Monday, June 18, 2007

Purty ride

Here are a couple of pics from one of my favorite places to ride, the Camden Snow Bowl. Currently they have anough trails to keep one happy for 2-3 hours but are in the process of working with adjoining landowners to expand and improve the trail system. They even have the IMBA trail crew coming in September to help them meet their goals. Good times are a-comin.


Anyway, no matter how you approach it, the only way to get to the trails is to go up, right from the gun. The initial climb takes about 20'ish minutes to complete, is super steep, technical and downright brutal, especially since you aren't yet warmed up. After suffering in an oh-so-good way for 20 mins you are rewarded with sweeping views of Penopscot bay to the south and the other "mountains" around. It's nice enough that you almost forget you're coughing up blood.



That is until you look down and see the profile of that initial climb.
The total elevation gain isn't all that great (I did one climb while in NC that was 1300 ft in 30 minutes) but the technical aspect really takes it out of you. In the picture below you see that my average speed was only 4.68mph for that first climb, barely fast enough to stay upright.


In the end though, it's great training and you are rewarded to a sweet descent and miles of beautiful, technical singletrack.


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4 comments:

Wheels said...

Ever have trouble with the 305 shutting down on bumps or the HR reading way high on descents? I've had mine 1.5 year and it's freaking.

rick is! said...

never shutting down on me. I have had trouble with battery life though. What are you getting for typical run times?

Wheels said...

I would say +6 hours. I tightened my chest strap and seemed to have licked the faulty HR. But in a strong wind and fast descent it still misreads. I added some cushioning so we'll see.

rick is! said...

man, i get probably 4 1/2 tops. of course, even 6 hours falls far short of the advertised 12.