Saturday was the first longer ride I had been on since my tour. No matter how busy I am, I’ll always make it out for at least an hour each day. We’re lucky here. Just southwest of the city are some gnarly hill loops and while they’re no feat individually, when you string them together, back to back, you can quickly add up a lot of elevation. Each 10 mile loop is approximately 1,000′ of elevation so even if I only have an hour to ride, I know I can get my heart rate up. With the temperatures finally dropping a bit, Jon and I took off for a 50 mile hill loop and this time, I brought my T4 with me.

Check out nine more photos below!

Here’s the backside of Mt. Bonnell. I like to do intervals here but this time, we only went up and down the second highest point in the county twice.

When we got to 2222, there had been a nasty motorcycle wreck. Cops had shut the whole road down, leaving us with 4 lanes of emptiness.

This stretch is usually filled with 60+ mph cars zipping past you but this morning, it was surreal.

Dork mode.

Dork mode pt 2.

From 2222 we headed to Jester, one of the gnarliest climbs in the area. On our way up, we met this guy who gets in his granny gear and spins his way up with his pooch in tow.

After Jester, we headed across 360 and up to Cuernavaca Drive, a rollercoaster loop filled with quick and short rollers.

It was starting to get hot out but we had one more loop to hit, Lost Creek. This loop has two of my favorite descents and two of my least favorite climbs but the scenery is amazing.

We had a blast. In 3:20:00 we had climbed over 5,000′ of elevation. Check out the stats, maps and climbs here at my Strava account.

If I end up putting on a road ride Friday morning, I’ll take you guys on some of these loops.