Blizzard of 2006

century ride, cycling, snow | UltraRob | Friday, November 3rd, 2006 at 3:14 pm

Last week’s snow storm was called the Blizzard of 2006 by the media. The north and east part of the city got quite a bit of snow and there were high winds but where I live it wasn’t bad. Friday morning when I got to work, only a tiny part of the parking lot was plowed but the sun was out. Before the day as over it was 50 degrees. Saturday it got into the 60’s and most of the remaining snow disappeared.

Sunday was my last chance to get a century in for the Larry Schwartz Year-Rounder Century Challenge. I don’t keep very close track of my mileage but I’m pretty certain I hadn’t ridden 100 miles the rest of the month. I figured I was going to pay for doing a century as out of shape as I am but I’ve been doing endurance riding long enough to be able to get through a century with very little fitness.

Sunday was another beautiful day and before I even got out of town my vest and arm warmers were off. My left knee can get cranky if I don’t keep it warm enough so I left my knee warmers on. I just headed out US 24 to the east because it is well drained and even if there’s melting snow along the road, the road itself stays dry. The farther east I went, the more snow there was although there were a lot of bare spots because there’s nothing to stop the wind out there. In places there were still 5 foot drifts. In spite of the snow along the road, the were only a couple wet spots on the road. I think I saw the most pronghorns I’ve seen on a ride.

I rode a little east of Simla and then turned around and came back into town. I felt much better than I expected to and still felt good at the end of the ride. I rode 102 miles with 2343 feet of climbing and averaged 16.4 mph.

When I got back, I switched to my mountain bike and hitched up the Burley because Danielle had wanted to go with me on my ride. I took her to the BMX track just north of the skate park on Mark Dabling along the bike path. I’m not sure that the Burley is designed for going over tabletop jumps but Danielle loves going over them. They are a bit tricky with the trailer but doable with enough speed. She also likes doing the berms but I’m always worried about tipping the trailer but so far it’s stayed upright.

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