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Sunday, May 10, 2009
3804M. Great 24 Hour Fleche. Great Fleche and more photos later. Only 1/2 of the 24 hours was rainy. Loads of fun.The Fleche was just yesterday and it feels like a life time ago. That's why I love riding so much. Time seems to stop, or at least go really really slowly.
So, I packed on Thursday night. Packed because we had to ride a full 24 hours to be official Fleche finishers. 5 riders start and three must finish. Not so bad as all of were really strong riders and evenly matched.
We started out of Louisville at 8 Am on Saturday. Nice start and not what the forecast had predicted. It didn't rain until about 7:30 PM.
It was about 47-50 degrees and a medium wind from the north east. We headed out of town towards the north. Heading for Masonville.
Still quite a bit of snow on the mountains-where we're heading.
Once to the north of Masonville, we headed up the canyon to Stove Prairie.
It's a nice gradual to steep climb up a small canyon past new houses and small horse ranches and then gets into cabins and small farms from the late 1800s.
It was great. We all had about the same climbing pace, even Greg, who lives in Iowa. Go Greg.
About half way up the climb you get away form the prairies and get into some wooded areas. Then up high, back into the high grasslands. I can see why the homesteaders came here. Very peaceful.
At the top, we ate and took photos. Then down the other side to the Poudre Canyon and river.
We had a stiff headwind most of the way down. Had to take turns pulling into the wind. At the bottom, we headed to Verns, near La Porte.
From Verns, we headed back out to the eastern plains of Colorado. Went to towns like Wellington, Windsor, Kersey, and Johnson's Corner. Lots of places for us to get food. A key thing to these rides is food and a constant pace.
After leaving Kersey, we started to get sprinkles and then a little later, at about 8 PM we started to get rain. Not bad for the day.
We made it to our sleep point a bit before midnight. Time for a short break and then get up and head out for more food.
We have found a good tea for a wake up caffeine pick-me-up. It's by Zing. Really good, not too sweet and keeps us awake.
One of the last Control Points was in Lyons. You know you've been riding a lot when the employees at the Lyons Shamrock know how much you've been riding this year. They asked me how my vacation riding went.
It got colder as the morning continued on. Not bad, though as we had enough clothes and also only had to go until 8 AM.
After the end we took more photosof the team and headed over for a hot breakfast together.
Once again another great ride was finished and another one in the planning. # posted by Michelle Grainger @ 11:30 AM
