Weekend's Ride 8/09: Up, Up, and Away!

Nine riders convened in the delicious coolness of the east side mountains at a lesiurely 7:30 am.  Today we were heading up - up to the top of the Sandia Crest.  This route is only a 28 mile out and back, 14 miles up but just shy of 4000' elevation gain.  The normal crew - Olga, Evil Gary, Good Gary, Greg, John, Captain Awesome, and Captain Snookums - were joined by a few riders we were happy to ride with again - Danielle and Brady!

Still smiling (but less than a mile in).

As we headed out, we quickly separated into A and B team, with Good Gary, John, and I representing the Bs.  I can't speak to exactly what happened for the A team, but I image it was something like this - "ugh, this sucks" and "can't wait to get to the top" and "I am super happy I do not weigh as much as Captain Snookums".  Sounds like they finished in about 2 hours from the bottom.  (14 miles/2 hours = 7 mph).

No photography tricks here.

Thanks to the miracle of photography, the blurs turned out to be Gary and Danielle

Just before the Killer B's made it to the top we started to see the A Team riders head down the hill.  We kept pushing forward knowing that the agony was almost over and the fun descent was about to begin. We rolled in about 3 hours after we started.  A quick calc gives 14 miles/3 hours = 4.7 mph.  Gravity is so mean - check this if you don't believe me.  After a few buggy minutes at the top basking in our achievement (literally, there were flies everywhere), we too headed back down the mountain.  This is always the best part - a long 14 mile descent.  My speeds this time topped out around 42 mph, despite the slight headwind in the last miles of the ride.  Was it worth the 3 hours of cycling for a thrilling 25 minute descent?  This is a question every rider must answer for themselves (but for me - maybe).

Here we see Fezzik standing beside some normal people at the top of the peak.

When we arrived back at the ride start we were greeting with a poster advertising the MS Ride and featuring very prominently our team from last year.  Go Domo!

The Penultimates are famous again!