EMSC
Well-known member
In spite of it being A-basin's last weekend, my brain has moved on to summer activities. Probably helped along by being in North Carolina for a good chunk of May this year.
While blessed with many things in life, aerobic capacity is not generally one of those things. Instead, it is something I have to work at and even when 'in aerobic shape' I am no where near what a lot of folks can do. It hasn't helped me one bit that the prior two years have been 60-90hr weeks all spring & summer at work, making much real riding and good fitness nearly impossible. But I've moved on and am finally getting some more personal time in the equation. So hopefully this summer will be different...
The biking route for this day was certainly not in the epic category, but hopefully the workout will get me ready for some of that kind of riding in a few more weeks. My wife & I hit one of our favorite get-into-shape mtn bike trails (Heil Valley Ranch) early on Saturday. It was a rather chilly morning for this time of year, but warmed up nicely as the day went along. I can't even count how many times I've ridden this trail, but interestingly, never before with a camera along; which is too bad as I've seen quite a bit of wildlife up there over the years.
Anyway, it's a lollipop - ~850 vert of uphill over 2.5 miles and then a 2.6 mile up & down, bouncy, very rocky loop on top of the hill (plus a newly added 2.9mi loop added last Oct, which I didn't do this day). The route starts as a half mile of fire road before turning into single track the rest of the way. As my wife hates the downhill (loves the workout up-hill though), she takes a long time to come down. So, I go down to the bottom and then go half way up again before we both end up at the car at roughly the same time. Anyway, this day it was about 1.5 hrs of actual biking with a bit of photo/video taking thrown in on top of that. Come to think of it, while I often have skied with a camera over the years, this was only the 3rd time I've ever biked with one...
After a quick lunch back at home we dropped over to the local GA airport for a few hours (Rocky Mtn Metro/Jeffco) for their 'open house' (really it's a free airshow). I grew up just off the runway of a small airport and have been interested in aviation ever since, though it'd been about 5 yrs since my & the airshow schedules synced up. In spite of my engineering background, I'm always pretty impressed at what that equipment can do. And by now, the temps were in the mid-70's and perfect for standing outside.
We finished up with a great dinner and the best margarita's I know of on the planet (really, even south of the border I haven't found as good), at the Rio on the Pearl Street mall in Boulder. That part of our day was to celebrate my wife's new job. Just a fantastically fun Saturday for us on the front range.
Admin might be interested that these are the first pics I've processed through Faststone for pushing to the web. Seems reasonably powerful for free, especially converting batches of pics at one time - (though missing a few desired features too - like creating panoramas from multiple pics).
While blessed with many things in life, aerobic capacity is not generally one of those things. Instead, it is something I have to work at and even when 'in aerobic shape' I am no where near what a lot of folks can do. It hasn't helped me one bit that the prior two years have been 60-90hr weeks all spring & summer at work, making much real riding and good fitness nearly impossible. But I've moved on and am finally getting some more personal time in the equation. So hopefully this summer will be different...
The biking route for this day was certainly not in the epic category, but hopefully the workout will get me ready for some of that kind of riding in a few more weeks. My wife & I hit one of our favorite get-into-shape mtn bike trails (Heil Valley Ranch) early on Saturday. It was a rather chilly morning for this time of year, but warmed up nicely as the day went along. I can't even count how many times I've ridden this trail, but interestingly, never before with a camera along; which is too bad as I've seen quite a bit of wildlife up there over the years.
Anyway, it's a lollipop - ~850 vert of uphill over 2.5 miles and then a 2.6 mile up & down, bouncy, very rocky loop on top of the hill (plus a newly added 2.9mi loop added last Oct, which I didn't do this day). The route starts as a half mile of fire road before turning into single track the rest of the way. As my wife hates the downhill (loves the workout up-hill though), she takes a long time to come down. So, I go down to the bottom and then go half way up again before we both end up at the car at roughly the same time. Anyway, this day it was about 1.5 hrs of actual biking with a bit of photo/video taking thrown in on top of that. Come to think of it, while I often have skied with a camera over the years, this was only the 3rd time I've ever biked with one...
After a quick lunch back at home we dropped over to the local GA airport for a few hours (Rocky Mtn Metro/Jeffco) for their 'open house' (really it's a free airshow). I grew up just off the runway of a small airport and have been interested in aviation ever since, though it'd been about 5 yrs since my & the airshow schedules synced up. In spite of my engineering background, I'm always pretty impressed at what that equipment can do. And by now, the temps were in the mid-70's and perfect for standing outside.
We finished up with a great dinner and the best margarita's I know of on the planet (really, even south of the border I haven't found as good), at the Rio on the Pearl Street mall in Boulder. That part of our day was to celebrate my wife's new job. Just a fantastically fun Saturday for us on the front range.
Admin might be interested that these are the first pics I've processed through Faststone for pushing to the web. Seems reasonably powerful for free, especially converting batches of pics at one time - (though missing a few desired features too - like creating panoramas from multiple pics).
