Boulder night life

Got out again last night on the Niner for another night ride with the single scene. "The Punisher" bailed, but his roommate Clint picked up the slack for him. Clint is a 25 year old predominately unemployed vagabond that doesn't seem to have a pain threshold. We'd both be sporting one gear, but he'd be having some wheel envy with his puny 26" wheels.

We hit the newly formed trail head at Marshall Mesa and headed out under a 1/2 moon. Clint was sporting a brighter than the sun HID light that totally washed my puny lights anytime he got behind me. We rolled through some fun twisty singletrack and then started to feel the burn as the trail suddenly starts climbing without much warning. On the first real climb of the night, I slowly started opening up a gap on Clint, much to my surprise.

Upon reaching the top, I felt surprisingly good and it was apparent that Clint was suffering a bit. Upon hitting the top of the climb, I spun out to a pace that I deemed pretty moderate, but quickly dropped Clint again. I backed off and settled the pace down.

Damn it feels good to be strong.
(disclaimer: strong is a very relative term, and I was only strong is relation to the one guy I was riding with last night).

We went up and down every trail we could find, covering about 13 miles and getting around 1000 feet of elevation gain. Pace was a pretty reasonable 9 mph average, which I was pretty happy with especially considering a majority of the ride was an easy pace where we were chatting as we rolled along.

And the bike? Gets better every time I ride it. Clint, who was riding a 26" aluminum framed bike, remarked about how he was "bouncing all over the place and how I "looked smooth and comfy" on my Niner. The bike really does ride amazingly soft for a full rigid bike. I have no idea if its the Reynolds 853 steel, frame design, the 29" wheels or some combination of all of those but whatever it is I love it. The one gear aspect also seems to be working really well for me. I find that on climbs I sit and spin until my heart rate escalates then I can get out of the saddle and mash, and doing so actually helps me recover strangely enough.

The riding is on temporary hiatus due to some more snow that moved in just as the ground was finally clearing. The mountains have been getting dumped on, so this weekend its two days of skiing. More on that (and my new addition to the snow sport family) coming soon.

The funny part was that "The Punisher" himself called me this morning, accusing me of being a "shark". "The Punisher" accusing someone else of being a shark is amusing in itself, but I do have to admit it feels good. I told him it was a overestimate of my form by Clint, but then he told me thats exactly what he says when he's on good form. Sure makes it easier to do trainer time when you can quantify it to success like I've been able to lately.