Cycling: Rain made for interesting ride

Last week I wrote about not riding. Well, not riding when it is raining.

While I will almost never start a ride in the rain, if I get the green light to go ride and it starts to sprinkle or rain, I usually continue.

Last Thursday was the Kingsbury Hill Climb Time Trial for the local club series, where riders start one by one to see how fast they can ride from bottom to the top.

I stuck to my rules, if it is not raining, I will ride. So I rode to the start and when the first racers were starting, it started to rain. I had hoped it would be one of those quick showers, but hope is not a good strategy. By the time I started, it had started to sleet. So not only was it raining, it was cold.

While riding up was warm enough, coming down was wet and cold - two things that don't go together well in any circumstance. Many of us were a bit squeamish about descending a wet Kingsbury, in reality traction was OK, but the fear factor was significant.

For the hill climb time trial, we climbed one mountain pass.

This weekend, the Alta Alpina Challenge is happening where riders can ride the Kid Carson at as little as seven miles and nominal elevation gain and as much as 200 miles and eight mountain passes. Of course many riders are riding 1-4 passes to build their own challenge which is one of the big points of the ride: Challenge yourself with one pass or as many as eight. There are surprisingly many riders who are signed up for the full 200 miles. There is a whole cult of people out there that ride 200 mile rides. I thought riding 100 miles was plenty for a day, but 200 seems outrageous. I look forward to seeing all the riders set a challenge and work towards their goals and I wish them the best of courage. The riders will have some really nice cool weather to greet them on their challenge.

It is also amazing to see the amount of organizing that goes into a ride such as this. The club has extensive experience from the years of co-producing the Death Ride and it looks like the rider experience will be enhanced. The club is looking forward to promoting a ride that expects to treat the riders as good as they should ever be treated on any ride. In the end, it is a ride put on by riders for riders for the purpose of promoting riding routes, riding safety and rider education. Look out next week for some pictures and a report on the ride.