Golden Gate Canyon training ride

Following the 3-day Superior Morgul event the weekend before, I decided to take the weekend off of bike racing.  I'd spent the week riding my bike to work, which is always nice.  I also got in a decent run at my daughter's soccer practice, her last of the year.  I did a little 1k lap with my 7-year-old son, and then stopped at the car and grabbed his bike, and I ran another three miles with him riding alongside me.  This is one of my favorite ways to run.  It's good to have company, and his casual riding speed is a pretty good match for a nice running speed for me.

That Saturday, May 24, my daughter had a soccer tournament in Arvada, Colorado.  She was going to have a 12:30 game and a 6:30 game, which is pretty ridiculous.  Her coach offered to take the team to the movies between games, which was awesome of her.  Since the tournament was fairly close to the foothills, I decided to bring my bike and go for a ride between games.  So after that first game, we headed back to the car and I got changed and grabbed food, drinks and some extra cold-and-rain gear.  My wife and son headed off to lunch and to do some shopping.

It was a little after lunchtime when I started, so before I even really started riding, I stopped back at the soccer fields and plowed through a PB&J bagel I brought with me and hit the porta-potty.  Then I hit the road.  I was pretty much fully-loaded for this ride.  The weather was ok at the time, but a little chilly.  I was wearing my team kit of bib shorts and jersey, along with arm warmers.  I also had a light rain jacket, snacks, phone and a few other things jammed in my pockets, ready for what I was thinking could be about a 70-mile ride.

I was planning to do a route I've done a number of times.  Up Golden Gate Canyon, over to Rollinsville, and down Coal Creek Canyon.  Golden Gate Canyon made it through last year's floods relatively unscathed, although Coal Creek Canyon had some significant damage.  From what I'd heard, the damage was repaired and the road was fully open again.  The different part about this ride was getting from soccer to Golden Gate Canyon, and from Coal Creek back to soccer fields.  Other than that, it was pretty straightforward, and I had the route programmed into my Garmin to help guide me.

The ride to the "start" of my ride was on some busy roads, but uneventful.  I made my way into and through Golden, hitting the big Ford Street hill for the first time.  I've heard a lot of people talk about climbing it, but I'd never been there before.  Man, that's a steep one.  I got a little lost trying to figure out how to get out to 93, but eventually found my way there, crossed the road, and started up Golden Gate Canyon.  I really like this road.  Lots and lots of uphill, with a couple steeper sections, and a few downhill sections.  After about 18 miles and over 3,000 feet of climbing it takes you to the high point of this ride at the Peak-to-Peak Highway.  Take a right and enjoy some downhill for a while, with a few occasional moderate climbs.  A quick step off the bike in Rollinsville to eat and drink, then back on my way again.  Shortly after Rollinsville, you take a right turn onto Coal Creek Canyon Road, and keep heading downhill.

Past the town of Pinecliffe, there is another good 3-mile climb to WonderVu.  At this point, it was getting a little late, and I was a little worried about being late to my daughter's 6:30 soccer game.  I stopped at the top of the climb at WonderVu to call my wife and let her know where I was.  But no signal.  Oh well.  The majority of the rest of the ride was typically screaming-fast downhill, so I shouldn't be too much longer.  Just as I start to ride again, though, it started to rain.  I probably rode for about a minute before I decided it was raining hard enough for my rain jacket.  Another quick stop, and got the rain jacket on just before it started to dump on me.  I started riding again, but it was slow-going.  I didn't want to risk slipping on a turn on the descent.

And then it got worse.  Hail.  I've never ridden in hail before.  It sucks.  It felt like I was being attacked with a stapler or something.  Arms and legs were getting pelted, and I could hear the hail plinking off my helmet.  I was heading downhill somewhat quickly, so I was hoping that as I headed down, the temps would warm up and it would turn back to rain.  And that's pretty much what happened.  Eventually I was riding in the rain again, which is better but not great.  And by the time I got back down to highway 93 again, it was pretty dry.  Now I just needed to find my way back to the soccer game.

At this point, my Garmin let me down a bit.  I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I ended up on a wrong road for a while.  It wasn't too bad, since I was still heading the right direction.  But my Garmin kept just telling me I was off-course, without really helping me get back on-course.  I looked at a map on my phone, and figured out how to get back, eventually getting back to my pre-programmed course.

By the time I got back to the soccer fields, the game had started, but I hadn't missed much.  They had started a little bit late.  I found the car and sat in the back to start getting changed back into normal clothes.  That's when my phone started buzzing.  I looked down, and I was getting a tornado warning.  This had already happened a few times over the last few days.  Definitely some crazy weather in Denver.  I'd basically been ignoring them, since I was typically in a big concrete building at work.  This was a little different, since we were kind of in a big wide-open area.  And the weather was definitely looking sketchy.  I was hoping for some peace and quiet to get changed in the back of my car.  But I looked up, and started to see a lot of people walking by.  One of them was someone from my accounting department at work, which was weird.  I chatted with her for a few minutes, then saw my kids coming.  I thought they were coming over to say hi, so I yelled out "Hey kiddos!" and gave them a big wave.  Then I noticed they were both crying.  Interesting.  I asked what was going on, and they both started screaming and blubbering about a tornado coming.  They were like "I wanna go home right now!!!"  I wasn't too worried, and told them to calm down and get in the car.  My wife came walking over a minute later.  All games were canceled and everyone was told do leave.  So that was basically it.  Hopped in the car and drove home.  We started by driving basically straight into the storm, which the kids weren't happy about, but eventually got on the highway and headed away.  No big storm story or anything, but it was definitely interesting.

Nasty weather

Caitlin was so freaked out she thought she was going to throw up.  Fortunately, we had some baggies in the car.

I got in a really good ride, and didn't really miss any soccer.  The next day was similar, but with games closer together.  Had one game in the morning, grabbed some lunch, then came back, only to have it start raining.  After sitting in the car for a while, they eventually postponed the game until the next day, Memorial Day.  This was certainly a long weekend of soccer.



I had to get home to get ready for a 10k the next morning.  Come back soon for my write-up on the 2014 Bolder Boulder.