Week 12

Date
March 20, 2017

Distance
103 miles

Strava Link
Week 12

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Ride Video

Ride Report 
Today was a wind fest. It actually didn't end up being as bad as I was expecting. The day seemed to go faster than windy days usually go. I just switched my Garmin screen onto the map so I couldn't see how slow I was going. That seemed to help a little.

Yesterday I did some mountain biking and continued my theme from last week: bad decisions. There's this climb nearby that looks like a ton of fun, but the surface is so loose that I can't maintain a decent pace. I did a portion of it a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how I expected this to happen, but it hasn't rained since then and I was hoping there wouldn't be as much sand out there this time. That was my first bad idea.

I made it to where I turned around last time, which I thought was the top. It had a lot less snow this time, so I kept going. It turns out that it was just a little downhill and the climb kept going. There were a few trees across the road, but I was able to get around them. Then I made it to a place where there was a lot of snow. I should have turned around, but I thought I was close to the top, so I hiked through the snow. That was my second bad idea.

It's deeper than it looks.

Eventually I made it to a point where I wanted to just turn around and go back, but I had made it so far that it seemed like just as much work to keep going to the top of the road. The other side would be facing south and shouldn't have as much snow. Third bad idea. I needed snowshoes or a fat bike or something. I was just sinking into the snow and pretty much getting nowhere.

I kept going and made it to a place where I could see a lot of the road in the distance, and all of it was covered in snow. That was to my right. The area to my left was facing south and mostly snow-free. I decided to do some off-road hiking from there. I think that actually turned out to be a good idea. Eventually I made it back home, and I only crashed once in the process. I banged my elbow up a little, but nothing serious. I landed right into a bush, which softened my landing.

Anyway, the whole point of that story is that I had kind of a rough day yesterday, so maybe riding into the wind wasn't so bad in comparison. At least I knew where I was and where I was going.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, which is a real bummer. I had my motorcycle driving test scheduled and they called saying that it might be cancelled. Maybe next week. I could probably use a little extra practice, anyway.