Thanksgiving....

The Cedar River, early winter....
The prairie in Hartman North....

We share our trails with the bow hunters. No problem.

Following Jackal east out of Denver....

Just riding along....

Drafting Jackal into the headwind. Almost there....

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving yesterday and I hope that all of you did too!

I started the day with an early morning walk through the Hartman North Unit just to check out the snow before it's gone. Temps in the low 20s with a slight breeze out of the north. The deer and the ducks were active!

My cell rang when I was about a hundred yards west of Jackal's house. It was Jackal asking if I still wanted to ride up to Readlyn for Thanksgiving dinner.... Oh yeah! We were still talking when I was in front of his house and Baby Rhea was waving from the front window. Anyway, we decided that I'd take off at a quarter to 11 and he'd follow at 11 sharp so that he could chase me down and use it as a training ride for this weekend's Jingle Cross in Iowa City. Sounded good to me!

I took off at 10:45 sharp and headed to Wagner Road and then straight north into a 10mph headwind. It was about 25 or so degrees. I pedaled my ass off because I didn't want him to catch me too quickly and that little bit of wind seemed a lot worse than it was. When I crested the hill and crossed C57 I looked back to see where he was at but he wasn't within sight. I kept cranking as hard as I could until I got to the Denver hills and then headed east up the first big hill. It was starting to kick my ass but the wind seemed to shift a little to the NW and I rode over the top in petty fair shape. After that it's about a half mile of rollers then a big downhill into Denver. I expectd that he would blow by me there but it didn't happen. I rolled on into Denver and stopped in the Kwik Trip parking lot to munch on a granola bar and drink some water. I started to get a bit chilly as I was sweating my ass off by then so I headed back toward the Hwy 63 overpass to try to meet Jackal. I eventually turned around and headed east through Denver while looking back watching for Jackal. I was about a quarter mile ahead when I saw him flying down the hill and into Denver so I just pedaled along nice and easy to wait for him. When he caught up he told me that he had gone along the East Lake Trail so I knew he had ridden about 3/4 of a mile further than I had to get to where we were. I had ridden the bike path behind Cattle Congress to get over to Greenbrier.... Oh well, it's all training, right? :)

We headed out for the 6 mile stretch to the east with the wind again dead out of the north. It was a pretty stress free ride with plenty of chatter between us. When we got to the Readlyn turn off I just tucked in behind him for the last mile and a half straight north into the wind. When we tured into town I told him that wasn't so bad with him breaking the wind for me. Ha Ha. He said it's all tempo work. OK. As long as I don't have to set the tempo!

We got to Eric's house and he was out in the garage with the woodburner going nicely. Jackal and I went inside and started to peel layers off as we warmed up. The rest of the family started to arrive so we changed clothes and got ready for one of the best Thanksgivings we've had in a long time.

It ended up being just a touch under 25 miles in about an hour and a half. Sweet!

That's it for now. 15F outside. I may get the Surly out today!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!