Yesterday was Veteran’s Day, so here I am all out of order. But the forecast for today (Saturday) called for rain, so of course we had to get out while we could (although now I see that the rain won’t be coming until later in the day). Just as well though. There’s never a bad day on the bike, really, and the Heartbreaker was as good a place to go as any.
I’m sure I’ve described it here before. Just this September, Joon and I went up the Heartbreaker — a climb of almost 1,500 feet in about 3 miles. It got its name from the words I heard Joon utter on the final turn before the last few hundred meters of climbing — “This is heartbreaking.” In September, it was a real bear for some reason. We stopped a few times on the way up, and walked a couple of stretches just to work out a different set of muscles. But yesterday, we both went pretty much right up, although I did stop in one section to take pictures of the sunrise. Slow and steady, and not nearly as intimidating.
The payoff, then, was the descent. Last November (a year ago this weekend, actually) we came down and took the fire road to the left. It’s a beautiful route by itself, and it didn’t disappoint us this time either. The whole ride was pretty good, although the hill work (over 4,000 feet) did take a bit out of us. Plenty of stretching and massage gun work on the schedule today, that’s for sure.
I’d have to say the one thing that’s been a bit bothersome lately is that the air quality index (AQI) has been abysmal, topping 260 on Wednesday and Thursday, and more than likely over 150 by the end of our ride yesterday (I didn’t have the heart to look). By contrast, the AQI in Appleton, WI is 15 right now. The whole thing made for poorer pictures, and maybe that’s why I didn’t get as many as usual. That, and the sore legs from climbing kind of keeps your mind off of the cool stuff you could be photographing in the course of a ride.
In any case, between the four of us, we did get something for you to look at…
