Freedom Ride. Thanks to all of those who faithfully served our country and allowed me the freedom to ride bikes. Thanks to my grandfather, my dad, my father-in-law, and all of you I don't know. You are appreciated.

My freedom ride was on the Singlespeed in the foothills. Been riding a lot lately and even getting a fair amount of road miles in. With the forest closures I started at the bottom of Cedar Hill and climbed up to just below the water tanks, then worked south to Embudito. What's up with all the yellow tape closing off the area near the tanks anyway? Short patch of pavement through Glenwood Hills and picked up the singletrack again at Comanche. Did my normal loop through the south foothills. First time I've had the SS in the south foothills and I'd forgotten about all the steep, loose, climbing. Fun, but all the sand and heat made my legs weary. Worked back north the way I came and started bonking about the 20 mile mark. I'm still figuring the right amount of insulin and fuel to take for longer rides. Plus when it's hot out, it's hard for me to eat much during a ride. Started feeling better after eating and I wimped out on the climb up to Pino and instead just followed 365 back. Got run off the trail during that climbing stretch that eventually drops into the arroyo. I was surprised to see the lead rider wearing a new club jersey for the local trail advocacy group as everyone else I've met from that group knows trail etiquette. These guys were bombing and not moving for anyone. I was too tired and hot to harass them.

All in all, a great ride. 27 miles, one gear, and the gps said 2,500 feet of climbing, but it sure felt like more. 2.5 hours of ride time on really crowded trails, so not a bad ride time given all the slow downs for hikers. I've been running a Surly, 17 tooth cog and am really happy with it.

Been able to ride three straight days. Great way to spend the weekend. Our club ride was also in the foothills on Sat. Had five folks show up and it was a good group. Ran into Donnie on his SS too. He's running 32:16 on a Gunnar SS frame; nice set up for a strong guy. He said he's skipping Show Low Xterra this year. He won his division last year, but said he's a little burnt on the Tri stuff. Carl, Laurie, Todd, and Jane will be hitting Show Low next weekend, while Patrick and Sandy are heading to San Fran for Sandy's escape from Alcatraz Tri. Sounds like a brutal race starting in wicked cold water. Keep all those racing and traveling in your prayers. Our friend Matt is leaving tonight for the Bomb mission trip to the Ukraine. They'll be doing a lot of community service work while there and also doing lots of mountain biking. Each person that's going purchased a mountain bike that was flown over there and will be left there for the Ukraine Bomb group. The Ukraine group has hardly anything by our standards, yet they are so completely happy and content with their lives. A great lesson for all of us.

Off to BBQ with friends. Sorry for the rambling. It's been a couple weeks since I posted and I'm just dumping information rather than creating a narrative.

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Jemez, New Mexico. Saturday we took the short drive to the Jemez Mountains and headed for Tom Mayer's beloved Mesas. Tom has spent many years mapping this area and showing people the routes he's developed. Ann and I met our friend Mark, who knows all of Tom's routes. We loaded everyone up in the Element and Mark took us on "The Roadrunner" which is my favorite of the trails, so far. The Roadrunner was around 18 to 20 miles of great singletrack with some awesome technical sections thrown in. I took the FS bike and it was nice to be on it and have all those gears. Though Tom has the trails well marked and has even done some maintenance, you really have to pay attention to your route with all the subtle turns, even when using a gps to navigate. It was a super fun trail with some steep, technical decents, and my favorite part was near the end; a serpentine singletrack, meandering through large boulders, and outcrops of the ash-flow tuff that caps the entire area. In addition to the great riding, we saw some cougar tracks, tons of elk tracks, a huge skunk, and a mule deer. Also tons of turkey tracks in the area. I look forward to exploring more of Tom's routes in this area, but with as dry as things appear in the Jemez, the Santa Fe National Forest is likely to get shut down soon. On the way home, we hit up Los Ojos Bar and Grill in Jemez Springs for a burger. It was a perfect evening for sitting on the patio and doing some people watching.

What trails are you riding?

Closing it Down.
This morning, due to severe fire threat, the Forest Service closed down most of my local favorite trails. No telling when they'll be re-opened, so yesterday I comp'd some time off work and did a big SSolo loop in the Tunnel, Otero, David Canyon areas. It was just a beautiful morning to be out and temperatures were perfect and nobody to speak of on the trails either.

I rode all the singletrack I could find along with a few short stretches of Forest Service Road, and logged 30 miles, with 3,700 feet of climbing and 3 hours and a couple minutes of riding time. A modest pace, but I just wanted to linger on the trails and just didn't feel like hammering. I'm not sure my legs would have participated in a hammer session anyway. I did manage to clean a couple more sections climbing up turkey trot that have been giving me problems on the single speed, so that made my day better.

Picture was taken at the David Canyon overlook. View is south-southwest toward the Manzano Mountains and the Isleta Reservation. Pray for Rain.

