Since last Thursday evening it has been snowing off and on here in Sitka. Makes for sloppy bike riding and since my mountain bike is still suffering a broken front shifter, I haven’t really been out on the saddle…
So Friday, Pete and I decided to get out for a little cross training. We packed up the snowboards and a few snacks and headed for Verstovia to see how the snow looked up on the mountain. We hiked the 2000 plus feet up to Picnic Rock and strapped in. It took us just a little over an hour to make it up to the start point and then a quick ride down from the front side into the backside bowl. That first ride for me was pretty wild as I hadn’t been out on a board for a couple of years and we had some alpine scrub to get through. We then hiked back up the bowl to the South side of the untracked powder loveliness and made our second run down. The following is my attempt at a few graceful carving turns down the hill…
After working our way up to a sheltered spot in the trees and out of the wind, we had a bite to eat and left our packs for the next run. Stomping up one more time up the hill we cut in one more 600 feet of vertical down the bowl and our uncut 2 feet of powder. That last run was much better for me with turns coming easier and even a couple of launches off a natural half pipe. (of course the helmet cam footage didn’t work that run!) We had a quick bite before we packed back up out of the back bowl. One more quick run to the tree line and the hike back down.
All told with the hike up, three full rides down the bowl and the hikes back up and the final hike back down the mountain we figured at least 6000 feet of exercise! I am still feeling it a little in the hamstrings! Of course I am hoping to get back up there again… and with the snow falling here in town I am sure there is plenty up top again!
I rode the Chilly Hilly solo last Sunday. It was far from chilly with a high someplace in the mid 50’s and the sun shining down on the island. It all added up to a record crowd – I heard something over 6,000 people. Seeing the Bainbridge Island ferry full of bikes rather than cars was a sight to behold:
Once the ride started it was hard to work through all the riders to a place where I could set my own pace. I trust this was exacerbated by having to make a pit stop right off the ferry. Once there was enough of an opening I was able to settle in and only get stuck when we had to crunch into smaller packs for hills, intersections or car encounters. I had my video camera mounted on the handlebar drop so I’ll cut together some footage from the ride later this week. In the mean time here are the stats as recorded by my computer:
Distance: 33.5 miles
Average Speed: 15.8 mph
Top Speed: 45.7 mph
Average Cadence: 87 rpm
Not a bad way to kick off the season. I’ll definitely be back next year if nothing else for the chili feed at the finish.
So finally getting out there a little… Pete and I yesterday and today, Pete, Uncles Frank and Bill and I. not really long rides but good climbing and at times pretty quick pace. The ride yesterday was a new loop for Pete and I as we decided to head out towards the Halibut Point Road end of town. We hopped on the cross trail behind the high school and made our way up north via the extra wide gravel trail. Some parts of the trail are steep enough to necessitate a granny gear and others a pretty quick ride down the other side. The great thing about this ride turned out to be that we only had to ride about 1/2 mile of HPR and mostly stayed on the backroad trails of the Cross Trail and the Bench Land Road that isn’t currently open to cars. One unfortunate thing happened as we were about two miles from home, my 16 year old grip shift for the front derailleur bit the dust… was stuck in the little chain ring the rest of the way home.
Todays ride was a pretty wet one at times. We parked at Thimbleberry Lake trailhead and headed up the way to Blue Lake road. caught sight of the brother bears at Fortress of the Bear and then headed back to the truck via Sawmill Creek Road. Just as we hit the SMC Road it started to pour. Bill and I were riding in a pace line, me following Bill and hitting what seemed to be every puddle! Keeping up a good pace Bill decided to hit a huge puddle and drenched me in his spray! When we arrived back at the truck I opted to keep peddling and headed for the house by bike. I would guess that the entire round trip was about 8 miles at most, though always preferable over giving a cat a bath! Oh, from the ride from the day before you might have been wondering about my derailleur problem? Well I was able to rig the bike so that I could at least ride in the middle ring on the front gears. Made the up hill a little more interesting and the down hills I was forced to coast a lot more. Also the ride home on the road I was keeping a pretty high cadence, though I sometimes like that anyway. Its good spin practice, better than doing isolation drills!
