Mother Nature Spanked Us Tonight

There were three Spin Sister groups in total heading for Race of Spades tonight. One via the road, and our two groups on Sulphur Springs to the Pneuma cutoff (who knew there was a shortcut?!). Since club rides leave the parking lot at 7pm we soon split our group in two so the faster riders could maybe make it up and back in daylight. The slower group could opt to ride back down on Pneuma whenever they wanted. We never saw the slower group again ... hope they made it back to their cars!

Things started out muggy and buggy from the Station Flats parking lot. Climb climb. I'm getting used to this climb but learned of a short cut tonight to gain a little time up Pneuma ... basically skipping part of Sulphur Springs. I'll use this in the future when I want to get up farther in less time. Anyway, here we left the second group behind and did some of my favourite climbing up Pneuma. There's something about the narrow trail through the lodge pole pines, and the grade of the climb that really suits me. It doesn't feel like a lot of work and I keep a decent pace. I'd been lagging behind the two leaders up to this point but wasn't far off their wheels through Pneuma. We got as far up the trail as I've been before: what I think is a power station. This awesome photo of the sky is taken from there. We paused to gather the group and snap a photo and got passed by some of the elite riders I've gotten to know this last year: Craig, Shawn, John, and friends.

Anyway, the cloud looked super cool but I was still thinking we weren't going to get wet. I was wrong. Not only did we ride through rain, we rode in near darkness under the blackest of clouds, pelting hail, lightening and thunder. Oddly I was smiling the whole time, loving the adventure of it all. I even loved the not-usually-there raging little water fall we had to cross. The pictures of all this are in my head because it was really not a good time to pause and pull out the iPhone. I was already starting to worry if it was going to survive the drenching! Climb climb climb ... this was new trail for me too; Upper Pneuma, and it was fun! At some point before Race of Spades we stopped and made the decision to ride down on Moose Mountain Road where it would be safer and faster to get us all back to the cars and dry clothes. I was shivering as soon as we stopped climbing. Not good.

The descent was really cold but fast on the dirt road. I had my wind/rain layer to cut some of the wind and mud spray but I couldn't feel my fingers by the time we got back down. But it was much warmer lower on the mountain and Mother Nature treated us to a double rainbow after the storm. Sweet! What a great night!

Home for a shower (scrape mud out of my eyes and nostrils) and to wash the bike up for tomorrow's ride: Jewell.

Get outside!