Met at Cadence @10am with Craig S., Tomas, Andrew, Mark, Kevin and after a cup of coffee took off on a single track from Bowness through 12 mile cule.. a bit icy, but fun and certainly good for a warm up !!. Headed out towards Cochrane mostly on gravel roads that took us over 60kms to get there. Amazing scenery on the back roads with a bit of a head wind from time to time. On Big Hills towards 22x we got some nasty head wind with snow blowing into our faces, but stayed together and managed to go through. Stopped at Cochrane at around the 4 hours mark to have a hot meal (sandwich and more coffee) to fuel up and get ready for the last leg of the ride. Back to Calgary through Glembow park is certainly way better than Hwy1A these days, awesome pathway system that almost takes you to Calgary, amazing fast twisty down hills and three steep climbs to make your legs work. As I was getting ready myself for the last steep climb to get onto Hwy 1A I saw Mark and Craig standing and pushing decently hard, I tried to keep up, but in the last 300mts I was ready to quit..... no way I said to myself, if you get off your bike you will regret it !! darn !! I was pushing already high E4 just to keep Mark and Craig on my sight, never mind trying to close the gap... when I finally saw the top of the hill...... F.... that was the only thing I said after the F... climb.
Little over 100Kms and 6hours riding time I am still very exited about this winter rides.. They are fun, challenging, cold and sometimes wet or as they call these winter rides "sometimes they hammer sometimes they don't", that is probably why I don't ask what the plan or route is, I just show up and ride whatever the group is up to.
