Nice wind we had today. I’m sure it would have powered all of Idaho if those hideous fans were turned on that now dot the southern skyline of our valley.
Rad Doc and I had been wanting to squeeze in a ride to Point Prominence before it snowed in, so we went for it today. This is a large stair-step-like climb that climbs about 4,000 ft. I wasn’t too sure that we’d be able to make it all the way, after yesterday watching the recent snow still sticking to the trees all day. The warm wind that came in made the climb perfect though, but the trip across the valley treacherous. The climb took a couple hours and even included some snow and ice before reaching the now-vacated lookout. Prudence kept us from climbing the lookout because the steps and railings were covered with ice. I think Rad wanted to climb it with his bike because it wasn’t much worse than the sections he pedaled up before getting there.
Meanwhile, as we got higher we were watching the wind continue to whip up an enormous dust storm in the valley. By the time we got back down, the wind was so strong that we had to ride sideways across the valley. Later wind checks confirmed gusts around 40 mph, which were the gusts sending us into the ditch. At one point, I couldn’t see Rad who was only about 10 ft in front of me.
In the last few days, I haven’t had much luck with transportation: Wednesday, broken spoke on road bike; Thursday, tire aneurysm on cyclocross bike; and Friday, transmission failure on F250 and out of control horse in a cattle drive. Even today I was attacked by a tumbleweed that was bigger than I was. I saw it tracking me from quite a ways off. A moment of indecision about whether to speed up or brake had me making the wrong decision and getting body slammed by the giant weed. Fortunately, in all the aforementioned cases I managed to make it home safely.
I’ve noticed my scars are finally healing from all the recent mountain biking. In the last few weeks I’ve already donned quite a bit of winter clothing. Winter is in the air, and I’m getting excited to start training for next race season.
