Let the Epics begin!

The high country snow is finally melted for the most part, so I planned our first big ride accordingly.

 The usual suspects were gathered, while others were off doing things like watching TV or hiking the Inca Trail. 

 

I chose the route based on my training rides from the late 80's and then mixed in some of the newer trail offerings. We got turned around at one point by machine-gun fire. I figured it was probably best to find an alternate route.

After successfully avoiding any 50 caliber mishaps, we began the climb west towards the Pike National forest. This was taken at the top of the worst part. Definitely sandwich-worthy.

This is a pretty cool still-shot taken from the video descending the Waldo Canyon trail.

Here is the ride profile. There were sections of one climb that had a 30% grade. I may or may not have walked those parts....

Some of the ride stats:

Distance:  55.31 miles

Ride time: 5 hours, 38 mins.

Total time: 7 hours 26 minutes

Climbing elevation: 8764'

Uphill time: 3:07

Uphill distance: 25.6 miles

Did I mention video? I brought the trusty Helmet Hero and chest mount and video'd all of the good bits. Here is the condensed version. Crank the volume to 11 and get ready to groove....

June Epic from Alan Keeffe on Vimeo.