Tour de Fire Roads

Lots of fire road climbing yesterday; some of it pretty steep. My Edge 305 is massively on the fritz. It gave me the mileage it collected (when it wasn't shut off - which it did about 15-20 times), and total ride time.

I have no idea if the HR/speed info is accurate. I burned 100 calories over 23 miles and 3,500 feet of climbing. The elevation profile on Training Center shows up as 2.2 miles. Which is odd because it didn't actually shut off until probably 12+ miles into the ride? I guess I will have to "borrow" an Edge until I can get mine fixed. Luckily I have a buddy that took his apart and fixed this very battery shut off issue that every unit seems to get after a year or so of use.

Either way, the small group of us climbed quite a bit, and descended some fun singletrack. We even had a few water crossings. I wound up riding midpack (except when descending) most of the day. Felt really good on the climbs, actually. When the fast guys were chatting and riding at social pace I could hang on their wheels and nearly hold a conversation.

I don't want to jinx myself, but I'm thinking the leg workouts in the gym might be doing some good. If I'm getting some muscle that isn't built up by riding alone it could be helping my strength/stamina on the climbs. It probably also doesn't hurt that I've been doing a good amount of climbing lately. Climbing begets climbing, right?

High country riding is soon coming my way, and I'm looking forward to it immensely. I need to get myself to a better place for numerous reasons, so the hard rides and (hopefully) long miles might do me some good. 9 rides in 11 days. If I'm able to average around 20 miles a ride that's just shy of 200mi. Sweet. Add to that a good bit of climbing (let's say 3,000 feet a ride?) and I've got myself a good week.