Where did you ride OUTSIDE today (2022)

[Chris47]

Likely my farewell to this thread as it’s going to get cold and wet here tomorrow and snow will be plentiful at the higher elevations.

Yesterday. I took the MTB up to Park City. Armstrong-Pincecone climb, then 9k over to Cyn City. 22 miles / 3,300ft elevation gain.

View from the top of Puke Hill. (I rode down Puke Hill. Pro move.)

The Aspens know what time it is. Leaves are mostly gone.

A few bright colors at the lower elevations.

Park City mountain ops getting the machines ready for the weekend.

Today, I grabbed the gravel bike and decided to climb as much as possible in a single ride. Rode up LCC to Alta, then took the gravel roads up and over into Mineral Basin and all the way up to hidden peak. No tram operations today, so had to navigate down Peruvian on the gravel bike. Plenty of curious looks from the MTBers heading up. 35 miles / 6,600ft elevation gain.

BEAUTIFUL day in LLC, but an unrelenting climb.

That building on the summit… hidden peak. Had to go down to get to that gravel road that snakes back up Mineral Basin.

11,000ft elevation… or close to it.

My route down. Steeper than it looks from here.

Gratuitous scenery shot.

Snowbird also getting the heavy machinery ready. We’ll be skiing here in a few weeks.

Back to structure and intervals to get ready for next year… after a few days rest.

[DaveWh]

@DarthShivious

Couple old tractors

Did you hear about the magic tractor? It drove down the road and turned into a field.

[DaveWh]

Moab. My 8 yr old was great today on Slick Rock and Falcon Flow. #prouddad.
Followed by an evening dad ride on some of the Mag 7 loops.

Beautiful today, but weather is coming in tomorrow. Wind and rain. Will try get out early for a ride. Snow for the drive back home on Sunday. Winter is coming.

[batwood14]

Those are some legit photos🤘

I used to ski in Snowbird every year and I remember getting winded going up a flight of stairs. Isn’t it something like 8k of elevation at the base? Or was that the top?

Anyway, looks awesome

[Chris47]

@batwood14

Those are some legit photos🤘

Thanks. The lowest base at Snowbird is just under 8k. The summit at hidden peak is 11k. LCC is a tough climb on it’s own and then another 2.5k of gravel climbing to get to the summit. It helps to live here, but I was gasping at the top too.

[mountainrunner]

@chris47 Great pics and a great ride at elevation!

@DaveWh nice going for your 8yr old (!).

[HLaB]

Back to my usual Saturday ride although one of my mates p’tured and missed the flint that caused is (forcing a 2nd stop) so we cut of one of the loops to get to the cafe at roughly the same time as usual. Bizarre weather meant it was still comfortable for sitting outside.

A few of us then went onto a local pub for some rehydration

[mountainrunner]

I didn’t ride yesterday nor today. Yesterday was because I ran and today was because I didn’t feel like it (though I did a short recovery run to walk the dog… walking can be so boring). But, I can and will tie this into “where did I ride outside” before with the below video. You can’t really tell, but it had been raining until shortly before I hit the summit.

View from Bergrestaurant Albishorn

My run was up to a ridgeline view spot (with restaurant “attached”). Though the initial frame includes hills and an unseen lake due to clouds, the real reason for sharing starts at about 10s.
At 5s, obscured by clouds and barely visible are unseen trails under the canopy that I often post pictures of here.
At 11s, in the middle-ish and in the far distance is Rapperswil, with the picturesque 13th Century castle I often post pictures of on road rides around Lake Zurich.
Also here but in the middle-distance is a paved road that is after my “fun” steep (up to 25%) gravel climb I post, a road that connect to trails along and in the forest beyond.
At 15s, you have a good panorama of the forest(s) with some of the trails I post pictures of. The clouds in the middle are along the river. This side has some great riding as well, and fewer people.
At 26s, totally hidden by clouds is Zurich.
At the end, unseen because of the trees is a small lake that has appeared here before for both road and trail rides.

