Another gorgeous day in paradise. The sky is brilliant blue and the temp is in the mid 70’s. A couple puffy white clouds here and there. My nose is only slightly burning this time. It must be getting used to breathing clean air. We start up a switchback through some aspens. The book warns that it’s a bit rocky and rough. Pah! Piece of cake. My Riverside boys have trained me well. Once again we ride through a forest of pine and aspens at a gradual middle chain ring climb. After 3.8 miles we hit the first difficult climb of the weekend. The trail was a bit loose and gravely and the slope was steep enough for a slow granny grind. After a few switchbacks my lungs are about ready to collapse, but my legs somehow keep churning and we make it to the top and view the Pioneer Mountains to the east. And then of course the downhill… Smooth, twisty, turny, breathtaking views. I wanted to go slow and check out the scenery but the singletrack kept begging me to speed up. 3 miles down the track we hit the Lodgepole loop junction. We know it’s going to be all climbing by looking at the trail book (the downhill portion hooks into the same trail we just rode down). I’m already pretty beat from the other climb we just did, but I figure I’ll plow ahead with the others and see how far I get. I get about 1.5 miles up before I run out of gas. I tell Randy and Dave I’ll be right here when they come back down. They return about 10 minutes later, and we high tail it back to the junction and continue down through pines, aspens then out into the open again gathering speed and flying over noodles to finish the loop.

Carrie