Keep calm and carry on.

What a gorgeous day for a ride. Sure it started a little chilly, but it warmed up quite nicely.

When Caleb mentioned that he wanted to ride from Mountains Edge Park I was certainly game. Having ridden the day before and knowing to ride from home would be some huge miles I opted to just drive over. Thankfully this also meant I was able to sleep in some. I also decided to just do a Starbucks breakfast today instead of making something at the house. I just wasn’t really feeling up to it today.

Arrived at the park shortly after 6. Caleb had said the start was 6:30 sharp and if you know Caleb you know better than to cross him! Had a nice time hanging out while we both got ready to roll out. Then we were quite surprised when a few others rolled up. A couple of the boys were going to ride up Fort Apache to the start and Caleb, Kant, Al, and I would do a Red Rock Flyby. I was kinda bummed to have forgotten my skull cap, but Joe came through all let me borrow his Swanny’s cap for the day. Total life saver.

The pre-ride went really well. I was feeling good and having fun just cruising, but was surprised when I looked back and saw I’d dropped everyone. I kept rolling on and made decent time to the start at WestTek.

Rolled up and was surprised how many people had shown up to ride! Was especially happy to see so many people I really enjoy riding and chatting with. I’d already mentioned Joe above, but Jeff Smith also made an appearance. I hadn’t ridden with either of these boys in a few weeks.

The first group rolled out and the remainder of us hung out for another 15 minutes before leaving ourselves. For the most part the first half of the ride was pretty uneventful. Did get a nice pull along Elkhorn once Caleb loaded up the map. Sadly he peeled off for a quick stop at Aliante Pkwy to shed some layers before making the climb up to the gun range. This left me leading the rest of the bunch. That didn’t last long as we started the climb. I got swallowed up as everyone just rolled on past.

We all rolled up to the top of the range and took a few minutes to relax. Almost everyone took the opportunity to start pulling off our early morning layers. I was happy to be shedding my leg warmers and vest. At first I was worried I’d be cold considering I was so sweaty, but thankfully I dried out quickly and never got too cold.

Sadly, we did have someone go down while descending the third “finger”. From the sounds of it he overlapped his front wheel and then went down. When we rolled up it looked worse than it really was. There was a 1-2 ft long orange streak across the blacktop that I thought was from the riders helmet but it was actually his shredded jersey. The decision was made to call out some EMTs to give him a once over and when fire & rescue showed up I guess they thought he seemed ok. All of us told him that his ride was done because his helmet was absolutely trashed. HUGE crack on the side of the impact. Thankfully he was reasonable, called it a day, and got a ride home. Learned later he had a hairline fracture on one of his ribs, but was otherwise ok.

The ride back to the start from there was decent. I did start to run out of power as we started climbing back up to the west side, especially along Anne. I just did my best to ride my ride versus killing myself to keep up. Unfortunately, that would haunt me later when coming to the intersection of Lake Mead and Reverence Pkwy/Desert Foothills. I looked up ahead and John and Jon had gone straight and as I looked left down towards the beltway trail I swear I spotted everyone else that had been leading out our group. I decided to go straight in order to make sure the two boys ended up making it back to civilization without too much fuss. It was quite the adventure on the new roads in the developing neighborhoods, but we eventually made it back to WestTek.

Had the chance to hang out and visit while waiting for Caleb to roll up. He was with the lead group that I’m fairly certain had been waiting for Jon, John, and I to catch up but never did. I enjoyed the opportunity to visit with some folks and refuel before heading out with Caleb for another Red Rock Flyby.

As we started rolling I told Caleb I would holler if he started blowing my legs off. I’m glad I did because be danged between the entrance and overlook he did exactly that. He eventually ended up out ahead of me enough that he stopped at the overlook to wait for me. As we regrouped we talked about plans for what we were going to do. He was interested in riding out to Late Night Trailehad and I knew I didn’t have the legs for it. I’d offered to meet him at the Blue Diamond Terrible’s on his was back from Late Night if he wanted. Things were kinda up in the air when I finally told him to go ahead and ride on and not wait for me. He double checked to make sure I was ok, and, after assuring him I was, he was off. It didn’t take long before he was well out of sight.

Having the opportunity to dial it back and ride a pace much more comfortable to me made the afternoon a bit more enjoyable. Before rolling up to Blue Diamond I received a text from Caleb that he was heading up to Late Night. I jumped on the chance to enjoy a nice sit down break to enjoy some Zingers and a large Gatorade. I kept looking west for Caleb to roll up. I wanted to be ready to roll out in case he didn’t want to stop, and I’m glad I did because he just wanted to roll on.

As we were leaving the parking lot, we saw a group of riders start rolling down Blue Diamond. I mentioned that they looked like they were getting spicey to which Caleb replied, “Let’s catch ’em.” I was like sure I’ll do my best to hold on, but not sure how well I’ll do. It didn’t take Caleb much to pull the both of us up on their wheel and we were surprised to find it was Rimko and his gang returning from a Red Rock Loop. As we were cruising down Blue Diamond we all took the time to chat and visit some before we worked out way over to Mountains Edge Park and saying our goodbyes.

Caleb and I put on a few extra miles after the other group rolled on. Mostly because Caleb was on a training ride and needed like 15-20 minutes more riding and I was knocking on a century anyway. We decided to ride down to Fort Apache and back to wrap things up. Didn’t quite hit 100 miles exactly, but it was close enough for me to consider it a century.

Overall the day was a good one. Finished the ride feeling good, but definitely tired.

22.7 new miles — From Wandrer.earth
Give your activities the names they deserve. – by Bandok.com
Mostly sunny-Mostly cloudy, 40°F-61°F, Feels like 45°F-64°F, Humidity 52%-24%, Wind N 0mph-E 6mph – by Klimat.app
— myWindsock Report —
Weather Impact: 5.8%
Headwind: 61% @ 3-8.1mph
Longest Headwind: 01h 6m 42s
Air Speed: 19.3mph
Temp: 36.6-60.9°F
Precip: 0% @ 0 Inch/hr
— END —