The approach to this vantage on the run came from the start of the video, the departure along the path at the end of the video. You can get here by bike, just not the way I came. For the bike, the only real way up is by pavement but it’s not interesting compared to what else is here. There is a new sign for the route I took down:

This route is really rough without shocks (ie on my gravel bike) and often simply dangerous. It seems obvious to me that because of the number of walkers, some with dogs, some with kids, and the MTBs barrellng, they this up.

On my ascent, some of the trails had been open to bikes when I first started running here nearly 7 years ago. I figure there were too many MTBs barrelling down steep trails, some very technical, and surprising if not colliding with hikers, including elderly hikers. This means the pics below are from trails near or in-between trails I ride and have shared here before. Horses are also now prohibited from these sections, some of which I figure because they can be really sketchy, especially when wet, with a layer of wet leaves, and snow (this is a no-go zone if there’s a hint of ice… I’ve tried and regretted it with my tailbone, an experience had while recovering from broken ribs in '18).

The sky continued to clear as I descended and got onto trails I ride, meaning this pic could have been taken while in the saddle.

That’s it. The run, by the way, was 8.4 miles with 1900’ of ascent.

[framness]

I rolled out just as the sun was reminding us of its presence. I wanted to beat the low eastern sun and at least be working north or west when the sun blinds drivers. Bonus miles since we have had temps in the 30° F range of late (Or colder at this time) but it was in the 50° Fs this morning when I awoke. So, instead of pulling up a trainerroad workout on Dire Wolf (basement bike) I opted for VelocityRaptor and hemmed and hawed on my route. I decided to ride my coffee route sans the coffee (shop is closed on Sundays).

Golden Sunlight Bath
Feeling Safe Riding to West
Blinding Sun To East

[HLaB]

It rained heavy here all morning a unsurprisingly no one wanted to go for a ride. It finally stopped raining about lunchtime so after letting lunch settle I went out for a ride. I followed a TR workout mainly for the timing (not wanting to be caught in the dark). Lol, I thought I had another couple of efforts after the turn but I only had 1. If I had realised that I would have turned earlier. I still got back with plenty of time to spare. I bimbled out on the cycle paths through town as my usual shortcut is closed and I didn’t feel like I pushed hard but when I turned at the park on the way back, all my energy drained at the thought of a 3-4 miles diversion. The paths were full of walker’s, glass and leaves on the way out and I was going to come back on road but lol, my lack of energy convinced me otherwise

Edit: Well at least I found out why it was suddenly like pedaling with the brakes on. It was the next worse thing. I had flatted on the front, probably on the cycle path diversion (that’s two rides in a row , different tyre and this one was brand new). Sealant done the job so I still had 25psi when I checked tonight.

[DarthShivious]

@Chris47

Snowbird also getting the heavy machinery ready. We’ll be skiing here in a few weeks.

In case anyone cares (I know nobody does - lol), That’s a Pisten Bully series 600 groomer with a winch. The 4.6 stands for 4.6 tons of winching force. When we lived in SLC, had the local season pass to SnowBird. My wife actually worked at the resort for a couple months when we first moved out and she hadn’t landed a proper job yet.

How did you like Cyn City trail? I thought it was one of the nicer of the new trails.

Puke Hill - “pro move” is funny. I used to ride down it a fair amount too. Would come up Armstrong and Pinecone but instead of going Crest, would go down Puke then back down past Shadow Lake to take Apex/Keystone/Johns/Sweeny’s to get back to the starting point.

Great photos and fantastic rides!

[DarthShivious]

Couple hours of strong riding today. Sort of an amex ride, sort of a “get some SST/Threshold” minutes ride. Here are some boring WKO5 plots:

Here are some goats:

Here is a glider:

Here are some Biplanes and Piper Cubs:

[WindWarrior]

@mountainrunner

I didn’t ride yesterday nor today. Yesterday was because I ran and today was because I didn’t feel like it (though I did a short recovery run to walk the dog… walking can be so boring). But, I can and will tie this into “where did I ride outside”

I didn’t ride Friday, Saturday and likely today (Sunday). Thankfully its a rest week. Guess I need to tell a bit of a story… Friday things heated up at work, and then we had to leave to tour Mule Creek State Prison as it was my brother-in-laws final day at work after 28 years working in the same facility as a correctional officer. So that situation nuked my Friday ride. Lucky guy turned 50 this year and is going from tension to pension. They also decided to go big and are moving in 10 days to the Phoenix metro area. Walked into cell block 10 and saw Scott Peterson sitting by himself - he was recently moved off death row in San Quentin and sent to Mule Creek. Other inmates were walking into 10 and saying “where’s Scott” because it was his first day in general population. The assistant warden figures he won’t last 2 weeks.

