route sheets and post cards

So I've been a little absent from the blog lately. I'm working five days a week at the shop again. Having a Saturday and Sunday weekend made it easy to cover a lot of ground, but I'm working Saturdays so I really only have one day a week to work on the ride and it's logistics. I have 97% of the route written down turn by turn. I would have 100%, but Sunday's ride went a little late and it was the difference between getting home at 5:30 or finish the route and get home at 6:30. I had no lights and needed to call it a day regardless. I was struggling to hold 14mph on the flats. Next weekend I'll have all the route recorded and then I can then transfer the hand written route sheet to a digital platform and figure out how to print up something nice and pretty for you all.

Speaking of route sheets. So I figured a few of you may be on the fence about this ride. Can't commit right now since it's kind of far out, schedule speaking? So this is what I'm going to do. I know of a crew of riders who are tentatively coming, so my plan was to make a handful of route sheets for them. At this point I'm going to print 10 extra route sheets. If Kinkos or a local print shop have a different quantity break then there may be more. So for those of you who just aren't sure you should be ok if you chose to do the ride the day before.

Let me reiterate the header on the blog. You all need to get a Starker Forests permit. These are free. You don't need to go to the office to get them, you can call them up and explain you're busy/out of town and you'll be coming and would like to ride on their land. They'll need to know what areas you'll be riding. Ask for these three sections; Soap Creek, Ridge Route, and Tum Tum Tree Farm. If they ask you for a fourth section I might choose the land just off of Skillings Drive over by Oak Creek Drive. There is a serious climb there that will lead you to the west end of McCulloch peak, 1600ft of vertical climbing in i'd say less than 5 miles. Pretty awesome ride.

BTW I recieved my first post card today. Friggin' sweet! I would make this thing into a shirt it's so cool. Nathan set the bar pretty high. Lets see what you got. It doesn't need to be serious. The post card I made for the Almonzo was of scene of the woods with a deer(one of those picturesque hunting images) and I had some Knog stickers laying around and put a scarf and sun glasses on the deer.

Here's a shot from today's ride. We'll see how snowy it really gets here later this week.

where are my postcards and mapping has begun

Where are your post cards? Is this ride too intimating or is it just falling on a bad time for most people? March 1st will be the cut off point for receiving post cards so if you have the slightest inkling I'm more than happy to make a route sheet for you, even if you don't make it. My original intent was to get people going and meet riders at the half way point and help give support, but at this point I think I might be the only rider. Not the worst thing. I was worried I'd have a huge turn out. Looks like it may be pretty low key. Well it's not a huge deal, because I'd host this ride again later this year and again next year. My mentor Chris told me the first year he hosted a ride like this only six people showed up and this year over 700 people registered for his ride. Maybe I should change my ride date for a more desirable time of year. hmm...

Well at this point April 16th is still the ride day and I am still working on the route sheet. It's been fun planning this route because when it's all said and done I think I'll have ridden the route four times or so. Each time thus far the weather has been different and I have loved each experience. The other cool thing is I'm averaging about 120 miles of bike riding a week. 100 of those miles is pure recreation which is very different from my previous years of bike riding.

If people want a shorter loop of this ride I can think up a good shorter loop that will keep you in the range of a four hour ride.

Regardless thanks for reading.

PS. Would you rather have us ride up the North Ridge of Marys Peak? This weekend offered time to hike this trail with my dog Randy. This is some damn gorgeous country.