of time so I thought I would tack a trip around Usery Pass on so I left the group at Crismon road. I could feel some fatigue but I still kept a pretty good pace for the most part. Climbing up King Kong was a bit of a grind but it was over before I fell over gasping for life so it was all good. I took it easy heading down Power back into Mesa. I was over 80 miles now and I had a hip and a knee that were complaining not to mention my back (I haven't been doing my core strengthening excersizes the last few weeks and I can really tell). Pulling into the driveway I had 90 miles, 4600 feet of climbing, and an average speed of 17 mph. Not too bad for someone that wasn't feeling too energetic.