This ride was an interesting ride as I did not know how hard I would be able to hit it and sustain my effort. So I went for it. I was able to give it a 100% effort for almost all miles. The only sections I backed off was a residential stretch on High Trestle trail between Irvindale and first street in Ankeny, Iowa. One thing you will catch on to with my blogs is, number 1) I ride High Trestle trail a lot. Number 2) I love to loop different trails together where and when possible. Number 3) I incorporate strava as much as I can.
On this date wind was south to southwest at 5-10. I thankfully had a route that worked well to have a tailwind for 80-90% of ride. My route for this ride is all. This route is almost all trails. Out of the twenty-eight miles twenty-one miles are trail. This ride for some odd reason I decided I didn’t need a warm up at all, I just went for it. As soon as I hit the road out of the driveway, I was gone. I decide to see how long I could keep an average of sixteen plus up on my ride, I did better than I thought. I kept it up for almost one hour, I was super thrilled, as for a lot of that hour I was sliding on worn tires. I will leave that for another blog. The Neil Smith Nature Trail is a climbers dream as you have so steep punchy hills and some long gradual grades for hills. I, myself like the short punchy hills as I can power up them without shifting much, if at all. The long hills are harder for me as I am NOT a spinner, I am a masher on the pedals. Low cadence, 70-80. I, as someone who has just about all of the Neil Smith Nature trail by heart have my favorite spots on the trail. One of which is “two mile hill,” which is a nickname my grandmother and I came up with, not because of the length, but because of where we started when we trained for RAGBRAI in 2004. Some more of my favorite aspects of the trail are the sections that flow from one to another, where you don’t lose momentum. As I went along on my ride that day I kept going north past Saylorville Lake Marina I come to a tunnel that can, and usually does have water in it, this time it did. My rule of thumb going through this bridge is: water, I walk; no water, hammer down. When I keep going north I come to five wooden bridges, one bridge roughly every mile. Better make sure when you hit the bridges that your wheel is straight otherwise you could eat wood, done that after a rain once. No fun. After all the twisting and bridges you come out on Big Creek State Park drive, that’s when the speed ramps up and you better be able to hold a white line. When riding on roads I like to be about six inches off the white line. Close enough to where, if needed, you can hit the grass. There two other roads I hit on this loop before State street. One is Hug drive, the other is Sheldahl drive. When I turn on to High Trestle trail it is pretty much downhill to Ankeny. This is hammer time, or at least until I hit the outskirts of Ankeny. Then back off until State street, grab a handful of gear and make sure you can hang in the pack or break off the front until you hit Kyle’s bikes. That is a normal hill workout for me. A 100 minutes or so of tongue out effort with a lot or bit of pain, depending on who you ask. My favorite route that I spin others off of.
