Mountains of Misery 2011

This year I decided to do Mountains of Misery instead of the IMBA Mountain Bike Festival, which I’ve done for the last five or six years over Memorial Day Weekend. A bunch of my PPTC friends do Mountains of Misery annually as one of their challenge rides. Mountains of Misery is not a race, but it is a timed event, so you get a chip and an official time. This year, they decided to do waves, so you didn’t know who you were going to end up riding with at the beginning of the event. Because this is a road event, to actually get a good time, you would need to be with a good group of people that you can draft with. Since this was my first time doing the event, I had no pressure on myself, so I could just enjoy it.

So we were the third wave of riders to go off, and I was in a huge line of drafting with Chris, Jonathan, and Rudy. There were some fools taking huge pulls for no apparent reasons, but I was like fine…if they’re willing to do that, I will just stay behind them. I didn’t waste much energy until finally we got to the big downhill. The downhill was a little sketchy because I had never done it, and I was with a pretty big group of people who weren’t always taking the best lines. Rudy had charged off to the front for what I thought was no apparent reason, but he knew the hill was coming so he got to the front so he could choose his lines and get down the mountain pretty quickly. After the downhill, there was a rest stop, which we passed, and at that point we got a good group of people I could see myself riding with for a lot of the day. We started doing some smaller country roads that had kind of stepped hills, which is more my kind of terrain, and I was gapping the group I was with.  I decided to pull back, though, and save my energy for the end.  

Rudy got a flat, so I said I’d wait for him since I had no time to beat from previous years. He fixed his tire, and the sag came by, which was great because I was able to refill my water bottles. Rudy was pretty pissed off since this took off about four to five minutes, which would be hard to make up. Once we got going again, we hooked up with three other guys and we were going along at a pretty good pace. Rudy was falling off the pace a little bit and waived us on. We started going downhill toward one of the big climbs of the ride. I decided to push it a little bit with the guys, staying with them until the base of the climb and then assuming everyone would do their own pace up it.


 John's Creek Mountain is actually a pretty good one for me, since it’s around three miles and varies in pitch. I pushed it up the climb and took a pit stop. I think this was crucial in my overall time, because since I had gotten the water from the sag wagon and brought my own food, I had not stopped at a rest stop and had an official break. The rest stop girl thought I was a little crazy because I was one of the only person to eat the pickles, but I have found that pickles do me right on this kind of event. I continued to then ride the next forty miles by myself. I think what helped me was having done the SM100 and other long-distance mountain bike races. Through them I learned to ride at a high pace even by myself.

The Hardest Climb I’ve Ever Done-Mountain Lake

Since I had my Garmin, I was could see I was doing consistent riding at pitches of 14 to 15 percent. The climb started off ok, although the heat was starting to get bad at around 90. It then just turned into a grudge match of me against my pedals. I kept thinking I was going to have to get off the bike and either push the bike or take a breather. There is a reason that this climb was in the old Tour DuPont—it really is pro-level. The people cheering from the roadside was great but also frustrating because I was going around 3 mph. I did love the wet towels on the neck—great relief. I finally got to the finish line happy to be done. The food afterwards was great, but I couldn’t eat too much having put out so much effort and just nibbled at a hamburger and had a Coke.

Final Note
I’m actually really proud of that ride considering my body weight(in the 190s) and how big the climb at the end was.
Stats
Ride Time: 6:07:46
2nd, Age35-39
17th Male
18th Overall

J. Bishop Grand Fondo

This was a beast of a ride, I have done rides with more Climbing, but this thing had 3 really hard climbs. The First was Rt. 33 VA to WV, not my kind of climb consistent 6-8% pitch that keep going up and up. The Downhill was super fun though. The second dirt climb I was totally at my limit, and going up 14 and even 16% pitches. I was better here since I could use more of my power, and the grade was not constant. The 3rd climb was not that bad, but Reddish was a tough one. Alot of people had issues cause the climb was a dirt rough road climb. My issue was that it was just so long, my body has a hard time climbing for more then 2mile sections(I was going 3.0mph at one point). Nice ride Got to do it with Matt Donahue, and Jonathan Wheaton. At the end of the ride I did the last 15 miles with Jonathan and Chris my PPTC friends. Thinking I might do it next year as well.

