Working Man

It was bound to happen eventually.

After a relatively tranquil winter and early spring it now seems that as the temperature slowly increases so too does my workload. In fact, it is looking more and more like this summer will be one of the busiest in my company's relatively short history. Given the current state of the economy I view this as a very good thing. However, from a bike riding and, especially, a bike racing perspective, it is going to make consistent training difficult, if not impossible. Oh, and did I mention that my wife is due to give birth to our third child in June? Yes, life is about to get crazy.

So in an effort to prepare for my new cycling reality, I've been spending the majority of my chamois time either commuting or in the pursuit of the perfect lunch ride. With regards to the latter, I think the 45 minute (door-to-door) office to City Creek (via 3rd Ave and Memory Grove) to Terrace Hills to the office is one of the best. The road climb to City Creek is gradual and provides a nice warm-up for the suffering that comes as soon as you jump on the dirt at the mouth of the canyon. The pain continues until you top out just below the water towers at which point it's pretty much all downhill back to the office. In fact, I've ridden this section of trail so many times this spring that I can now ride all the switchbacks uphill much better than I can ride them downhill. Last fall the opposite was true. Funny what a simple change of direction can do.

Dry Creek to Bobsled is also a nice lunch ride but so far the Bobsled has been more of a river than a bike trail so that variation will need to wait another couple of weeks.

All of these 1 hour efforts should be good training for the Solitude series this summer. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself...