NicoleSwan.com

I know I said before that I was lamenting using one of the last good weekend days to hike, but, as it turns out, Colorado has offered a few good ones since then. And with the lapse of daylight savings time, I now really only have weekends for road biking. Last weekend was beautiful so I headed to the Dams Road ride both days. The Dams Road (also known as CR23) skirts along the east side of Horsetooth Reservoir. I had done the first big climb past Horsetooth Dam (right on the map linked before) many times, but never the full ride on the ridge road. Saturday I cut out at Dixon Reservoir and headed back to Fort Collins. Sunday I headed back out to do the full ride.

My route first took me west over Bingham Hill then I headed south towards the dams. A short jaunt found me at the bottom of the toughest climb of the day. It’s not terribly long, but it’s steep. I dropped to my lowest gear to grind up the hill at 5-6 mph (sometimes sub-5). From there it was a combination of quick descents and short, mild climbs (blips, really).

It looks much less intimidating from this angle.

The views along the ridge are quite spectacular. To the east, the landscape quickly drops into Fort Collins sprawl while the Reservoir and mountains sit to the west. With the temperature around 75, I slowed down to take in the scenery and watch others out to enjoy the day.

I soon found myself at the bottom of the second big climb (Centennial climb, I believe the cool kids call it). Looking at the steep road ahead, I had bailed out here the day before. This day, I gear down, preparing myself to settle in and grind away. I soon found, though, my perception of the hill was worse than the reality. In fact, I was able to gear up and quickly ascend up the climb. Another ridge and a descent and I was at the road heading back to Fort Collins. There, 20 yards from the T in the road, my back tire flatted.

Roadie, temporarily out of commission.

I have to say, though, that there are much worse places to flat than on a ridge overlooking glittering water with a mountainous background.

As “luck” would have it, I managed to commit one of the last perfect biking days of the fall (beautiful and sunny with temp around 70) to hiking with a couple friends. Oh well, hanging out with friends is good, and I needed to get in my token yearly hike anyway. The Sister ™, the avid hiker, recommended Grey Rock, one of the most popular hikes in the Fort Collins area. Assured that “you have to hike this at least once if you live in Fort Collins” and that it was worth the hike for the views at the top, we headed up Poudre Canyon to the Grey Rock trail. Sadly, I lost my companions to a combination of equipment failure and ambivalence somewhere before 2 miles in. There was no way I was abandoning the hike at this point, so I soldiered on in a solo mission to the top. I made it quickly to the base of Grey Rock and headed off for the last .75 miles to the top. This would be the base.

The last leg, though short, seemed to take as long as the previous 2+ miles. I lost the trail for a few minutes before spotting the helpful cairns that would guide me as I scrambled around and over rocks to the top. The requisite “me at the summit” shot.

And, The Sister ™ didn’t lie — the views are pretty good.

I hung out at the top for a few minutes, but the wind was making exposure on high rocks uncomfortable, and I really didn’t want to ruin the day by having to put on a jacket, so I followed another group out and headed down. I quickly lost them and made good time down the mountain passing several groups of climbers making their descent as well. My knees did not take well to scrambling back down the rocks, but overall the hike was fairly easy.

And, if you have a keen eye, you might have noticed the storm coming in at my back in the summit shot. Yes, today was 35 degrees, windy, rainy, and snowy.

Since getting the new ride in July, I’ve been on my road bike 2-3 times a week, usually including one long ride (2+ hours). In August, I started tagging along with friends Tracy and Catherine riding Rist Canyon on Friday mornings (6am start, yay!). The ride is only about 35 miles round trip, but it includes a fairly grueling 12+ miles of climbing up to the top. Unaware of the Rist landscape and having a naive pacing strategy, I nearly died the first time even when using every single gear my bike could offer. Rist Canyon is mostly a lot of miles of slow climbing, combining a few short, tough grades with gentler climbs and small bits of necessarily forgiving flats. But then you get to the last couple miles. There’s not much forgiving about these. They’re just flat out hard.

