TNT Tahoe 2012 - Week 2
This week, we had plans to visit friends on Friday evening in Colorado Springs. We weren't sure how late we'd get home and were worried we wouldn't be ready for an early morning bike ride. But thanks to the kindness of our friends, we stayed at their place Friday night and got the opportunity to ride with the Colorado Springs TNT group.
When we woke up Saturday morning, we had an email in our inbox. The Springs got a dusting of snow and our coach had been out to check out the roads already. He changed the start time and location of our ride to make sure we didn't have too much snow to deal with.
At 10ish, we met at the Old Town Bike Shop in downtown Colorado Springs. After checking out some gear in the shop for one of the new riders, we headed out on the streets. We made are way over to the Pikes Peak Greenway. It was still a bit chilly in the shady spots with the occasional slick spot from snow. I think the temp was right around 32 degrees.
After we got off the trail, we went up Woodmen Road. It starts off as slight incline and keeps getting steeper. By the time we made the left onto Orchard Valley Road, the climb was getting pretty steep and we were getting warm despite the near freezing temps. This climb was relatively short and not that steep compared to the training we did last year, but because it was only our second training ride of the season, it was still tough.
Luckily it was over pretty quickly... and then it was back down the hill and the fun part of the ride. We had a nice easy ride back to our starting point and along the way I chatted with Natalie. She is a new TNT member. She told me her personal story of being diagnosed with Lymphoma just about 2 years ago. She underwent 6 months of treatment and is cancer free. That was a good way to finish the ride and be reminded the reason we are doing this in the first place.
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