The Blog Within

In mountain biking, there are varying definitions of what makes up an “Epic” ride. Generally though, it seems to encompass trails that are 30 miles or longer, or that take more than 4 hours to complete.

Back in June, it took me 5 hours to drag my fat rear end around the 10.6 mile Slickrock Bike Trail in Moab. So for me, that was an epic ride.

One week from tomorrow, I am riding the Monarch Crest Trail, which, at 35 miles and with 2,700 feet of climbing, is truly an epic ride. If you’re quick with math, you would think that this would take me about 17 hours to complete. However…
I have been training!

Upon returning from my lame performance in Moab, I decided it was time to stop thinking about bike commuting and actually start doing it. So I got some smooth tires and a cycling computer for the mountain bike and have been turning 80 to 100 miles per week since.

I’ve lost 10 pounds thus far, and haven’t felt this good on a bike in years. I definitely have a ways to go in the weight department, but anything I don’t have to drag over the Continental Divide is a help! It also helps that I live at 6,000 feet and never suffer from altitude sickness!

So in 7.5 days, I will be saddling up and heading out on my first ever bona fide epic ride…we’ll see how it goes…

Tags: Cycling

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.