Rattlin 50 a tale of two races.....

Short story
Pretty solid ride for the first 40miles...UNTIL my rear derailleur broke.  Until the end Single Speed with a max speed of 7.5mph.   Fine for the trails but too slow for the fireroads towards the end.

More detailed view:
The race is a pretty good one.  It is also very different compared to other endurance races I have done.  There is not as much climbing, but there was plenty of points in the race where you needed your power to get through the rocks.
The race starts out with a 2.5 mile climb, but after that you never climb anything else that is more then 8%.  The race includes some really Technical Shed/Gambril like trails, and with some fun super tight single track with mountain shrubs(maybe mt. laural?) giving you only 2 ft of trail up to your top tube.  I was happy to just "ride" steady at this race.  I had some issues where I couldn't actually go full out, cause I had to make sure I could get through the many rock gardens.  The Rocks for the most part are actually setup pretty well so you can ride them.  There were about 5-6 times I got off my bike, cause I dabbed and just walked through that rock section.  Since the race was not the usual Fire road up and then Single track downhill, you had to be on the gas when you could, but this meant being on the gas through real singletrack.  So you had a good amount of spinning.  There were some Dirt roads, and grass tracks as well.  I actually didn't find those that annoying since you spent some upperbody/core energy on the single track.  So the Fire roads and grass double tracks were good to regroup on.   I had some good back and forth with some folks, but once my derailleur busted that part of the race was done.
Broken Derailleur
What makes this annoying was that I had a derailleur hanger, but these new XT mechs have a piece that is suppose to break off, and I guess you are to have the replacement for that too.  After I made my bike a SS I could only go 7.5 miles an hour.  I was just trying to get the ride done at this point.  If I could have set it up with a little bigger gear that would of helped.  Taking what I had done, I kept the same avg. speed to the finish I think I would have done a 5:15 hour time.  Well here are the stats:

DirtyBurg Big-Day-64Miles

 From Early March

The usual DirtyBurg ride is 40 miles, but this is a version that I routed out after seeing a posting on the MORE board that listed all the dirt roads of Loudon County. So I took roads from the normal DirtyBurg ride and added some from the previous extended ride that accidentally went on some private farms DirtyBurg Extended. I then connected those roads with some new dirt roads from my Leesburg dirt road ride that I had done in years past with the famous Jets and Sharks ride, which was a combined PPTC/MORE ride.

Riding in the 19th century

Kenda block 8's didn't seem to be so resilant

For the ride, there were three of us: Matt, Mark and me. Mark is a beast of a rider, and I can only hope to hang onto his back wheel, while Matt is always the wild card. At the start of the ride, I found out that Matt had ridden his bike a total of five times since late November. We started the ride a little cold, as even though the forecast had said it would be sunny and a high of 50 degrees, it was cloudy and in the 40s --a big difference.

We did Busthead Road, and once we got onto the climb I ended up putting some distance on the boys, mostly because they were riding really high gearing. I think Mark had a 34-23 and Matt was running a single chainring and I believe a 38-25. I was running a new crank set that I had bought for my new Giant cross bike that was a 36-46(came with a 38-46) with a 28 in the back. Once we got to the top, we started the fast downhill and I kinda let it hang out, which led me to eventually go off the road (that was kinda sketchy). Matt ended up bombing the downhill and getting in front of me. The road then went from regular dirt to soft gravel/dirt/etc. that would make you wipe out if you had too much weight on the front wheel. We continued on and Mark was riding pretty strong, doing a couple digs where I was wondering whether I'd be able to keep up that kind of pace for the length of the ride. Matt had a funny comment once we got over an old stone bridge and were going by some stone farm fences. He said, "I think the Confederates still hold this area," which made us all laugh because when we looked around it seemed like we could have been in the 19th century. 

We got onto some of the new roads, which were pretty nice--constant ups and downs. The only blunder in the route was when we were going down a hill and came upon a deep creek covering the road. There had been a major storm two days prior, and most of the roads were fine, but this road was flooded out and not passable. We rerouted to get around it (it's great to have a Garmin when wanting to change course mid-ride). We then hooked up with some of the Leesburg roads I had ridden multiple times before. By this time, Matt was still riding ok, but he was beginning to feel his months of not riding. I could not believe he was riding as good as he was. Then we started onto some new roads that I had not done before, but right as we were getting on them, Mark got a flat. One of the problems with this route is that there is not a clear place to stop to refuel, so with my new bike only having one bottle holder, I had to get some water off of Mark's Camelbak as he was changing his tire.

