Day 163, Monday, November 14

Went mountain biking with Karen Torgersen today. I had a suspicion I was going to have my butt handed to me on this ride but didn’t have any idea how bad it’d be. The ride Karen and I did started with a road ride to the trail head that was 3 miles of steep uphill. Karen pulled a horizon job on me. It was totally humbling. Like I said before, Karen is a helluva athlete and has actually competed in at least one ironman race, has done 6+ marathons, and 50K runs. Her endurance is brutal and she does hills like a tractor. Once we got on the trail I kept up better than I did on the road but here too, if we were going up hill or on the flat, Karen flat out dusted me. It was awesome! I’m used to being the lead rider of most groups I’ve ridden with and usually the overall fastest. This time was totally different. The only place I was significantly faster than her was on the technical down hills. But technical sections have always been my forte. I say technical, and mean that in a Midwest manner. Technical to someone who’s riding in Vancouver or much of the North West mountains is what I’d consider nearly impossible. Karen was initially going to take me on a 25mile loop but I convinced her to drop it down to 15 – 20 miles instead. Glad I did. My butt hurt seriously after the ride. If I ever move out to the west, I will certainly buy a full suspension mountain bike. Much of the trail which Karen was able to ride over sitting down on her full suspension bike, I had to ride standing because my bike only has front suspension, and my front suspension has only got about half the travel as hers. All in all it was a great day!
After riding, Karen dropped me back at Peters house and I must admit that I vegged for the rest of the night. I’ll repack my trailer tomorrow since I’ve only got to drive 300 miles to Las Vegas tomorrow and won’t have to set up camp once I get there.