Sunday, November 11, 2007

28 mile weekend






Saturday dawned with a temp of 60, and by the time I started riding it was about 70. Parked at Dreamy Draw, fortunately nobody else wanted to park next to the trash cans, since there was nowhere else to park. Busy day. Headed west and followed T100 & T100A to 7th St. and back. In all, 10 miles in a little over 2 hours. Not bad for a fat guy.



Hit the trail again on Sunday at 11:00 with the temp around 70. One trail that has defeated me twice since arriving in Phoenix beckoned. Its in Thunderbird Park west of 59th and north of my usual morning loop. Bottom to top is 1.75 miles and only about 550 ft. of climbing. The problem has been the way it climbs. The tougher sections are at the west end with a fairly steep, rocky climb, followed by a couple of additional steeps and the last 100 ft of climbing in the final 1/10th mile. Probably no problem for a scrawny 30 year old, but for OFS its tougher than it looks. Anyhow, I made the climb, with a few stops for hikers and a couple of "I think I'm gonna die" stops for air.
After making the climb, I rode back to the apartment and swapped Mr Klein for Mr Fuji Finest (more Fuji OK than finest), my road bike. Its been a while since I rode my skinny tire bike and tire pressure was down from 110 to 20. A few shots with the pump and I was off.
My objective was to see if there is a reasonable way to get from 67th Ave and the 101 to the Peoria baseball park where the Mariners and Padres have Spring training. Someone whom I'm very fond of has a thing about professional baseball and spring training, and I wanted to see if there is a way to ride to the park without serious traffic issues. The park is only 4.5 miles away, but I'm going to have to try a few other routes before I find one that the baseball fan will be ok with.


In all, I got in 19 MTB and 9 road miles. Not bad for an old fat guy.

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