Pain

Mountain Biking is all about pain. Roadies can only get pain after 150 miles, Mountain Bikers in about 4 miles. Crossbikers don't count, because they just go around in circles repeating the same "pain" and never learning from it. So that only leaves Mountain Bikers. We have pain going up and many times coming down (depending on the trail), some of it is the nature of the "beast" which is why I got into mountain biking to begin with. I liked the hard quick workout I got.

But some pain is self-inflicted. I was thinking about this Friday on my 6:30 a.m. ride up McCulloch. I started at the Sulfur Springs bridge and road up the 870 "Alien" road then up the main road to McCullock Peak. It was 28 degrees and as I started out I realized I had left my cleats at home. Thus I road with regular shoes on SPD pedals. As I climbed, I could only push, no pulling. On a positive note, I did like my new Ergon 2 grips with bar-ends. Very nice and I highly recommend them.

So I could only push up the climb, no pulling. Near the top I climbed in about 2" of snow. Once on top of the wall, I went down the back side on the 700 Road and got the perfect "slushy" ice-pick headache. So I turned off and took the "Rocky Road" trail down, which was in great shape because of the rock, but there was a river of water running down the trail. So, I didn't get muddy, but I still got wet.

I got to bottom and back to the car, tired but happy that I made it, and more impressed that I did that ride without cleats in about an hour.