Around this point, the sun finally decided to show itself, which made the day a lot nicer. We got back to the end part of the DirtyBurg ride, which consists of riding up Bull Run Mountain on a diagonal that makes you go up and down the ridgelines. We ended up going our own pace and regrouping at turns. Finally we came back together as we hit Hopewell, and just to get it all out of my system, I took off on a flyer for the last 3 miles on Busthead Road.

After the ride, we went to Joe's Pizza (which is really hard to find now that Gainesville is all screwed up with the roads) and we ordered three large pies. I couldn't believe how much that little guy Matt could eat. It was a great time with the boys.

• For the route, I need to find a refueling point. There was a small country store that might have potential, but it might not be open all the time.
• I do like my new Giant cross bike, but for these dirt road rides, it's not as smooth as my old Jamis. Most importantly, it doesn't have 2 water bottle mounts, so I might want to get a second mount to use for rides like this.
• The ride is a doozy, as it involves 6000 ft. of climbing in 64 miles.
• Definitely good Iron Cross training. Will try to do this ride again before that race.

AZ Trip 2011-Day 3 Quadruple-By-Pass

The Anthem 29 liking the trail

From Feb.

Saw a hare

This is one of my favorite rides when I come to AZ.  This ride reminds me of riding in GW forest where you have a big climb and then a big decent.  This year I brought a GPS with me, but I forgot it for this ride!  I had one of the maps the park makes so I was ok.  The windGate climb was brutal as it was last year.  With the new bike I will say it was nice having good brakes for the descents. I liked this ride more this year, cause since it was so early in the season it wasn't as hot. Also since I had done the ride before I knew what I was getting into.  The tricky part where you go through the neighborhood, was no problem now since I knew where I was going.  I ended up taking a wrong turn on the Quartz trail.   I ended up at a Golf course and knew I had gone the wrong way.  I looked at the map and saw my mistake and then continued to get back to the trail I needed to get to.  I was out there a long time, I started around 11am and didn't finish until dusk. When I was coming over the last pass the sun was behind the mountain.  Also I lost my cleat in my shoe(found the cleat not the bolts), so had to do an emergency repair and rode the last bit with only one bolt in each of my cleats.
Great ride, longest of the trip 6+ hours out there, riding for 5+. 

Highest elevation 3100ft, lowest 1500ft

SunRise Valley Climb

http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=217443

A cycleways map of Open Street Map Data, I added the details on how to get out of the neighborhood to the DixieMone trail

Iron Cross 8 the X X X edition

From 10-10-10

Iron Cross

Iron Cross
Oh you beast, I think I know you and then you go and change on me.  The Iron Cross race is something that any biker who has a CX bike should do.  The race is between a SM100 kind of race, a dirt road race, and a mountain bike race.  The nice thing about the race is that it is short enough that most people finish within an hour of almost everyone else.  This was my race this year. I had broken my pinky in May, so this was my objective race.  I started training late, cause I moved from Arlington to DC this July.  So it wasn't until late August that I started to get the miles and rides in (the OMG-Shepherdstown stuff is great training).  By September, I was getting a good amount of rides, and I had done Ed Sanders, and AVC cross before Iron Cross.  My back was starting to act up even with those short events, so I had no idea what was going to happen at Iron CX.
An Unexpected Partner
Two of my DCMTB teammates Matt E. and Mark P. went up a day early and stayed in one of the cabins.  I am thinking that will be the ticket for next year.  The unexpected partner was Sid.  I haven't ridden with Sid in a long time so I was surprised to hear that he was going to be doing Iron CX.  He rented a CX bike, and I gave him a helping hand by letting him borrow a set of 38mm WTB interwolfs.  This tire is not made anymore, but it is the perfect tread for this event.  I might try and run them tubeless next year.  I ran them this year with Latex tubes.  So Sid and I met up at Scots run near 495 at 5:15 am and got on the road.  We got up there pretty quick with plenty of time to spare.
Pre-Race
This year the weather was warmer then when I did it in 2007.  I was worried about clothing, but I settled on wool bib shorts, knee warmers, arm warmers, jersey and vest.  Sid and I met up with Matt and Mark, and we were able to put our stuff in their cabin.   I planned bags with CO2 and tubes at both stops just in case.We talked about the course, and people were getting nervous.

The Start, Lippencote Trail, to Wigwam

Matt started fast and I was on his wheel, but then we switched.  We got to the open road/trail, and Matt went speeding ahead.  Mark eventually caught up to me as well and passed me.  I had only been racing for 30 minutes and I was already starting to feel my back.  I knew it was going to be a rough day.  I was climbing ok, but I think this year my descending was going great.  I felt really comfortable on the downhills. The road sections were not going well for me. I think that next year I will have to work on doing more road riding to work on my high-end speed.  We did a paved road climb, and then it was on to the first real singletrack.  One of the keys to racing this race is top levers on a CX bike.  Going up the trail, I was riding smooth and slowly catching up to and passing some people.  Once the trail went downhill I started doing even better.  I somehow ended up behind two other mt. bikers or skilled riders, cause the three of us passed like 20+ people on the trail.  We were going over logs (some over a foot high) and I made it past the part in 2007 where I walked.  Now I was in front of 30+ people who had previously been in front of me.  Just as in 2007, everyone was doing pacelines that were going too fast for me to even get in on.  Matt caught up to me again (I had passed him) and passed me again.
Wigwam to Aid 3
The good thing about having done the race was that I knew how much Wigwam sucks.  This year I carried my bike across my back, with it kinda resting on my camelbak.  I think this was the right way to do it, but I think that if you could have a bungee to hold on to so that your hands are not in a weird position, it would be bettter.  Might work on that.  Once at the rest stop, I took a minute to take off my vest, arm warmers, and knee warmers, put them in my drop bag, and fill up my bottle.  Matt was just in front of me. I caught up to him and he was going a little slower, so I passed him.  The next downhill was sick, I was riding it fast like 45 mph and felt comfortable (my back not so much), but was thinking if I wreck this is going to be bad.  At one point I took a turn a little too hot and ended off the road, but I was fine.  I dropped some people going down the mountain, but the problem with that speed is you can miss your next turn!  So I went left at this Y and felt that there should be someone near me.  So I turned around and saw some people up the road going into the woods.  So I was now behind like 10 people I had passed.  I saw Matt again, who was cursing me, the race, and his lot in life it seems.  This was a new singletrack section, where my top levers, and 34-32 gearing was coming in handy.  I was passing people and hooked up with a mountain biker.  I actually passed the mountain biker on the downhill--pretty amazing.  I was then mostly on my own to aid 3.
Aid 3-Fin
So at the aid station, I filled up my bottle again, and had a cup to go as well.  This was the start of the big ass climbing.  I had 2 interesting experiences. One was with Todd B. from the SS Outlaw crew was rocking it on his SS.  I was climbing steady in my small gear as he was mashing away.  We both said that our legs were getting some twinges.  At some point Todd must had had both legs cramp, cause he fell into a heap on the side of the fire road.  The other person I rode next to was a beast of a rider.  She was the 4th or 5th place female (and I later found out she was 51 years old--go her). She was riding a bike almost like a touring bike.  She was breathing up a storm, pushing a big ass gear. and she would pedal, then walk, pedal then walk.  I was just going constant (slowly).  We went back and forth, with her going in front until she had to walk, and me catching back up to her because I was still actually pedaling my bike. She then left me as it leveled out at the top.  Once it started down hill I dropped her hard.  I finally got to the last singletrack section.  This is the funnest part of the course, but you are usually too tired to like it.  The singletrack seemed longer, and more technical then before.  I knew I was running slower, cause last time I rode most of the last walk up.  After going though the last singletrack, I heard my tire rubbing.  I looked at it and I had broken a spoke (I found out later it was 2). So I was thinking about what to do. I didn't want the tire to take off all my paint on the bike. I found the bad spot and just whacked it a couple of times, and that seemed to true it enough not to hit my frame.  Now I had no rear brake though.  The last pavement downhill was trickier then last time, since I only really had a front brake.  My wheel was so messed up it made the bike do a lurching motion.  I did the last 2-3 big rollers, then back to the finish.  I made it just under 5 hours.  I achieved my goal, but I thought I was faster. I think that most people's times were slower cause of the added singletrack (which is a good thing).

Thoughts

• This race should be only CX bikes like the Three Peaks Race
• Next year if I got up with some people I will try to have us ride as a group until the first singletrack
• I need to work on leg speed for the road sections
• I should make a small bungee thing to help hold the bike for Wigwam, and then dump it at the aid station
• I plan to ride my stans wheels next year 
• Thinking about doing a spring training camp and doing the ride then
• Seems like most roadies were riding mountain bikes, and it was mountain bikers on the CX bikes.
• I think the Camelbak and one water bottle is the way to go, only had to fill it once.

A guy shot a video of the race, the cyclocross stuff you see that is only at the very beginning.  You can see Matt E. @ 1:52 on the HUGE hike a bike.  and you can see me at 2:02 at the rest stop eating a GU.  Also I zip on by on the trail at 2:25 (had taken a wrong turn so had to pass a bunch of people I passed once already)

OMG-No Shepardstown w/Coxy

The Boys and I 

The Route

OMG No Shepherdstown w/Coxy



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I've done this ride once a year for the last four years or so. This year, I was doing the ride with a smaller group and it was a little more relaxed. We started off, and at Hamburg, we all went our own pace. It was very interesting because having done the climbs out in Boulder recently, I was able to compare and contrast them with the Frederick climbs.
 

I do quite well on a climb like Hamburg, which is pretty steep--being 3 miles and 1168ft of elevation. The difference between this ride and the ones I'd done in Colorado was that even though there is a good amount of elevation gain, there are spots of flats or a lesser gradient where you can catch your breath. I finished the climb a little bit before Chris and Jonathan, and then we worked our way down Highland School, getting to some high speeds. My bike wasn't feeling quite right, and I realized once we got to the bottom that my tires were a little overinflated. Right before we got to Harp Hill, Jonathan had a flat that we had to change. This took a little bit longer than usual, but while we were there, I used the stop to deflate my tires a bit and get more grip on the downhills. I was the last to leave, and a lady in a minivan said to me, "You can't delay the inevitable," before I started up the next climb. 

 
 Going up Harp Hill, I caught up to Jonathan and Chris, who had gotten pretty far up the road already. I did the climb at a pretty good clip, using my technique of attacking at the super steep parts to keep my cadance high. We worked our way down to the first rest stop and bought some extra water.

On the way to the Gapland Climb, the scenery was nice, but we were a little exposed to the heat and sun with the 90 degree temperature.









 
At the top of the Gapland Climb, which is very steep at the beginning but mellows out after the initial push, there is a park that is a great rest stop with bathrooms and water. After a discussion with the group and a look at our watches, we decided that we didn't really need to go all of the way to Shepherdstown. I came up with an idea for a route that would add a climb and allow us to get the same elevation as going the extra 20 miles to Shepherdstown and back. I decided that we would take a little northern detour and then hook up with Dogstreet Rd. to then hit the Reno Climb that we would normally hit on the route from Shepherdstown.

 

We did the Reno Climb, which is always an interesting one because of the super sharp kicker in the beginning--after which you lose all of that elevation and have to go up again to go over the real ridge. We didn't get to enjoy the full downhill of the Reno Climb because we needed to take the left-hand turn to Foxgap Road that would lead us to an extra climb. We went back over the ridge that we just came down on Alt. 40, which was a little crowded but had a shoulder.
 
What is nice about the Alt. 40 climb is that it is graded for trucks and so it's a gradual ascent and you just need to keep a good rhythm to get up it. Once we got to the saddle of the climb, we went further north up the ridge on Monument Road. At the top, we waited for Jonathan, who was kinda cramping by that point.

We then did another road called Michael that I'd never done before that is a super fast downhill and has two or three tight corners. I was leading, and I had two little surprising moments. I yelled out to warning to the guys about the turns, and I believe Jonathan actually ended up having a two-wheel drift skid. We made it down the descent and then continued on Monument to the prior rest stop, where we had stashed our extra water. Jonathan had put too much mix into his drinks and wasn't at his best, but he still said he would make it through and do Coxy Brown, which he had not done in two previous attempts.

