Transrockies Week 5 Training

This week was off to a slow start due to the electric power being out from last week's horrid wind storm, and complications with getting the house warm while going to work made it impossible to get any ride time in early.

Overall I will have to concede this week was a bit of a loss of fitness, but circumstances made it hard to get any ride time. Training is essential, but have to keep the house standing and the career intact, but now all is good again.

Total ride time = 3.5 hours.
Mon Dec 18 - no riding
Tue Dec 19 - no riding, electricity finally turned on at 11 PM.
Wed Dec 20 - 1 hour
spin class, heavy gears and high rpm to make up for lost time. Felt really great.
Thu Dec 21 - no riding
Fri Dec 22 - no riding
Sat Dec 23 - 1 hour
CCC road. Had to cut ride short due to mechanical, Novara suspension was acting up. Rode in ruts of a car due to 2 inches of snow. Fairly decent climb, will have to get elevation profile of this ride. Ran into a cute girl who was trail running with two dogs, she said she did a lot of clearing of the downed trees, so thanks go out to her. Later, reports from several members of the mountaineers coming off Teneriffe told me the snow level is between 1600 and 2200 feet, so that will be cutting my favorite climb short, at least I can supplement it with other things. Interesting to note the mountaineers had ice axes, poles, and snowshoes for the climb up to Teneriffe. They said there was virtually no avalanche danger on the uppper part of Teneriffe.
Sun Dec 24 - 1.5 hours
Down the ridge twice to Preston and supplementary side trails. Really cold driving sideways torrential rain. I only had 1 pair of tights on, did not use my rain pants, and knees got about as cold as if I had been icing them for the last hour and a half. Strange, knees got really prickly and red once I showered to warm up, I think in the future when I get that cold I should warm up slowly. First climb up silent creek was 13 minutes, second climb was 14 minutes. Part of the trail is closed, as accessed by Bandera area, but Silent creek area is open.