Sun and Fun

Still biking out there in the snow!  It's been great lately and it's been nice.  Even it's been nice to be home and working here at home, don't have to travel for a while for work.  Since doing that, I came home from the shop and barely had an hour of sunlight in the day and had chance to do some quick rides for like 30 to 40 minutes but hey, better than doing no exercise.  So I did that twice this week, then a big ride at Black Hill Saturday morning.  So here's some pics.

We do need more snow here in Sanpete Valley, especially in the mountains.  The snowpack is low.  But the forecast said there be some this week.  We do need the moisture.  Anyway, 2 weeks ago, I got the privilege to go on a California trip with the family and it was really nice.  It was delightful and warm, very warm, like 85 to 90 degrees and that was my first time I've been in California.  We got to go to Legoland for a day and California Adventure Land and Disneyland for three days.  We planned the trip for over a year and all the kids including me had a blast.

                    

Sometimes I need to do this napping training plan instead of a biking training plan.  Nice plan!  But I have got a problem, I can never sleep in the daytime.  I'm like hyper or something, but if I really do this napping plan, I'd look like this:

I wouldn't like that....I appreciate what I do everyday!

Great Black Hill Riding

Some great fat biking I have tried on a few rides were in the foot hills outside of town called Black Hill.  There's a lot of roads with a lot of climbs and fast downhills and best of all that all the trucks and atvs have been packing the snow down which made the roads rideable.  The fat bike just makes it safer and fun.  I like to ride there and at by Gordon's farm and at the base of Bald Mountain.  The canyon road is not as fun compared to what I have been riding on because it's so dull and boring and can't get enough miles because of the gradual climb.  The roads at Black Hill are really packing down and turning into ice, so we need more snow!  More snow would be nice.  It's been nice to go out and killing it on a bike again though and the 3 week Christmas break has been wonderful because I've been out on my fat bike almost every day!

Wow

Yesterday I went to do my usual bi-weekly shot/doc visit.  They usually do vital signs every time I get my shot just to check and see if I am doing fine.  After I jumped on the scale, my nurse got into her cabinet and grabbed one of these and told me that I lost one of these in the last two weeks.  Wow!  Probably from all that fat biking!

More Fat Biking

In the past while, I've been riding some more while the snow was great and packed down.  I got to go along the canyon road.  It was really warm though.

I started from Major's Flat so I drove my truck up there with my bike in the back.  I passed a friend along the way down at the bottom by the houses at the mouth of the canyon.  He also has a fat bike so he was riding on one too.  Us too are the only ones in the town that have fat bikes.  So anyway, I started riding from Major's Flat and climbed until to Willow Creek turnoff.  Then I turned around and my friend was there.  He is fast!  Well, he's in good shape and used to race in semi pro back in the days.  Right now he runs Alley Cat Bike Shop in Ephraim.  Made me realize that I am pretty slow and my bike is slow.  His bike has 4 inch tires and mine has 4.8.  Mine is a lot harder to pedal though but has a lot more traction.  Made me want to get a bike with 4 inch tires so I can go faster.  Ha ha.

Another day before that canyon ride, I went more riding and here's some pictures.

This ride, I went on a short one but it was great, just up by Lund Farm, Gordon's Farm, and up a little on the canyon road just up the hydroplant.  Great workouts!

First Snow Bike Ride of the Season

I took the opportunity to go on my fat bike after the snow storm we had right after Thanksgiving weekend.  It snowed quite a bit then it got really cold.  I had a Friday off and went definitely.  That morning, Ephraim made the news up in Salt Lake City that it got below 22 here in Ephraim.  Yeah, pretty cold.  But I waited it out before I went on my ride.  By the time it got 11 degrees at my house, I went.
 

It wasn't so bad because I had some pretty good warm biking clothing gear and also after working out about 10 minutes, it felt perfect.  I wasn't too hot, or too cold but I didn't sweat at all during the whole ride.  Not one drip.  It was that cold. I was amazed that I didn't sweat and it felt weird.  And I was really working out hard too.  As hard as I could.  My fat bike also felt amazing over snow and I felt like I was a kid again, fat bikes over snow are so fun.

