A Bike-Board-Bike Earth Day Weekend

Late season snow at Killington keeps the snowboard action going right into the heart of road biking weather. After a nasty start to the week, Spring finally arrived with clear skies and temperatures in the 70's. However, the Snow and Trail Report that arrives on my Inbox keeps telling me that Killington has the best Spring Skiing and Riding conditions ever! While I am itching to get the mileage I need on the bike, it is hard to pass up on one more last run down the slopes.

Friday was a home office day, but I needed to get an overdue 60K service on the Subaru. Donna brought me back from the Dealership in Troy and I started to dig into the office work that has piled up while driving 1200 miles this week. Not wanting to have to drive me back to Troy in the afternoon, she comes into the office asking me if I intended to get a bike ride in today. I said yes, of course, look at this weather. She replied, I got an idea for you, then. Why don't you ride your bike to Troy and you can bring the bike back with you. She started to make all kinds of arguments to make it a decision that would not tie her up. But before she could get any of them out, I replied immediately that it would be a great idea, and said I would. She kept making her points, but I stopped her and said I would do it.

Earth Day used to be a big event back in the 70's. I can remember the first one in 1970 when I was a Sophomore in High School. My parents rode their horses down to the school and in the Parade that was held in town. Vietnam war protesting took a back seat to Environmental Marches - over 100,000 people marched in NYC. Today, I think we are in better shape, but probably heading in the wrong direction with ethanol. Well, at least I did my part today, saving a trip to Troy on my bike.

The weather was great and I had a strong tailwind to boot. I used the ride to get out the cobwebs of a few days of inactivity since last weekend. Hitting the hills hard, and driving long Tempo bursts I had the heart rate into the 160's on several occasions, with many more longer periods in the 150's. I averaged 140 for the ride. I took my Taganouk Tangle route down along the Hudson River, then up to Schaighticoke and then down along the east side of the reservoir. Route 7 was not fun as the large tractor trailers whizzed by feet from my left shoulder. I got there in about 1:45, averaging over 19 MPH for the 35 mile trip. Just as I arrived they were closing out the paper work, so I was heading home in no time.

One reason I wanted to ride so much on Friday was so I could go snowboarding on Saturday, then ride again on Sunday. When talking with Eric G about getting a new product in at the Plants I recalled that we never got together this year to ski / board together as we had planned at the beginning of the year. I asked if he wanted to go, and he called back later with clearance from his wife. We met early so we could get the best conditions, and hit the K1 by 8:45. We were not disappointed! The early morning conditions were ideal. I steered us over to Bear Mountain first figuring it would warm and soften there first. We took a run down Bear Claw and Wildfire, then headed to the top of Skye Mtn, doing Cruise Control and others. We eventually worked over to the Canyon and North Ridge and finally Chute and Mousetrap. After a short break we went to K1 again and did the dd's that were nice and soft, even did a run at the trees along Double Dipper. Finally our legs ran out of steam around 3 pm and we headed back to the car fully drained and satisfied. Neither of us had ever skied / boarded this late into a season before. It was great!!

The combination of a long driving week, a good bike ride and then a long day in the deep soft snow on the board took its toll. I did some work on the bikes in the morning - finally taking the studded tires off the Epic, changing wheels so the Cannondale now has the Ksyrium Elites with the 11-21 cogset and the Y-Foil, now off the trainer, has the Cane Creek Aeroheads with the 11-23 cogset. After lunch I took a good nap and then headed off on the Cannondale at about 4:30. I was definitely in Recovery Ride mode, and wore the Heart Rate monitor to make sure. I did the whole ride except maybe 10 minutes in the aerobic zone and averaged 125 for the ride. Staying away from climbs takes some planning in this area, so I figured a route out of Greenwich, up to Cassyunna, then over to West Hebron, back along Black Creek and the Battenkill. What a beautiful day - light breeze, sunny and temperature in the high 70's. The trees are still bare so you can see far into the woods and fields are only getting the early loads of manure on the sandiest fields.