Weekend of Not Racing

I love racing my bicycle.  The thrill of lining up, even if at the back, with a bunch of like minded folks and laying it all out for really nothing more than the glory of it sometimes keeps me up at night.  Racing is definitely one of my favorite things to do, and I will usually choose it over other possible weekend activities.  This past weekend, though, was different.  After some less-than-lackluster performances as the previous weekends bike races, I needed to do something different.  I changed my whole routine that week...

Monday evening I did a short spin on the trainer and a bit of yoga.  Wednesday I put myself through The Sufferfest's "Rubber Glove" video, which consists of a good warm up, then a 20 min FTP test.  I'm a big fan of using data to inform my training.  It's something that I haven't been doing lately (the training part, not the data part), and I need to get back into it.  A good FTP on which trainer workouts will be based is going to be beneficial for me.  I have a feeling that I'm going to be spending a lot of time on the trainer this winter; there doesn't seem to be much in the way of night MTBing around here.  Quite frankly, I'm not even sure if it's legal in most places.

Saturday I got out on my cross bike and did a lap of the Marshall Mesa trail system with Kyle.  It was a super fun mix of doubletrack, walking paths, and primo cross bike singletrack.  It's very close by, so I'll definitely be back there regularily (maybe with lights after work).

Marshall Mesa Singletrack

2014 Corvette Stingray at a posh hotel in Boulder

Sunday my work colleague/new riding buddy and I threw our singlespeeds on top of my can and headed of Boulder Canyon to Nederland to ride the West Magnolia trails.  West Mag is one of the more popular trails in the area, and now I understand why.  It's not your typical front range stuff.  There are trees, and sometimes you have to ride in between them.  It's a pretty cool place and the 2 hrs we spent riding there didn't even scratch the surface.  Once I get a new geared squishy bike up and running I will spend a super long day just exploring.

Informative Trailheads are nice.

We hiked up some snowy south-facing slopes for a while.

Persistent crank arm loosening syndrome.

Not what the actual trails looked like.

There's a rider in  there somewhere...

The Continental Divide felt so close.