Green Short Trail Ride

Monday I drove to the other side of Green Mountain (Lakewood) so I didn't have to waste time on streets getting to the singletrack, since I didn't have much time.

This looks like an open hillside in Hawaii or something, rather than the far side of Green Mountain in my neighborhood in normally arid Colorado:

The trails were emptying out, so I had quite a few stretches of trail ahead where nobody was visible and I could just put the hammer down. When I saw someone ahead, I'd slow down and make it clear I was going to pull over, then speed up again until the next blind turn or whatever.

I drifted into a a couple of bad lines, wobbled some, and still brake too much, but on my own slow scale... I killed it.

Because I had more speed, hills went as follows: crank the approach, coast and quickly downshift, then spin over the top and if necessary stand up and grunt it out to get over the crest. It worked great, and I don't know where the power came from (granted, it was a short ride). I still had to hike it a couple of times on steeps.

Near the end I ran across this cache of gems; wildflowers in almost every color of the spectrum represented (zoom in to see them all):

Distance was 6.20 miles, time 42:33 (moving 36:00), elevation gain/loss 499 feet, avg. speed 8.7 mph (moving 10.3), and max speed 22.5 mph.

A fun ride.