{"id":2387,"date":"2012-02-05T14:19:40","date_gmt":"2012-02-05T21:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/?p=2387"},"modified":"2012-02-05T14:19:40","modified_gmt":"2012-02-05T21:19:40","slug":"club-ride-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/2012\/02\/05\/club-ride-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Club Ride – NOT!"},"content":{"rendered":"

My new bike club, Blue Sky Velo (www.blueskyvelo.com) has a yahoo group set up for the road riders. Yesterday, one of the members posted a Sunday B-ride that looked interesting. \u00a0The plan was to meet at Vic’s Coffee house on the central, west side of Longmont and ride into Boulder as a group, take a coffee break and ride back. I was really torn about whether or not to join in on the ride. Generally I take a rest day after a tough velodrome workout but I am anxious to meet the other road riders and this would be a good opportunity to do that. I was still undecided as I drifted off to sleep last night. But, when I woke up this morning, I knew that I really wanted to join the ride. I hustled thru my chores and headed out of the house at 9:20am so I wouldn’t be late. It didn’t take me as long to get to the rendez-vous spot as I thought it would so I arrived with plenty of time to get ready. No one was there when I arrived, but departure wasn’t until 10:00, so I took my time getting ready. Even after I had Pogo packed and ready and I had stretched and stretched some more no one else had shown up. I wondered if I had gotten the meeting place or time wrong or if the ride had been called off because of the cold. It was all of 20F and noticeably chilly. I hung out until a few minutes after 10:00 and then decided to head out on my own. Not like I’m not used to riding by myself. And, since I was feeling more like putting in a “recovery” ride than a pace ride, I was more than content with the way things worked out. \u00a0(Turns out, I remembered the start time incorrectly — departure wasn’t until 10:30am. Oh well, I’ll try to get it right next time.)<\/p>\n

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Snow was beautiful --sorry about the dirty camera lens. Cycling jersey pockets are filthy!<\/p><\/div>\n

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I rode west towards the foothills. I missed having my Garmin305 and my heart rate monitor as I love following the data and seeing how my body responds when I’m climbing or pushing the pace. I suppose not having these gadgets allowed me to do a true recovery ride. Maybe even a bit more leisurely than normal. I took in the scenery, stopped and took photos of the fresh snow on the foothills and of a hawk sitting in a big \u00a0cottonwood tree looking for breakfast in a nearby field.<\/p>\n

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The roads were a bit sandy but the shoulder was visible and I had plenty of room to ride safely out of the traffic. \u00a0It was cold enough that I really didn’t want to get up too much speed. I was very content to meander along at 11-12 mph. Luckily, I was on a slight uphill grade for most of the ride until I hit Hwy 36 — my turn around point. I honestly can’t say I was thrilled at the prospect of riding back down to the coffee shop. Normally, taking Nelson road back into Longmont is a blast. The downhill is enjoyable and there are at least two stretches where you pick up lots of speed (over 30 mph without even trying). I gritted my teeth, pulled up my fleece neck gaiter and took off. Brrrrrr. Of course, it didn’t help that I had gotten a little sweaty on the climb up to the turn-around. Now I think I had icicles where there once was sweat!<\/p>\n

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The ride back was chilly, but quick. Almost as soon as I turned around I noticed a big plumb of smoke — right were there is a horse boarding facility. It looked to me as if a hay barn might have gone up in flames. Within a few minutes I rode past the property and it looked like it was a hay fire — but a controlled one. There were fire trucks there (no sirens or panic) and the fires was isolated in an open area away from all structures. \u00a0From the plumb I could tell that there was no north-south component to the breeze and that the little breeze there was seemed to be coming out of \u00a0the east — right into my face now.<\/p>\n

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I was tempted to extend my ride once I got back to Vic’s Coffee Shop, but decided to end on a good note and pulled in to the parking lot. My last task was to pick up a Latte for Beth and then I was off for home. Glad I had made the effort to ride today — wishing the miles had come a little easier. On my way home (in the car) I pulled over to watch two bald eagles! AMAZING. I took a photo with my little cycling camera — the photo didn’t come out all that well, but you get the idea. \u00a0I had no idea we had bald eagles in the area. I’ll be keeping an eye out for them along the river now that I know they’re here!<\/p>\n

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My new bike club, Blue Sky Velo (www.blueskyvelo.com) has a yahoo group set up for the road riders. Yesterday, one of the members posted a Sunday B-ride that looked interesting. \u00a0The plan was to meet at Vic’s Coffee house on the central, west side of Longmont and ride into Boulder as a group, take a […]<\/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-2387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387","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=2387"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2397,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387\/revisions\/2397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}