The Band of Mystery are suss’ing out details for a live recording on the radio this weekend, so I joined everyone at the HQ in Denver. Riding up from Boulder in the morning was a little chilly, but the temps. got reasonable quickly. So reasonable, that it seemed like a good idea just to ride back at 8:30pm, instead of enduring the rather unglamorous detail of taking the bus home. And I used to really love the bus: it was fast enough, convenient and made it easy to not need a car. But, they’ve made some strange changes, including fitting more rows of seats by sacrificing leg room – and the construction on 36 makes for unpredictable ETA’s getting back. And it’s $5. $5!

The ride back was nice, until I hit the Standley Lake area, where the route I take goes into the park and onto some dirt paths. This avoids getting onto busy Sheriden while keeping the route fairly direct. Regrettably, I discovered the dirt paths were a quagmire of incredible sticky clay mud of doom, rendering my bike inoperable for even pushing. The amount of mud that built up near the brakes was stupefying and happened, as it does, not at the beginning or end of the section, but in the middle. And then of course, I got lost, so I had to go off-piste anyways, and figure out where best to go. And then the wind picked up.

Tons of fun, naturally – although it was a tad late and I was getting tired, and man – all I could think of was how much damage that much mud does to a bike. The type of mud that rips rear derailers off with aplomb. With the help of a tool I fashioned from… …from a stick, I got the majority of ick off, and got to my neighborhood, which conveniently has a car wash, so I sprayed my poor bike down, and relubed it back up next morning. No worse for wear, I’m guessing, although the rear wheel is doing a bit more shimmying than I’d like. Upon closer inspection, it looks to be a mixture of an untrue wheel (easy to fix), and a tire that has a sidewall protrusion – a bigger problem waiting to happen. The wash quickly came almost to the total of bus fare – which kind of sucked, in a money-saving perspective, but hey! I fit in almost 70 miles of riding, work, and a band practice into a Monday. 

Runs at night aren’t always so magical. There’s a good chance that I’m out there, trying to just squeeze a run in after the work week, rather than enjoying myself for the sake of being out there. 

Tonight, it truly was one of the most enjoyable runs of the year. The amount of snow that had just falling was pretty incredible, given the mild temperatures we’ve been receiving. The temps. were still honestly pretty mild, so even with all the snow it wasn’t super cold if you just kept moving. Tons of first tracks put down, fairly unheard of so late in the day. Not many people out. Full moon. Not much else you could ask for. Ran up and down Green Mountain, albeit slowly, twice.