I know better than to take Kevin’s (the pilot) word when he says he’s going to take it easy up the hill. You’d think his bike ride up Mt. Evans a few days ago might have actually slowed him down, but that clearly wasn’t the case. That’s OK, I’ll do what I can, and there were plenty of other people out this morning whom I could actually trust to run me into the ground climbing Kings! None of them disappointed. Thank goodness for Karl, who will sometimes hang back with me and give me a wheel for the climb.

The weather? Pretty darned foggy at first, although not cold (still required leg warmers though). We climbed out of the fog about halfway up Kings though, and had nice dry roads for the descents. This was supposed to be our first “alternate” routing, since roadwork on Kings was going to start today, but seeing no sign of it we took our chances (and won, this time).

Y’know, I’m pretty sure this ride keeps me alive. When I think about all the various issues I face each day, the usual work & family and life in general, it’s probably a good thing that there’s this one complete constant in my life. I leave the house at 7:33am, arrive in time for the 7:45am start (usually with about 90 seconds to spare), and get back almost exactly two hours after I left. Every Tuesday & Thursday morning, no matter what.