We left the rest stop and worked our way to the Mother Coxy Brown. Coxy Brown is a very interesting climb. It seems no matter how many times I've done it, I still have my "come-to-Jesus" or "am-I-going-to-get-off-this-bike-and-walk" moment on it. I have done the climb enough to know that it's gonna hurt, but I know I can do it. I realized I'd gone out a little too fast on the first part when after the flat middle part, the second seemed even harder this time despite my past experience with it. All three of us made it up the climb, and what goes up must come down. The downhill back to the cars on Gambrill/Shookstown Rd. is a blast, and you can coast all the way back to the cars.

So we ended up with 68 miles and about 300 ft. less of elevation game than if we had done the full 83 miles of the original route. In some ways, I like this route better, but I do like that bakery in Shepherdstown.

Boulder Day 2-Peak to Peak Hwy or Boulder-Ward-Lyons

For my second day in Boulder I was to do a solo ride, while Rob was running the route of the Boulder half Iron man, and Sara and Christie were doing their own run.  I had thought to go out to do the Mountains that were behind the house.  I went on Bikely to scope out a route, and made one that was only 37 miles and let me go up the mountain and then come back down.
I woke up early with the weather being cool in the high 60's and cloudy with Fog.  I got my cue and got the bottles filled up with water and Power Aid.  I also brought a 3rd bottle in my jersey so I wouldn't go through the problem that I had the day before of not having enough to drink.

Darren Boulder Mt. Adventure

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The first thing I noticed was that the 60miles the day before had done a number on the undercarriage. Rob's seat was harder, and narrower then I am used to.  So I lubed up :-)   I decided to be cruel to myself, and instead of going around Lee Hill I thought I would go over it, since it would be less mileage. 

The first thing to note is that Rob's bike is a regular 39-53 with a 25 in back.  I am used to riding a 36-50 so I knew the gears might be an issue with this ride.  Climbing Lee Hill  reminded me of the climbing I usually do on the hilly rides on the east coast.   Pretty darn steep, with some steeps, and not too many miles.  As I was going up Lee Hill I was getting worried, cause I was on the lowest gear and breathing up a storm.  I kept it up and eventually I got to the top.  I was a little worried, cause if the rest of the ride was going to be like this my knees would be toast!  The downhill to Lefthand Canyon Dr. is crazy steep going into a full U-turn, I took it nice and easy since I wasn't in a race or anything.  

Right at the cloud line

Once I got to Lefthand Canyon Dr. I started the gradual climb up to Ward.  Now this kind of climbing is not to my liking...  It was a shallow grade of 4%? maybe and I was running the upper end of the cassette, but was not pedaling slow.  The climbing never let up, so I never got a breather.  I would stand to change the tempo of the climbing, but the lack of steps was taking it's toll on the boat anchor of body weight I am carrying around.    As I was climbing I was seeing a number of cyclists coming down the mountain wearing arm warmers, and jackets.  The weather was still cloudy, cool, and muggy.  I was wearing a muscle jersey after the 90+ degrees the day before.  The only thing keeping me warm was that I had been climbing for an hour or so.   It got to the point where I had goosebumps on my arms.  As I was getting into Ward I was hitting the clouds, thinking if it isn't sunny on the decent I am screwed.   
Once I got on to Peak to Peak Hwy, I realized why I had seen a fair amount of bikers.  They were part of the Sunrise Valley century going on.  They were going the opposite way that I was going.  I must have seen around 1000 bikers throughout the ride.  Peak to Peak Hwy was nice, and had some great views.  Thankfully the sun decided to show itself so I was finally not cold.
As I was starting to descend I was looking for a road called Jamestown, and by this time my cue sheet had gotten a bunch of sweat on it and was soggy(so I couldn't read it).  I ended up taking a right on Rt. 7 but still descending.   At mile 38 I knew something was up, since I should of been done with the ride.  I wasn't that upset, cause I was still descending, but I didn't know if this was taking me to the other side of the mountain away from Boulder.   I was thinking to call Sara and see if they could come pick me up since I was not going to be able to make it back over a mountain, and we had plans that I needed to get back for(I had no cell signal).  I happened by a park, and I thought to just look at the Kiosk hoping there was a map or something.  They had a brochure on the parks in the Boulder area, that had a map.  With the map I could see where I was and realized I could get back ok, even though it was going to be a little bit of a drag.  After 18 miles of descending......let me repeat that 18 miles of mostly going downhill that is something I am not used to.  I got into Lyons and then took Foothills back to Boulder.  I was now riding with a lot of the Century folk, Foothills has a nice big shoulder, but it is a busy road.  There are a few up and downs that you have to do, but finally I made it back.  