Saturday morning the weather was perfect. I got together with Todd and Keith for a longish ride starting at Tunnel Canyon. Todd is in training mode for the xterra circuit and Keith does those crazy ironman races. Todd has really improved on his mountain biking and took a 3rd in tough conditions at Socorro a few weeks back in his first ever NMORS race in the competitive sport 30-39 class. Todds bro works for Trek/Bontrager and as a result, he gets some awesome bikes and percs. Todd is riding a team issue carbon fiber Fuel and believe me, you could not buy anything remotely close to this bike from your local Trek dealer.
Keith has incredible stamina from his triathlon training and though he's got some work to do on his off road skills, he was grinning the entire ride. Needless to say, we didn't break any speed records, but I was able to hammer up the climbs on the single speed, spin the flats, and rest at intersections, so it was a little like interval training.

It had rained the night before, but just enough to groom the trails and we were the first wheels on the trails all day. In fact, there were hardly any people on the trails for some reason. We headed up Tunnel to Rambo, to the withdrawal boundary, down new trail to Otero, up new trail, over to meadow junction with 56. Took 326 to intersection w/ FR106 to continuation of 326 with the new section that parallels the withdrawal boundary out to junction with 106 again. Proceeded over to Cajun pine and climbed over to Mars Court and took the 126? trail down into David Canyon and climbed turkey trot. I can climb turkey trot on my geared bike, but it's been giving me trouble on the single speed; getting a lot of wheel spin outs in the dry loose stuff. At the top of turkey trot, took new trail back to intersection w/ FR106, climbed to top of the ridge, and followed 106 back to 326 and back tracked down to meadow/56 junction again, then came down east Otero ridge, then back up to Rambo, down to Tunnel and back to the lot. All in all, a distance of 25 miles with total climbing of approximately 3,000.

A nice ride for me, though I had wanted to do about 10 more miles. My knee felt pretty decent and though I could feel some tightness by the end, it never really was hurting. I had a lot of fun, and that was the most miles I've done yet on the single speed. I'm trying to build up this year to reach my goal of a metric century on the singlespeed. Maybe by next year I'll be ready for the "Sport class" of the unofficial New Mexico Endurance series. If the forests close soon, like I'm hearing, I'll be getting a lot of road miles in the rest of the summer.

OK, so I forgot my camera this weekend, doh! The picture above is the original, 1922 Cedro Peak lookout tower, courtesy the U.S. Forest Service.
Last week was a whirlwind. Had to go up for a public meeting in Santa Fe on Tuesday evening. Got home late, so decided to comp some time and go turkey hunting way south early on Wednesday. Great day and to make a long story short, I got a nice Merrriams gobbler with my bow. Looking forward to cooking him up in a week or two with some friends. Wild turkey is one of my favorite game meats.

With the hunt over, I could get back on the bike again. Got a couple of road rides in and the one on Friday turned out to be more of a hammer session than I planned, especially battling the wind, but I got about 2200 feet of climbing in during my lunch hour and the grade was nice for staying in the big ring too. Ann had to work Saturday morning, so I planned a ride with Carl and Patrick. With the previous nights rain and other commitments later in the day, we opted for a north foothills ride. As usual, I left from the house on the singlespeed and climbed up to just below the water tanks, then headed south on the 365 trail and met the guys coming over from the Spain lot. After a quick prayer, we looped back and made the nice climb up to Pino at a good clip. They had me lead, and I was putting out a good steady effort with the guys right behind, and Patrick hugging my rear wheel the whole time on his cross bike. It was probably a reasonable pace for them, since they are racing in California this coming weekend and didn't want to hammer too hard. After Pino, we looped back south to Embudito, then down Bear Canyon arroyo, then climbed back up to Spain. I left the guys at Spain and headed back home via 365 at a medium fast pace. When all was said and done, the computer indicated 16 plus miles, (1 hour, 23 minutes) with an average speed of 11.55 mph and a not too serious 2,500 feet of climbing. For me, a really nice workout, and fun as always to go with riders that are stronger than I am.

Sunday was beautiful and Ann and I decided to hit Cedro. I was on the SS again and I think we were both a bit dehydrated because my legs just had no zip and I could tell Ann wasn't feeling her normal self. Seems we both also have a bit of a sore throat and decided to cut the ride a little short, but still great to be out there. Need to get a lot of good rest this week so we don't get sick. Next weekend I'm hoping to do a big ride (for me) on the SS. Need to decide on a route and try to find some company. G3 is this weekend and it will be the first one I've missed. It's always a blast hanging out with bomb folks from across the globe, but Moab just does not spark my interest anymore. I love Fruita, but there's something about being in Moab, that makes me uneasy, and I've never been able to feel relaxed and at ease there. Wierd, huh? Anyone else ever feel that way about Moab or any other place for that matter? Enough rambling. Grace and Peace.