Presidents Day Ride 2008

Cory and I went our first annual Presidents Day Ride. We left our house at 10:00am under beautiful sunny skies, temps in the upper 30’s and a light breeze. Our plan was to take the C-470 bike path to Deer Creek Canyon Road, climb west into the foothill to North Turkey Creek, cross Hwy 285, climb Parmalee Gulch to Hwy 74, then cruise back home.

We stopped at Green Mountain Sports to replace my rear tire, which was destroyed from riding on the flat during the Dualthon on Saturday. We finally got on the road at about 10:30 and headed for the bike path. About 2 miles down the bike path we found it to covered with snow. We jumped off the bike path and made our way to Kipling and then south to Deer Creek Canyon. It took us about an hour to get down Kipling because of the stop lights and snow covering the bike path. The trip from our house down to Deer Creek should have taken about 35 minutes. We finally got to Deer Creek Canyon and had a Hammer Gel.

Cory at the top of Deer Creek Canyon.

It was starting to warm up a little, so we peeled off some layer and started our climb. The road conditions were great with the exception of a few snow covered shady sections. After about 40 minuets and about 1,700 vertical feet (that is just a rough guess) we reached the top. We had a quick peanut butter fold-over and bundled up for the descent down to North Turkey Creek and Hwy 285. On the way down, something did not feel quite right with my bike and sure enough when we stopped at 285-flat tire. Yes, this was my brand spanking new tire that had a flat. Out came the tools and about 20 minuets we are on our way climbing up Parmalee Gulch.

Parmalee is a great climb that is about five miles long through wooded curvy roads. By this time the clouds were moving in and we kept all of our layers on during our climb. This meant that we were in store for a long cold ride down hill to get home. We got to the top of Parmalee Gulch, right after the small town of Indian Hills, had a couple of Thin Mints and got ready, mentally more the physically, for the cold ride home. Temps were about 30 maybe 35 at this point and windy. We got down to Kitteridge on Hwy 74, stopped in a little restaurant to warm up before the remaining 10 miles or so miles down hill to our nice warm home.

In total we road 41.5 miles with about 3,000 vertical feet of climbing. It was a cold day, but a good day. We hope to make the Presidents Day Ride a yearly tradition.

Happy Trails,

Kelsey