It was nearly 45F in Calgary around 2:00PM. That in itself is nothing short of a miracle, in my very biased view. Perhaps as one gets closer to North Pole, miracles do happen. Anyway, to cut the short story shorter, it was a very Boulderesque weather today. So, I decided to ride. (more…)
I suppose this isn’t a surprise for anyone who knows me. I have decided to join Acceleware Corp, in Calgary to pursue new challenges. As new frontiers in computational platforms are conjured up by the magicians of computer engineering, folks like me flock to solve problems faster and better. At least that’s what I hope to do. (more…)
Instead of my telling this story, I am letting my friend Look 361 who was with me in this ride to narrate it. I have uploaded the pictures from this trip to the Gallery and the ride details can be found here.
Hi! Sanjay affectionately refers to me as ‘my 361′ and I am a bicycle. I was with him on his recent ride along the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and he asked me to describe it. So, this is my side of the story! (more…)
Subbu and Scott have been doing this ‘pilgrimage’ for the last several years. So, this year, when Scott suggested the idea again, being a true believer in traditions and traditional values, Subbu could not say no, despite being apprehensive about the weather! When it comes to cycling, since my brain tends to be as functional as that of President Bush, I decided to participate in this ‘surge’ to the East as well, bringing 16.2 lbs of carbon fiber along. (more…)
Okay… They have been up for some time. But now it’s official: You can find pictures from my rides at the Gallery.
Also, I have started somewhat formally documenting my rides. The idea is to catalogue as much information about every significant ride so that others may find it a useful resource. It’s called the Outdoors.
On a related note, I recently had three great rides. First, during the Memorial Day weekend, Subbu and I rode from La Veta, Colorado to Trinidad, Colorado over the Cuchara Pass. The pass is above 9900 feet and the ride, a total of 60+ miles is fairly difficult. But the scenery, especially the ‘dikes’, are spectacular. There’s a little town called Stonewall, which seemed to be named after the natural wall formation (another ‘dike’) just outside the ‘town!’ I have posted some pictures from this ride.
Then, Subbu and I rode up the Frying Pan Road near Basalt, Colorado. This is another of those less known, but beautiful rides. It is a climb from Basalt to the end of the pavement. My only disappoint was this: towards the end of the pavement, we saw the road climbing pretty steep into the right. So, both of us were mentally preparing for that ‘brutal’ climb, only to find that the pavement ended well before that! The pictures are here and the route details are here. Subbu has made a post on this ride.
Finally, last Saturday (June 16th), we rode up Mt. Evans from Echo Lake. The 14.5 miles (one way), 3600+ feet climb was hard because of the elevation. My goal was to ride up under 2 hours and I made it in 1 hour 59 minutes (still nearly 30 seconds slower than the winner of the Mt. Evans Ascent run!!!). Some pictures are here. The route details can be found at my Outdoors portal.
May 20th, Santa Fe Century: First century of the season. Here’s the stat: 102 miles, 4000+ feet of climbing, 6 hours and 20 minutes.
I did the century ride and Carol the half-century. (more…)
Yesterday (11/04), I rode up to Ward. Started from my office around 11:45AM and reached there around 2:15pm. The climb was uneventful (well, for the second time I managed to reach there without a break!), although cold. By the time I reached there, my fingers were numb. It was so nice to hold a warm cup of coffee in my hands and to feel it becoming alive again:)
But the return journey was miserable. Although I was wearing three layers, I was cold. I was shaking uncontrollably and at times I could not keep the bike steady. In fact, I had to stop after every mile, sometimes even before that. It was the longest downhill in my life. Took me more than an hour and a quarter to go down the 17 miles! I still don’t understand why I felt so cold. Yes, the numbers weren’t bad: 52 miles and 4000+ feet of climbing. But statistics don’t tell everything.
To compensate for yesterday’s misery, I went out today and rode 50miles of rolling hills and flats. Home-Dillon-McCaslin-75th-Lookout-79th-Niwot Rd-95th. 95th-Oxford-CR119-CO119-WCR1-Rinn Rd-WCR7-CR8-US287-Baseline-95th. Just to make sure that I have a real half-century and not an approximate one, I detoured into Louisville. In the end, the numbers were 50.48miles in 3 hours and 23 minutes.
I had to write this before getting warmed up… Yes, warmed up.
We had a serious winter storm yesterday (10/26) that dumped a lot of snow. But the sun had come out in the late afternoon. So this morning when I saw a ‘bright and white’ morning, riding to work became an obviously uninformed obvious choice. (more…)
It was a gorgeous autumn day. The weather was supposed to be in the low 80s and nearly clear sky. It would be a criminal waste if I didn’t get on the bike… or so I thought.
So by 10:30AM I was out of the house. The plan was to do about 65-70 miles of ‘plains’ riding. That meant going east. So I went east. (more…)