Ride to restore (In)Sanity: Road Ride.

After a rather... long... week at work, I decided to dust off STeve and hit the tarmac. After-work rides are fun, and relaxing, but I'm fairly numb after 10 hours at work, so my enjoyment is sometimes muted, not to mention that I have to go to work the next day, so I can't just run myself ragged like on some of my weekend rides.

My plan was to ride out and around Mormon Lake today. So, when the temperature hit freezing this morning, I pulled STeve off the wall and got him ready for a ride. About 2 hours later I actually left, which gave it time to warm up to 50 degrees outside. A comfy temperature, I though.

And it was. Shorts, jersey, arm warmers and medium gloves weather, and I was considering ditching the armwarmers after a few minutes. But, the closer I got to Lake Mary, the more the wind started blowing. A headwind. My least favorite kind of wind. And it was cold, cutting wind. The kind of wind that no matter how hard you fight against it, it just saps all the heat out of you.

So I stopped.

I wanted to ride to enjoy myself, and I wasn't enjoying myself with this wind. So I stopped just past the Upper Lake Mary dam, had a snack, took a few pictures...

Looking towards the dam... the lake is pretty low.

I thought this was cool... where the ice ends and the lake starts. The water near the dam is heated, to keep the water intakes from freezing, I assume.

And frozen lake. I hear that the ice is thick enough to walk on... I'm not that brave.

...And then turned around, revelling in the fact that my horrible headwind was now a tailwind. I took a detour up the hill to the NPOI observatory on Andersen Mesa, which, from Lake Mary, is a steep, unbroken two mile climb. I did it pretty quick, but I was beat at the top.

After coasting down, with the wind at my back I headed home. Along the way, I noticed a group of riders catching up to me. Out of spite, I stepped up my pace a bit, curious to see if I could maintain a faster speed. They chased me all the way home. More and more, I realize I ride faster when I have someone to chase/chasing me. I guess somewhere deep down, I am a little competitive.

Which is good I suppose... because I'm stoked about this:

I'm on the Absolute Bikes Racing Team!

Guess this means I should sign up for a race or two, now. I was planning on heading down to Prescott to watch the Whiskey Offroad race in April, then maybe hit up some singletrack while I'm there, but I'm considering more and more signing up for one of the shorter stages of the race.

After all, someone has to come in last, might as well be me.

Mileage: 25.2