Thru Endurance We Conquer!

Every rider knows the feeling. That sixth sense feeling that something is wrong and something bad is going to happen. It's like being in the middle of a train wreck and not being able to stop it. The question becomes - once the train wreck has happened, what do you do? Saturday night, at the starting line for the first race in the Leadville Winter Bike series - my personal favorite The Tennessee Pass Night Jam. The full moon was hidden in clouds and snow was piling up on the groomed trails. It was going to be a epic race and a fun ride. I was eager to start, a little nervous and ready to see how the new tires handled the fresh snow. It was a record crowd for the race and everyone was raring to go. The symphony of fat bike brakes filled the air as Sterling called us to the line. This was the only part I didn't like - the downhill start followed by the sharp right turn for the start loop. It made for great spectating and a spectical of lights flowing down the hill. But it alw...

Back in 2012, when Nick and I were visiting his parents in Tucson prior to racing 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, we got punked into riding La Milagrosa  - one of the most technical downhill trails in the Tucson area. I walked most of it back then - both the AZT portion and Milagrosa proper. So when we made plans to head down to Tucson at the end of January to visit his parents again, Milagrosa was high on Nick's list. I'll admit, I was also looking forward to once again trying m y hand at that trail. Would I be happy and having fun with the advancement of my riding ability for that kind of trail or would it be mental break down? Only one way to find out and that was to head up Mount Lemmon and take the chance on the miracle trail. I thought that we would ride the road at a comfortable pace. And by comfortable I meant my pace. After all, it was about six miles of solid climbing and Nick wanted me to be all A game for the descent. So it would be an easy ride up the road, right? We...

It was a shorter trip then we had originally planned, but we still made the trip down to sunny Arizona for a short training camp aka visit Nick's parents trip. Nick's parents are huge horse riders and January/February is usually a great time to be in Tucson for riding. And since they have friends who live in Tucson now, it's even more convenient. We took a day after the hut trip to clean up, wash clothes and get ready for some sun and dirt. The first stop was Red River for some skiing. Not a bad hill - lots of carharts and camo. I'm still not sure how some of those skiers manage to keep their nice Stetson hats in place while they are flying downhill! The skiing meant for a long last day of driving and we finally pulled into Tucson about midnight Saturday. Ugh. That's the hardest part of going somewhere in the winter - it is such a long drive to anywhere dry! Sunday was more a recovery day from the driving. I did a long run in Fantasy Island while Nick rode. My opi...