Ride the Rockies 2015 Day One: Just Two American Citizens Exercising Our Right

 

Day One of Ride the Rockies 2015 began with waking up in a tent city. Not that unusual expect we were at the Bluegrass Festival in Palisade, not Colorado Mesa University, where the ride starts. After enjoying a few too many Dirty Hippies the night before we decided to forego the mandate from the ride director to be at the entrance to the Colorado National Monument by 9:00 a.m. and enjoy a leisurely breakfast. We figured if they tried to stop us from going we'd just pay the entrance fee and ride as "just two American citizens exercising our right to visit our national monument!"

When we finally hit the road at 9:45 a.m. and found our way onto the course we were definitely DFL. We hit the park entrance around 10:15 and the ranger let us through with our Ride the Rockies wrist bands (foregoing the $5 fee for cyclists). We caught another rider shortly after Aid Station 1 and eventually overtook a dozen or so more before the first Team Bar2Bar Aid Station in Fruita -- the Suds Brothers Brewery.

Riding the Monument is an experience. The views are amazing but there are places where one wrong move could send you off a 1,000 Ft. cliff. It made my knees week to even look at times. Eyes on the road!

Team Bar2Bar, from left: Woody, Hankster, Beefman, Flip Flop Jenny, Pam the Pilot and Paul the Pilot.

After a Red Monkey Butt Amber at Suds Brothers we rolled the final 15 miles back into Grand Junction and met up with the rest of Team Bar2Bar at the Kannah Creek Brewery. Liquid carbon-loading is an important part of the recovery process on Ride the Rockies! We rounded out the night with dinner at the Rockside Brewery and a beer at the O'Dells Beer Tent listening to a local band.

Today's ride is a brutal 94-mile excursion featuring more than 7,000 feet of climbing over Grand Mesa, ending in Hotchkiss. But the reward will be worth it as we enjoying our home-grilled steaks at my friend Robbie LaValley's ranch near Hotchkiss!

Ride on!

Daren

Ride the Rockies 2015 starts tomorrow! Wait. What? How did that happen?

Once again this year I expect to ride a majority of the miles alongside my buddy Woody, who I met on my first RTR in 2005. Woody's wife, Lora, is the daughter of one of the founding members of Team Bar2Bar!

Every year its the same thing, only every year seems to pick up speed. In early February you register for Ride the Rockies and wait an excruciatingly long month to find out if you get in. Then the notification comes but it still seems like a long time until June. Then it snows in April and May and you don't ride as much as you had planned and suddenly it's June and the ride is just days away.
Then the haunting questions set in:

• Did I train hard enough?
• Will my body hold up for another weeklong ride in the Rockies?
• How will I keep my iPhone, Garmin 810 and new Ivation Bike Beakon charged all week?
• Where did I put my tent?

One of the best parts of RTR is meeting back up with friends from previous years like The Hankster and Flip Flop Jenny (so named because she rides the entire route in dime store flip flops).

I think I have the answer to the last two but won't know about the first two until the ride gets underway. Day Two should be a pretty good indicator -- 96 miles and 7,631 feet of elevation gain climbing from 5,000 feet in Grand Junction to 11,000 feet at the summit (6,000 feet in 20 miles!). We did this climb on my first Ride the Rockies in 2005 and it is rough. More than 500 of the 2,000 riders were unable to complete the climb and had to SAG to the top. One of the major reasons was heat and it looks like it's going to be another hot one this year with temps in the 90s on Monday.

But that's what makes Ride the Rockies epic: long days, big climbs, screaming downhills, and cold beer waiting at the finish line. I can't wait!

This will be the first post-retirement for Paul the (former) Pilot who retired from United Airlines shortly after last year's ride.

Stay tuned to the BEEFMAN blog for updates and lots of pics throughout the week.

Ride on!

Daren

Ride the Rockies 2015 Training: Rain Delay

One week ago I posted optimistically about kicking my Ride the Rockies training into high gear. My plan was to ride to and from work several days this week (a 50-mile round trip). Then the rain came, and kept coming, and hasn't stopped yet. Actually it's is supposed to turn to snow tonight and tomorrow, which would make it the second straight snow on Mother's Day here!

One perspective is to truly be prepared for Ride the Rockies, you should train in all weather conditions. After all, last year on Day One we encountered thunder, lightning, hail and snow! But I have no plans to go out riding in the snow tomorrow morning. I personally believe in avoiding adverse riding conditions whenever possible :)

So this week I hooked my bike back up to my CycleOps Fluid2 Indoor Trainer and logged 57.5 miles in a variety of workouts mixing up intensity and spending more time in my third ring (yes, I ride a triple and will be very glad I do when we tackle the Royal Gorge climb on Day Six!). That brings my total to 791.5 miles since January 1, compared to 1,315 by May 9 last year. But my legs feel strong and I logged my fastest ever 10-mile time on the trainer this morning (27:35. 21.8 mph).

That little bump starting at mile 50 is a steep climb up to the south rim of the Royal Gorge on Day Six. 

According to Google Earth , the climb is nearly 750 feet in 2 miles!  That's an average grade of 7.1.

Hopefully I'll be able to get outside to ride sometime again soon. There's simply nothing like riding on real hills to prepare for riding on real hills!

Ride on!

Daren