Loves Me Some BCO

51 degrees...aww yeah! My original plan was to rock the snowshoes today, but after hitting the snooze button three times this morning, it was too late. Plan B was Boulder, because I was anxious to see what Walker Ranch looked like and figured there wasn't as much snow as we got here in Morrison. Anticipating nasty, wet snow and some mud that probably wouldn't let me get too far and seeing that today's workout was supposed to be uphill tempo intervals, I decided to ride up Flagstaff Road. It's 8.25 miles from where I parked at Chautaqua Park and between mile 4.0 and 5.0 my GPS fluctuated between 13-16% grade. I haven't checked the official grade, but, yah, it was steep.

54 minutes from my car, I found myself at the Walker Ranch TH. Going left greeted me with wet, slippery, deep snow that my back tire wanted no part of.

Here is looking back at the trail. Notice that all the snow is ON the trail and really nowhere else:

Going to the right and downhill seemed like a little bit better idea:

I really like to ride in the snow, but like snowshoeing, the best kind on a bike is when its frozen and hardpacked. I got about a mile down the hill and tried to go through some deeper, greasy snow a bit too fast.

Soil sample (er...snow sample) ensued:

Slicker than it looked!

By this time, I was just screwing around and knew I wasn't going to ride the loop, so I turned around and climbed back out to the TH and then onto the paved road back to Boulder. A bit of climbing for about 3 miles put me at the top and the rest was a FAST downhill. Due to the shaded corners that looked a lot like black ice. the trip down wasn't a time trial by any means. So I stopped and took a few quick pictures:



This picture is a shout out to my girl, Katie Huether! Boulder and I miss you, come back soon, so much "epicness" awaits.

Today was just the beginning of the massive snow melt. Boulder was gorgeous in the sun. I love the variety of trails and sheer beauty Boulder gives us lucky Coloradans!

And just because I am still drooling over my bike, I leave you with this (sorry, I am just infatuated):