{"id":2067,"date":"2011-04-29T21:25:52","date_gmt":"2011-04-30T03:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/?p=2067"},"modified":"2011-04-30T22:04:30","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T04:04:30","slug":"lefthand-canyon-in-the-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/2011\/04\/29\/lefthand-canyon-in-the-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"Lefthand Canyon in the Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garmin Data: http:\/\/connect.garmin.com\/activity\/82386050<\/a><\/p>\n

Both Beth L and Randy B had today off, so I decided to join them in the morning on my first ride of the year\u00a0up Lefthand Canyon to Ward and the Peak-to-Peak highway. Last year I must’ve gone up this canyon half a dozen times while preparing for the cross country ride. Most years I get up it at least a few times. It is a fantastic ride and a wonderful route if you are training for climbing!<\/p>\n

I decided not to bring my camera on the ride as my pockets were overflowing with other stuff. I filled\u00a0them with a Pearlizumi Barrier jacket, some long fingered gloves, my ‘turtle fur’ helmet liner and toe covers. Although I would have loved taking some photos, I definitely made the right trade off! It was cool at the bottom of the canyon, but down right chilly as we approached the final couple miles. There was a steady, moderate headwind the entire ride. We also experience both rain and SNOW on the top part of the ride. Randy and I were riding together when the rain started. It was a light drizzle, but the clouds up ahead told us that it could just as easily dump on us. I was the first to admit that I wasn’t too keen on getting wet today, but Randy was quick to chime in. We said we’d ride just a bit further to see if it would let up. Well, the rain didn’t last.It didn’t exactly stop but it did switch over to snow. And, we found that snow as a good alternative as we didn’t get wet. We just got cold! So, we put on a couple of layers and rode on.<\/p>\n

I was feeling good and riding strong. Randy was riding even stronger. He’s been working out quite a bit and has also dropped about 20 lbs. I on the other hand, continue to haul too much body fat up hills. Good thing I’ve got strong legs! That’s the only thing that keeps me in the game I think. Randy and I rode most of the way together.\u00a0 I led the entire ride. Beth was having a tough day and lagged behind us by a few minutes. We waited up once, but after we started up again she fell behind pretty quickly. I know exactly how she felt. Every cyclist I’ve ever known can relate to days when riding is just difficult.\u00a0 I don’t think Beth ever found her rhythm nor did she have a deep reserve of energy to just push through it.\u00a0 She was just coming into Ward as Randy and I were heading back down after a short rest stop at the small store. Instead of continuing on up to the Peak-to-Peak highway, Beth was\u00a0very content to turn around and join us for a screaming (cold!) downhill!<\/p>\n

To give you an idea of the grade – it took me 2:06 to climb UP the canyon and a little over 30 minutes to get back down! MapMyRide rates it as a category 1 climb – with a 15.4 mile climb averaging 4.4 % (total of 3,500′ of elevation gain in 17 miles). Not a bad workout. This is the route we take on day #1 of the CRR-ABB (Colorad Reunion Ride – America By Bicycle) tour Beth and I are leading in July. Should get everyone’s attention I think!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garmin Data: http:\/\/connect.garmin.com\/activity\/82386050 Both Beth L and Randy B had today off, so I decided to join them in the morning on my first ride of the year\u00a0up Lefthand Canyon to Ward and the Peak-to-Peak highway. Last year I must’ve gone up this canyon half a dozen times while preparing for the cross country ride. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2071,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions\/2071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}