We added to the ride every week, getting nearer to the summit every time and set out a couple Sundays ago to do the full ride. Though fall is closing in, we managed to pick a day with a perfect mix of sun and warmth. It was tough, but I made it to the top. We all did. Here’s the happy trio commemorating the event.

I’m not going to lie — I really felt I wimped out on the last big climb when I stopped for about 30 seconds to rest my burning quads. Mad at myself, I attacked Rist on a solo ride last Sunday. I felt great, no stopping, using only two chainrings for most of the ride. Seriously, I killed it. Now I can officially call “Rist season” complete.

I may not be writing much, but I do seem to keep myself occupied with other endeavors — moving, vacationing, playing volleyball, riding my bike. And on the bike front, I finally, after a year of saying I should, purchased a real road bike, a Lemond Etape.

My mid-80s model Bianchi hybrid is awesome in many ways, but I’m ready to climb hills with a lighter and faster bike. The Bianchi will now get tricked out with some rear baskets or panniers for carrying groceries or my chair for the New Belgium outdoor movies.

I think the maiden voyage on the Lemond will be tomorrow. If I don’t kill myself with the clipless pedals first.

Rather more relevant to most of you is the news that I’m going to stop posting to this site. I just don’t find the time to write for it anymore, and it’s rude to keep making people check for updates which never appear.

That was Dunstan signing off his blog (my favorite) at 1976design. Man, I miss that blog. Seriously, Dunstan, bring it back. Please.

As he says, it really is rude to stop posting indefinitely while people wait (or don’t) for updates. Guilty. And I feel bad. But the longer I went without posting, the less I missed it. Sure I missed the political and sports discussions my faithful readers are ever so willing to engage in, but that wasn’t impetus enough to get me to carve out time to spend in my WordPress backend.

My blog archives have always been a sort of chronicle of my life, and now I have a year+ long lapse — which is weird. So, the short version: work, family, volleyball, travelling, changing jobs, skiing, friends, biking, and loving life in Colorado.

I suppose it’s time for my requisite election time post, but, frankly, I’m nearly exhausted from reading and researching the ridiculously large number of ballot issues and candidates that were on my ballot today. And I’m just going to come right out and say it, a lot of it was crap. Crap legislation special interests are trying to get into the state constitution. A craptastically long list of judges towards whom we should throw a vote of confidence or no confidence. And I shouldn’t forget all the local and county crappy stuff.

But don’t get me wrong, despite the crappiness of the issues, it was still very important to vote. You will have an extremely difficult time convincing me otherwise. It was important to vote no to discrimination in the Colorado state constitution, to do my part to unseat a House Representative focused nearly entirely on writing discrimination into the US Constitution and being a mindless drone for President Bush, and to show my support for a referendum that would provide basic legal rights to domestic partnerships.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but wonder why the citizens of Colorado were having to vote on the retention of appeals court judges given that a special panel had already recommended their retention and given that likely no more than 1.7% of the voters even knew who the judges were or the decisions they had handed down. I was also curious why one would vote to change the state constitution to make it easier for issues to appear before voters. It already seems easy enough. People, I have a full time job — I don’t have the time to review all these issues. This is why we have a representative democracy. It isn’t awesome all the time, but when it works, it’s a great system.

As I did in the 2004 election, I will highlight the votes I cast that I feel were the most important.

• I voted FOR Angie Paccione (D) for House Reprentative in Colorado District 4.
• I voted NO to writing discrimination into the Colorado state constitution (Amendment 43)
• I voted YES to Referendum I which would allow domestic partnerships basic legal rights

Like Chris of massless.org my unwritten blog is a masterpiece to behold. Eloquent and wise passages architected during 15+ mile bike rides. Complete and coherent responses crafted beautifully while biking home from the gym. Entire posts sketched out and filled in amidst a six hour drive to South Dakota. Another great one composed on the six hour trek back to Colorado.

Problem is: The pieces either stay in my head (and eventually slip away), or I attempt to write them down and the result is 1/100 of the quality of the original mental composition.

Addendum: Or they can’t stay composed long enough to finish a damn post (post originally started about three weeks ago). Or work is temporarily draining time reservoirs.