Mike Says Meh|The blog of Mike Kauspedas | Hosting by www.gearhost.com

I took a ride on Saturday morning. When I got up that morning I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. Should I go for distance with some rollers but not too difficult like a southern denver loop? (Cherry creek trail – platte river trail – 470 trail going east – cherry creek – home). Or should I just do the quick spin to Golden and back? I decided on Golden since I’ve ridden on those trails so many times and I can ride faster on the roads. Not to mention there’s a lot more to look at.

After making sure my tires were full of air and eating some corn chex I headed out. I caught up with someone sporting an epic climbing jersey that said Mt Evans on it. He was a lot stronger than me so I just kept up. I only passed him on a decent and that’s because I got off my saddle and tucked onto my top tube. By the way, f’n awesome, everyone should try it.

At the end of 32nd street and the beginning of Golden is the coors brewery. Which stinks, a lot. But after you get past the stink you’re at a stop light in Golden and straight ahead is down town and a tiny hill past that. I noticed some other cyclist spinning up the hill and curiosity took over. The light changed and I took off to see what was beyond the hill.

It took me a few turns, some more small hills, and a short tour of the school of mines to realize where everyone was going. Lookout mountain.

Climbing has become my new favorite thing to do. I don’t really know why. Maybe its the ambitious man in me yearning to conquer something. Or maybe I just a challenge. Instead of racing some random guy on a fixed gear on my way to work I can race myself up to the top of something, on my bike. And while I do it people drive by int heir cars and think about how awesome cyclists are because we pick a mountain and say to ourselves, I’m going to ride my bike up that.

Now, off on a tangent … That’s part of the allure of cycling I think. Its accessible to anyone and there is no one that can’t at least try to spin up a mountain. It doesn’t matter how fast you go, you’ll feel on top of the world no matter who you are in just that you made it to the top. Then you descend fearlessly back down with your chin on the handle bars ducking down for that aerodynamic profile.

Back to lookout mountain …

Here is the route from my place up to the mountain.

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/co/denver/705124934856016983

I texted my wife once I got to the start of the climb and told her I found alpe de huez. My wife doesn’t cycle but knows that is. And the mont vetoux but I think I’ll save that title for a more challenging climb. She said as I could climb it as long as I was back by 3 so we could make it to the Aerosmith concert. It was 12:45. I decided if I wasn’t on top by 1:30 I’d turn around no matter what. Then I began the climb.

The first few turns I used my middle chain ring on my triple and the second and third cog. I like to spin with a high cadence up mountains. Its just more comfortable and easier. Spin fast in an easy gear, makes sense. Anyway the grade picked up and I was down into the bottom chain ring spinning the granny gear. I refused to mash and I didn’t care what the other guys thought. Especially as I passed them spinning away pleasantly like an old lady on a cruiser for her Sunday afternoon ride. Obviously they all just thought I was a Lance wanabe.

I ended up making it to the top in about 30 minutes. It was a lot shorter than I thought. It makes me realize just how long the climb in Boise up to bogus basin is that I’ve done.

At the top I looked around and got some fresh water. The Buffalo Bill memorial is up there and they give out free ice cold water. I filled my bottles like the rest of the cyclist there and then took a few pics of the scenery on my iphone.

Giant OCR1

Lookout Mountain rode or loop or something

scenery

Golden

One of the people at the top started asking me questions about the ride up and I got a lot of smiles, nods, and a few comments. All of them good.

The descent down was pretty slow. The turns are too sharp to do anything more than 35 before you have to hit the brakes. Then I was caught behind some motorcyclists and ended up doing 20-25 most of the way down. The ride from Golden to Denver is mostly flat with just a few short hills. I didn’t have any issues.

All in all this was a fantastic ride. One of my better ones and one I will do a lot more and hopefully with improved time and results. I recommend it for anyone who’s looking for something more than a simple cruise along cherry creek trail.