I love the mountains. And, I equally love to ride in them.

I did one of my favorite short rides yesterday. My house to Poorman, climb, up Sunshine, climb, and keep climbing until you get to Gold Hill. A quick 1:30 (sometimes 1:20, when I'm feeling good) and never more than 1:35, which is what it took yesterday. The elevation gain is just over 3,000 feet.

Maybe shouldn't have done it as I was fighting off a cold. Then last night the cold took a huge turn for the worse and sunk into my chest. Bummer! Oh well, at least I got the ride in yesterday.

I thought the ride up Poorman was hard just because I was out of shape. Tried to keep my HR under 165. So I slowed down and kept it around 158-160. That seemed more like it for the pace I was trying to go. Still my nose keep running and running and I was happy not to have anyone around me cuz it was kind of messy. Still, I kept thinking that maybe it would get all of the bad germs out of me. Silly me.

Once I turned onto Sunshine ( grade average is 6.5-9%) I had a very hard time keeping my HR under 160. It pretty much stayed there most of the next hour. Good thing about this ride is that there are incredible views the whole way up. hat and I was listening to my Shuffle with my best techno tunes. That always is a good thing. Scenery and techno.

When you get toward the top to the climb it levels off to a pretty easy grade. Maybe about 4 %. Not bad a t all on the mountain bike.

Regardless of how I was feeling on the ride and the way I feel today, it is still one of the most awesome short rides (close to my house) that I know. Now I'll see how I feel tomorrow and see if it really was worth it. Yeah... it's worth it.