Saturday, September 7, 2013

Pancake Motivation!!

A fall weekend is upon us and with no real projects or events planned I felt a return to my bike. There has been a bathroom project going on and a few golf events, my commitment to my bike and rides has been missing since I got back from my tour.
With the scottish festival in town for the weekend the American Legion has a big pancake breakfast. Mmmm....... I like me a pancake breakfast!!!!
But you have to earn it!!!
There is a big parade through downtown for the festival, it starts at 9:30 so I get an early start to get a ride before breakfast. I choose one of my favorite rides here around town, the loop up into the park over Deer Ridge Junction.
Got rolling about 6:45, still was cool out at 54 deg. Headed up for the north entrance of the park. So nice out early because I am out before the tourist traffic builds.

A pretty morning working up to the north entrance
There are still some flowers in the park doing their thing all blooming and stuff
Keep climbing up through a couple of switchbacks takes you to one of my favorite areas of the park, Horseshoe park. It is always so pretty how it opens up after climbing to the open meadow of a glacial basin.





I pull into the Sheep Lakes turnout and what do you know??? There are RM bighorn sheep! And no people!! I have the place to myself!
Ok, nobody around so it must be time to mess around with the self timer!!

One more climb up to Deer Ridge junction and when I reach the top you get the obligatory Longs Peak picture!!

Time to head down, back to town. I am hungry for a pancake plus I have to get through town before the parade starts!
Always a great ride, not long but a solid two hours on the bike of which 1 hour and forty minutes is spent climbing and 20 minutes for the blast off down to town.
I would have taken a picture of breakfast but I slammed it down!!  Trust me, it was good!

Everybody enjoy the rest of the weekend!!
Jim