Anyways, if you’ve never toured a prison as they say “shit got real” and it was an eye opener. My brother-in-law got out of the car and walked out thru the parking lot guard station. Felt a little like Shawshank Redemption for some reason.

The tie in to this thread? My last sub 6 hour century with IF=0.85 was riding by this prison on the “Stuck in Lodi” club century ride. My goal is to get back to that level of fitness in 2023, and will use that route for longer training rides.

[Chris47]

@DarthShivious

How did you like Cyn City trail? I thought it was one of the nicer of the new trails.

Cyn City is great and makes 9K a lot more usable in routes from both directions.

@DarthShivious

Would come up Armstrong and Pinecone but instead of going Crest, would go down Puke then back down past Shadow Lake to take Apex/Keystone/Johns/Sweeny’s to get back to the starting point.

Bingo! Or Upper Jenni-Loose Moose-CMG when Johns is overgrown. Endless good routes begin with Armstrong-Pinecone and only a few involve the Crest.

And here is Alta today near where my gravel epic took me on Friday. Game over for cycling in the mountains.

[DarthShivious]

Friends in PC sent snow photos too. Hopefully signs of a good ski season.

[asteryx]

First snow dump here in mtns west of Bend, OR.

Started my ride just above the snowline at 5400’

[WindWarrior]

2 hour Tuesday, got home just before sunset and only got one good Halloween decoration pic:

haven’t turned on the solar heating and the pool is down to 67F / 18C

its starting to feel like I’m doing post-ride cold water therapy! About time for the pool and the rock to get some rest until spring.

back out on the easy rollers for 600’ of ‘climbing’ lol.

[mountainrunner]

Spent some time feeling the occasional warmth of lactic acid and sucking wind, though today didn’t have that massive full-body washing over the feeling of warmth from internal floodgates getting released we’re all familiar with (right?).

However, that’s the reason for sharing.

Neither is this relatively uninteresting picture artistically showing how I left home in darkness with lights a-blazing but late enough that dawn came before I returned. (A late start this morning because I delayed to answer an email and walk the dog to see if the rain lessened, a delay enabled by my son having parent-teacher conferences today, so no school… it’s 10:20a and he just woke.)

No the reason for the post is to share a photo I didn’t actually take but thought I did. Apparently, my GoPro was on and taking video while in my thigh pocket when I took it out and pressed the button to film what I wanted to share, but because it was on, it stopped. So, when I was “done” filming, I pressed the button again, thereby turning the recording back on. Argh.

The pic you didn’t see (which would’ve been a still from the vid) was a guy with a leaf blower clearing a narrow trail that the small truck or a larger tractor with their larger blowers can’t access. The reason is to clear the leaves to make the trail safe for the many walkers, hikers, runners, and cyclists (probably aimed more at the commuters than people like me) that use the trails. Seeing my tax dollars at work here in Switzerland is a wonderful thing and something I will not apparently share with you in visual form. I could show a trail full of and then cleared of fallen leaves, but that doesn’t have the same effect. The lost pic would’ve been worth all these words…

[WindWarrior]

@mountainrunner

Spent some time feeling the occasional warmth of lactic acid and sucking wind, though today didn’t have that massive full-body washing over the feeling of warmth from internal floodgates getting released we’re all familiar with (right?).

going above threshold is all about embracing the suck and turning on the skin’s water faucet!

[DarthShivious]

4 x 8 “Seiler” workout today. Ave power about 110-115% of MLSS. Approx 4 min rest between bouts. Not too proud to admit that the 4th one was not as easy as the 1st one. But no problem completing the workout and fairly happy with the legs and RPE and repeatability.

Started with fog lifting and damp roads. Ended in light rain. Which was not on the radar when I started!!! Been wet here for the better part of the last three days. Here is a picture of our horizon:

Some workout graphs: