A day of riding, eating, and relaxing...

Our first stop for the day and out came the phones.
Okay, everyone off the phone lets keep going:)

Mike showing us his fancy bike, hey maybe we should have rode this one!

So today a friend of mine put together a little bike ride on the Trails of the Coeur d' Alenes, we all met out at the Snake Pit Bar and Restaurant around 9 am and headed out for Mullan roughly 25 miles away. The trail is an old railway that was used back in the day for moving the silver out of the mines. Cleanup has meant cleaning up waste from the silver that has penetrated the ground and putting in a trail for cycling, walking, etc. The ride takes you along I-90 through Kellogg up to where we turned around at Mullan. Heading out you are on what appears to be a nice flat easy going trail. The pace was typical heading out, not too fast but fast enough to get a good workout in. We stopped a few times to regroup, none of us were out to race and a few in the group had never ridden as far as we were going to, and even one had a brand new bike that she had never been on. The first 15-18 miles were like I said good, then the last 6 or seven I noticed myself slowly loosing touch with the lead group I had been riding with all day. I started thinking 'what the heck is going on', I wasn't feeling that pop in my legs, started to slow down and kind of was worried. I had been eating, drinking and doing everything I needed to for a ride that would end up being close to 50 miles. Once I got to the turnaround at Mullan, the rest of the lead group waiting for me and the handful of others behind me, I said 'what was that all about?'

Turns out that final stretch was a false flat, which was one of the things that went through my head as I felt my speed and cadence decrease. So once we were all at the turnaround point and fooded up I took off with Mike and Curt for what I knew would be a fun return trip. It didn't take long for us to break away from the others and get a great paceline going. It was so much fun to work with them and clip off the miles at what seemed to be a really fast pace. My computer wasn't working so I wasn't sure what speed we were going but Mike and Curt said they were hovering around 24-26MPH. That right there made me once again think of how much I have improved over the past year, I would have never been able to participate in a paceline of that speed for that long last year!

Once back at the car we all headed over to the Snake Pit for some much earned beer and food. Although the service left something to be desired, the food was excellent, along with the company. Then back to Mike and Leanna's house for more beverage, relaxing on the couch watching the Olympics, BBQ and the hot tub! What a great way to spend the day!