• 2 hard days, but two totally different experiences I liked the day two terrian better
• Decsending through the canyons made my trip, something that I will remember.
• Great to experiance 20+ miles of climbing before topping out.  
• With my build the power climbing with steps suits me better.

Maybe next year do an extended vacation with more biking.

With the Crew before the airport

AZ Trip-Day 5 Quadruple Bypass (MacDowell Mountain Preserve, and Park)

I have found my favorite ride in the Phoenix area! I had read about this ride, and had gotten the intel on how to put the trails together to make this ride happen. I started up the Windgate Trail, and it also turned out to be one of those trail systems that has a ton of hikers on it. I must have passed like 50-60 hikers and only three bikers—compared to Black Canyon where I passed two hikers walking together. Everyone was pretty cool, so that was nice as well. As I was going up Windgate I was a little worried cause I was already walking my bike though a good number of sections. I did this mostly to save my strength since I knew it would be a long day. I was a pretty happy man at the Windgate pass. Had a great view, I knew that the Bell Pass wasn’t as big of a deal to climb since you did not go all the way down then back up. At the top of Bell Pass I saw the downhill and was excited and little apprehensive with my brakes having gone a little squishy (I think I need to bleed them). The downhill off of Bell Pass was fun, and I was only white knuckled on this 50 foot section near the top where the trail really dropped off. After getting down this trail I took the Paradise Trail. I would have liked that trail more if it did not go so close to the neighborhood, but beggars can’t be choosers. I stopped before tackling the Sunset Pass. I was not a fan of the first ¼ of this trail with its blown-out huge rock jeep track nature, but once it really started going up, it was nice. I really liked the ridge ride at the top, and the downhill was one of the funnest of the trip.

The next part of the ride was the part I was the most worried about, as you have to go through a gated community to get to the Dixie Trailhead. I went up 145^th Street, and saw a bike route sign, so I followed it. As I was riding this Jeep road, I knew I had made a mistake and I should be biking in the neighborhood. From the topo map, it looked like the jeep road would meet the Dixie Trail eventually. I think I saw a sign that I had entered MacDowell’s Park (Fontana Hills). There was a map on the sign that I had not seen anywhere on the net. This map made clear where the trail head was in the neighborhood, and that you can take the P (trail name), and the S (trail name) to get to the Dixie trail. So seeing the map I was happy because I had confirmation I was going the right way. The S (trail) was a tough trail in places with very steep switchback where I had to walk. I was rewarded, though, with a really sweet downhill to the Dixie Trail. I was tired, and was happy because I knew that the hardest parts of the ride were done, and that I just needed to do one more big climb. I was riding the Dixie Trail, and saw that there were two ways to get back to the Windgate Pass. I came to Prospectors Trail, but it wasn’t marked, so I decided to stay on the Dixie Trail. Once I saw the Coachwhip Trail I knew I missed the trail that was on the topo GPS I was kinda following, but knew the Coachwhip Trail would take me to the Windgate Pass. I got to the Windgate Pass, and was very happy man again. The Windgate downhill was fun, and as I was going down I realized whoever came up with this route was smart. The Windgate hill was the hardest to go up, so it was best to be tackled first. I came down the mountain and took a wrong turn somewhere, ending up at a bigger trailhead and the equestrian area. When I got back to the 104^th St. trailhead, though, I had done 36 miles over 6,500 ft. of climbing, so I was pretty proud.

Thoughts:

• The MacDowell Preserve, has had a major over-haul, with several major trail heads that have water and and parking(so you don’t need to park at the grocery store)
• This kind of riding reminded me of the East Coast riding I like—where you do some major climbs with the reward of long downhills. The trails where not overly technical like South Mountain and some in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve can be, but they still had some rocks and other bits added in to keep it interesting.
• I can see the Sunset Pass being a great test to get up the whole thing without dabbing.
• Even though I kinda messed up the Fountain Hills area, I think doing the more trail version is the way to go.
• I know this will be one of the rides I do next year.