Training for Ride2Survive: Asbury B & B (bikes and booze) was a success

Despite the crazy snow dump we had a few days before everyone was due to arrive, the riding camp was successful. We were soooo lucky that we had great riding days Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We had no plans to ride on Monday, which is a good thing since it started snowing again and continued all through the day. Today it's Tuesday and it is STILL snowing. Winter wonderland all over again. April 23rd. Pathetic!!

Day one of the camp we rode a 65 mile (105 km) loop from our house to a little town called Lyons. It was a fairly flat ride. Everyone did great, but there were a few grumbles towards the end about being ready to be done riding. We had a wicked head wind and cross wind for most of the ride back. The start of the ride was a tad cool, but while we were underway we were totally fine. The sun was out and was doing a good job of keeping us warm.

Day one-ride to Lyons. On Route 66!

Day two we rode from the house to a "famous" place called the Morgul Bismark loop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgul-Bismark

Races are held there, and it was featured in a movie called "American Flyers". It has some steep climbs, including 'The Wall', which is a gradual one mile climb that ends in a 12% grade. In addition, we did some speed work on Cherryvale Road in Boulder (which might possibly be my favorite road to ride on here). It has some great rollers and we were working as a team to get some good speed going. VERY fun. Everyone loved today's ride. It was only 35 miles (56 km), but very fun. Some gorgeous views of the mountains from there too.

Celebrating their first trip up "The Wall"

Day three we left the house (well, Siobhan, Graham and I did.....Chris and Den drove) to head to the foothills in Boulder. It was a beautiful morning, and the ride into town was not difficult at all. 21 miles of bike lanes, beautiful views and easy riding. Nice start! When we arrived at the coffee shop meeting point, we joined up with the guys, and also Den's cycling coach Ann Samplonius. She rode with us this day and took us up to Ward. The climb to Ward is a 16 mile climb.....with the first 15 miles being not too bad (maybe 4-5% grade?) and the last mile is 11%.
http://303cycling.com/The-Climb-to-Ward-Boulder-bike-rides

It was actually pretty brutal. There was a LOT of self talk going on there, and a lot of grinding it out on the pedals! We all made it though, which felt pretty great. Ward is so high up (9,450 ft elevation) that the snow up there was still deep and prevalent! Didn't take long for the sweat we worked up to get COLD! After fueling up, emptying out and filling up water bottles, we started our descent. This was either the highlight of the day or the worst part of the day, depending on who you are (Siobhan hates descending.....and well, if you hate descending, this isn't your favourite position to be in......it's a LONG way down!). Some of us took off and reached speeds of 50 miles per hour (80 km) going down. Yeeeee hawwww!

Unfortunately, we stopped at the bottom to regroup, and I noticed I was in my big ring from the descent still. Not great for the new climbing challenge ahead of us (up the back side of Lee Hill Drive). I made a quick (slow) turn around to change into my small ring, and slid out on the loose gravel. Darn it! Took out my left elbow pretty bad, and minor cuts and bruises on both hands, and down my hip and left leg. We still had work to do though, so I rolled my ripped shirt and pinched off the blood, and we carried on. I'm thankful that I was going at that slow speed when I spilled. A wipe out at 50 miles per hour would be a nightmare!

Yeouchy

At the end of that, we dropped off the rented bikes in Boulder, and went back to our place to celebrate a successful few days. We *might* have played as hard that night as we rode the last few days. Was a fun night, and capped off a great cycling weekend!