Well if you live anywhere within about a 500 mile radius of here, you’ll know it’s hot. Damn hot. Book of Revelations hot… Fire starting hot…
Day 1 of the High Park fire west of Ft Collins, as seen from the Mtn Command Post. What a difference a year makes. NEVER have there been record-breaking snowpack depths one year followed by record-breaking dryness the very next year. We’re talking 100 year winters and 100 year droughts back to back….
The only relief has been in the high country, where last weekends’ Winter Park hillclimb race had me a’sufferin to the top of the 5.5 mile climb to 11,200′ in just over 37 minutes… 12 place Pro, 2 minutes faster than last year. Sure, I’ll take that…
I was hoping to take advantage of a thinned out pro field due to several other mountain bike races around the region on the same day, but it seems the older I get, the faster I was. Or, the older I get the more of them there are. Ahhhh pick your saying – I’m a 20 year veteran now, and still loving every minute…
One other thing that the heat brings out is the beggers. Like this little momma, who was literally begging for something to take to her kits on a recent evening up at Mtn Command…
Seems she was all up in another one’s turf after a few minutes…
We’d watch em duke it out for a solid 30 minutes before dusk settled in…
Just about the only place in North America below 65 degrees right now can be found above timberline these days, which is where I recruited a couple of my best race-day competitors to a little hi-altitude saga…
Put 3 of the top-five Winter Park overall series leaders in the past five years together and you’re bound to get to there without wasting any time… We’d pedal to the top of Rollins Pass over the course of a hot, cloudless June afternoon, elated by the cool air, without a single weather-related worry…
Just about the only thing I am worried about right now is the impending 4th of July Firecracker 50 race in Breckenridge. The Mrs. questioned my judgement when she recently spurted, “It’s only taken you two years to forget about that pain, huh?” Well, I guess I’m a glutton. Two 25+ mile laps with 10,00o+ft of climbing sure sounds like a blast to me. Plus, another short cross-country race between now and then ought to prime me for the pain of the 4th quite nicely…