This is a homemade map I made on the computer on where I went since I am so behind on technology(ask my older brother, he says that I live too much in the 90s, and it's true, I do).  I left E Town towards Black Hill and Kane Valley area.  I climbed up Kane Valley Road past the elk ranch and the snow pack on the road was perfect.  I made it up there like in 25 minutes from my house then turned around at the top and went back down.  I thought that was it for my ride and then until I got home, I decided to get my dog and go for a little longer.  This time we went up towards past the Lund Farm and went on that technical rocky road that connects to the Ephraim Canyon Road(shortcut to the canyon road from town).  The rocks were all covered with snow and it made the ride pleasant.  The fat bike went on that road great even though there were a couple tire tracks.  On the ride back down, I had a blast and I went fast.  So the ride was about 9.5 miles and the total elevation gain was 850 feet so it took me about an hour.  It was fun and I am ready for more.

Bike rides after the big trip...

After my work trip in North Dakota, I definitely wanted to get some riding done while the weather was nice back home in Utah.  It was actually on Thanksgiving Day when I had the chance because I came home on the day before.  I couldn't resist going on a ride on a day like this.  After I ate so much in North Dakota and not getting any intense exercise, I didn't even think about Thanksgiving dinner so I didn't really eat that much for Thanksgiving.  Before the dinner, I went on my usual "moderate intensity ride" I usually go on.  It was great but I felt so out of shape and felt about 5 to 8 pounds heavier.  But I made it just fine though and I wanted to take it easy. 

It was a pretty nice day and it was actually nice all through Thanksgiving weekend.  On Friday, I got to get a Christmas Tree with my family in the mountains.  There was snow but I was in a t-shirt, very nice.  Then on Saturday, I totally went on another ride in the afternoon.  This time I did a ride I haven't done in a long time, part of the Race Loop.  The Race Loop hasn't been ridden on in years since the landowner closed it down, it was actually an atv trail and they didn't want them going up that area anymore.  But for the past few years, I actually talked with the landowners, they are ok with mountain bikers and hikers in the area.  So what if I ride up there again and the trail will be all sweet and all singletracky?  It would be nice though but I don't know if they are ok with that though.  Anyways, I did part of the climb that day and went back down.  I felt better though but I still could be in better shape.  Two weeks of no exercise can totally kill you!

North Dakota Trip and Travels

I got asked to work two weeks to work on a couple projects in North Dakota.  To be exact, it was in Gladstone which is about 10 to 15 miles east of Dickinson.  Dickinson is a big city and Gladstone is a really small town, all it has is a grainery, a bar, and a post office.  It was supposed to be a week and a half we were supposed to be there but our boss extended it so we wouldn't have to come back after Thanksgiving.

We had a Sunday off.  We did actually go to church.  I went in levis though but it was nice to go to church.  We just went to Sacrament meeting, then afterwards, us four guys went for a drive on Enchanted Highway.  It supposed to have the world's biggest metal sculptures.  Here's some pics.

North Dakota has nothing out there and it was very cold with the Canadian winds blowing from north.  We've had some mornings in the negative temperatures and one day the highest it went was 12 degrees.  We spent the first week doing outside work and the cold week doing inside work.  We got a LOT done.

This is one of the two projects.  This one is a pain because this duplex is huge and very tall.  We got a lot done on this one.  We were doing log siding in this picture, also the rear deck.  The other project is a small home about 10 blocks away.  Still have a lot work done on that one too.  They are basically all modulars, we built them in sections in the shop in Mt. Pleasant, Utah and shipped all the boxes up to North Dakota and stitched them up.

On the way home was beautiful.  We drove through Montana, West Yellowstone, and Idaho.  The above pictures are the sun rises at Island Park, ID and the Grand Teton Mountains.  I love sun rises!  We were actually gone from our homes exactly 16 days and I won't do that again.   Well, I got see a coyote and a bison.