sore dough 50

It was big ride Sunday today. Haven't been on the bike since the Coulson Gulch Tuesday night ride. Since then I've been on vacation sort of... considering I had my kids and my parents over at my house for 7+ days. Would escape temporarily from the madness by seeing how the Breck Epic was going for Jen G and Chad. They both kicked ass and it got me thinking about a big ride out of the backyard cause needless to say I was chompin at the bit to get out. Lee's been talking about a Lyons to WP ride so I thought I would scope it out to get a feel. See my track from topofusion -Camp Dick on the right and Nederland at the left.
Elevation profile

Stats for the day. Was stopped in Nederland for quite a bit to recover from leg cramps before heading home.

Love sections like this if I take a breather before attempting

My Turner Sultan is still treating me good. It was good therapy to be out there today- weather was great... nice cloud cover for the nasty ascent out of camp dick. Appreciating a lot of things, but bike related - loving the sultan, this thing is staying together good. It is nice to not have dealing with fiddling with something before, during and after every ride. It was eating up the baby heads. Two Nine or die.

A river runs through it

Got to the Sourdough trailhead at Rainbow Lakes Rd. and then took Rainbow Lakes rd to 505 Caribou rd. You can see it's a nice wide 4wd road. I don't mind riding roads especially this one- scenery was great and the flowers were abundant. Smelled like pine sol out there.

Highest point on Caribou was 10500. Most of my riding today was around 9000 - 9600. Breck epic got up to 12000 big difference - that high it zaps you.
There's eldora

Another splendid view

The descent on 505 to Eldora was steep and rocky- a lot of fist sized loose rock. I was thinking how much it was going to suck riding back on this.

Barker res furthest back as I stop the 505 descent to take in the views

Originally thinking I was going to go to Jenny Creek via Ned High School trails but as going up near singletrack near high school my leg started to cramp up and it started to rain. Exit plan was developed -not the best plan but would ride the peak to peak to rainbow lakes rd. then I could get back on the sourdough and avoid some tough climbs. The 6 mile road ride would let my legs recover but it was hot. I was fatigued - it may have been less tiresome and cooler to ride 505 back in hindsight.

I had been going at an all day pace but things definitely slowed up from here. At about the 8 hour mark was definitely feeling it and starting to make mistakes and I've ridden this trail dozens of times- 1) I took the upper saint vrain about a mile up before realizing that it was not the sourdough or wapiti trail. My gps was showing the beaver creek trail as a possibility but it's wilderness. No dice.

Upper st. vrain is noticeably different from sourdough. It is a tough descent and ascent.

Mistake #2 came in the form of riding with my head down- not only affecting line choice but this tree got me good. Good thing I did have my head down because the helmet took all the impact.

Shots as the sun dropped


This bike is tired but did well no mechanicals or flats.


So what I learned today is riding these type of distances is tough. When fatifgue sets in it is easy to make poor choices. My legs are tired and I only did one day. Hats off to the breck epic riders for doing this day after day.