Big Mountain ish ride

Today's ride was from Sugarhouse park up Emigration then to the base of Big Mountain due to snow on the road. A nice 2 hour outing with 32+ miles of mostly climbing. Weather was a gorgeous 72 degrees according to my truck, and definitely windy. Funny thing is I was so excited to be on my bike I didn't care so much about the wind.

I felt I should do my own thing to avoid a bunch of climbing today as I am still working on base miles, but I am glad I got out with a group today to be a little more social. There were a few moments where I decided to take off from the groups to avoid political shit but most of the ride was cool and the people friendly.

Since I decided to join this ride I felt it would be good to concentrate on cadence today. My goal was to keep a high cadence of over 85 bpm, which meant I got into my granny gear - 30 x 23 - to climb some of Emigration. Speed wasn't the idea, and unfortunately not everyone understands that. Maybe the race team had planned to make this a race simulation day but I wasn't aware of it. Maybe every outing will be a race simulation day like last year, but I hope not. I hope we learn to be more disciplined.

To be fair, I took off at the base of Emigration. I took off because there was a political discussion going on in the pack and I wasn't interested. This caused a few key people to get their testosterone going to catch me, which evolved into a 3-4 person pack flying up Emigration. After 8 miles or so I decided to back off because I was working way too hard and getting tired without getting much of my desired training in. I backed off and got some lip for it. Oh well. I also realized I didn't have nutrition easily available so I stopped and grabbed stuff out of my Camelbak.

After regrouping at the top of Emigration, more talk started, and after a few minutes of it I took off again. The rest of the ride was great. I feel good about my fitness. What's interesting is I am confident of my abilities to the point I don't feel the need to prove myself at every chance. Hell I don't need to prove myself at all. After the ride there was small discussion about how the ride went. One person based their answer on their "finish" position to the top of Emigration. Heh. How last year.

Oh, and I am REALLY liking my new Williams 38 carbon wheels. Really really. And it's not because they are super sexy as Tom said.