Happy on The Red Bike again!

Wicked storm to the northwest.

A great weekend on the bike! Saturday was a 67km road ride with Linda and Michele. I wasn't feeling that strong in the morning when I got up, but I thought I'd head out with them and plan to turn back if my legs weren't cooperating. I'd done a hard spin class ride on Thursday night and my legs were still complaining about that. As it happened though, I felt really good once we got riding. I beat my previous best time up the Calgary Olympic Park (COP) switchbacks, and felt pretty strong through the first couple of hours. The last hour took a little determination with some groaning muscles -- my groin mostly -- but I made it home and, happily, bounced back very well for Sunday morning.

Some single track at Nosehill.

Heather on the mtb finally. Exams done!

Post COP, post rain, muddy bikes.

After a fun morning watching Kate and Craig swap out some parts to get her race bike ready for her upcoming stage race, a few of us had some eggs and espresso at Cadence. From there Heather and I made a quick stop at Bow Cycle to get her repaired tire, and then we were off to Nosehill with Sante. Happy dog, happy girls. It felt awesome to get out on the mountain bike. We got a little bored after some time with the lengthy flats in between some moderately fun treed and hilly trails, so we decided to load the bikes back up on the Rav and head to COP for "part deux" of our MTB Day. Now THAT was some fun ... steep downs, some real climbing, narrow bridges, muddy bottoms, and lots of smiles. We'd dodged the rain at Nosehill successfully, but not so much at COP. It didn't take away from the fun though, just rewarded us with some muddy bikes and legs. That's probably the closest to mountain biking you can get in the city, and we had a great time!