Casual weekend ride

Today is Monday October 6 2025 and on Saturday i rode my mountain bike for about 45 minutes on the pavement.

It was a casual ride. I've been very tired for the last several days.

It must be from my recent triple header:

• Hard group ride Wednesday night.
• Long hard mountain bike ride Thursday.
• Having two heavy beers Friday night.

By Saturday evening i'd found enough energy for a short spin so i threw on a t-shirt and pedaled the mean streets of Prairie Village while listening to the soundtrack from the original "Halloween" on the blue tooth speaker... as one does.

Today i'm feeling more energized which has me psyched for this weekends Bentonville, Arkansas trip. We leave on Thursday, the race is on Sunday, and the weather looks pretty perfect.

i've been thinking about this race for so long and now its finally here. Hopefully i can play the next few days right so that i feel fresh, mentally and physically, when i get to the start line on Sunday morning.

Swope Singletrack... is hard

Today is Friday October 3 2025 and yesterday i took the day off work and rode singletrack out at the Swope trails.

It was very hard and by the end of it i was completely spent.

This was my last big ride before the Little Sugar race and i wanted to include a lot of proper mountain biking so i went to Swope and got my a** kicked.

Swope was always the place for me. I don't know when it was first built but i think i was there very early on, around 2009, for me it was the place to be. We rode it a lot. Now that i'm 45 and have spent considerable time away from any consistent riding out there i truly understand how hard it is.

Big hard rocks everywhere.

What a workout.

So yesterdays ride was very hard. i was gone for 3 hours and 23 minutes but only about a hour twenty of that was Swope single-track. That hour twenty was plenty. At first i was demoralized that i couldn't go longer but then, after pulling the plug and beginning the ride home i began to realize that i just did an hour twenty at Swope. Sure it was sloppy and i stopped a lot and i walked a lot but for the most part i was riding over some very hard stuff. Plus it was super hot outside. Plus i had done the hard group ride last night which didn't end until 8pm. That's a day game after a night game. Not easy. So i decided that i had just easily done a shi*ty job of riding Swope and that's a lot better then having a very hard time of doing a shi*ty ride at Swope. There is a difference, i swear!

So i crushed the ride. Despite feeling like sh*t. 

Now its time to rest up and crush Little Sugar. Hopefully i don't feel like sh*t during that crushing.

After that i'm tempted to give cyclocross a real go but that's probably unrealistic. For one thing there aren't many races and i think i'll have already missed a third of them. Also i'm 45 and have spent the last 6 months training for endurance cycling. If cyclocross doesn't work out then i'll be free to just ride how i want, which sounds pretty great.

Group Ride... last one of the year

Today is Thursday October 2 2025 and last night i did the group bike ride.

It was my last one of the year and probably my best performance.

i still got dropped, twice, but i held on longer then ever.

The pace set by the group probably had more to do with my hanging on longer than my improved fitness, although my fitness is definitely improving. There were maybe 10 of us and the pace stayed pretty consistent. Not like last week when seemingly every two minutes somebody went to the front and started sprinting. Also it got dark, and while i've been riding my bike for a while now i have not done many fast group rides thru relatively dark suburbs. That was a fun component. i've dont a ton of riding at night but its usually thru midtown and downtown and there's a lot more light down there.

So the ride was a blast. i've really enjoyed the fresh challenge of trying to ride competently in a fast group and i'm hoping that next year i can find time to do more of these.

Now its time to ride my Mountain Bike because the Little Sugar Mountain Bike Race is 11 days away.

Bicycles!

Weekend Rides

Today is Monday September 29 2025 and i rode my Mountain Bike on Saturday and Sunday.

Both days were a slog.

On Saturday i got out the door around 6:45 am and pedaled from my house to the Swope single-track. I felt tired and slow the whole time and ended up being gone for 3 hours and 12 minutes but about 20 of those minutes were spent getting coffee.

Holy crow i forgot how hard the Swope single track is. i probably did 1 hour and 20 minutes out there and it kicked my butt. i do believe that a few times in my life i cleanly rode the 8 pin alley section but this time i basically walked the whole thing. i walked a lot of sections. Which isn't surprising but took a second to accept. On the plus side spiders and spider webs were not a big issue.

i'm hoping to take a day off this week and head to Swope again for a 2-3 hour session. That would be my last big ride before Little Sugar.

Did i mention i saw tons of deer out there and one big male standing right in the middle of the path stared me down, refused to budge, and really scared the crap out of me. Seriously, it felt like he was ready to charge. i turned around and looked over my shoulder as i got the hell out of there.

Then on Sunday we did a family bike ride to Loose Park and back. 

On rides like that i pull the little man on a tag along and boy howdy i forgot how hard that is. He's 70 pounds and i'm 45 years old and Kansas City is not flat. 

i pushed hard so it was about 30 minutes of pedaling each way, on the way back i was seriously crashing. X had the backpack with snacks and i was reaching over and yanking out anything i could find just to make it home.

But still it was an absolutely amazing day out. The little man is 10 and he's developing his own interests and bicycles are not one of them so family bike rides are becoming rare. i sweetened the deal by mentioning we could blast K-Pop Demon Hunters songs from the blue tooth speaker during the ride and that's what we did!

"We're goin' up, up, up, its our moment. You know together we're glowing. Gonna be gonna be golden!"

Another sweetener was the promise of a cake pop on the way home, which meant i got a coffee. That's two coffee bike rides in a row!

Coffee!

Bike rides!

Did i mention that since the Chiefs had a game later in the day Loose park was absolutely dead. It was wild. And awesome. So peaceful. What a great spot.

SATURDAY...

SUNDAY...

Group Ride (What the F*ck is Going On!)

Today is Thursday September 25 2025 and last night i did the group ride.

It was very very hard.

This week i put some effort into showing up to this ride primed and ready to go and i think it worked because i felt good. Thank god i took that approach because a few guys decided to punch it from the very beginning and it was seemingly ludicrous speed for the entire time i managed to stay connected, which wasn't long. i got dropped earlier than normal but given how fast it was i think i did pretty good.

BK was there and about 10 minutes into the sprint fest he rolled by and said "What the f*ck is going on!". 

My sentiments exactly. i could see that a couple guys were constantly rolling to the front and ramping it up. Whenever the pace slowed they took over and started pushing hard again.. 

Honestly, it was a blast. Going fast (for a bit) while also being composed enough (for a bit) to see what the bunch was doing instead of just focusing on the wheel in front of me was exhilarating. Then the effort caught up to me and i found myself just focusing on the wheel in front of me.

Did i mention that i got dropped twice?

That's why there are two middle finger photos below. Each one was taken shortly after getting dropped. Although i think the ride time and average speed showing on the Garmin includes the 15 minute pedal from my house to the start, meaning the first time i got dropped was after about 13 minutes, ouch!  But i really do think that i found something to feel good about in those 13 minutes.

After getting dropped the second time i kept pushing. i was riding using the force (no heart rate monitor and my only power meter is the indoor trainer) and i think i did a good job of riding within myself. Plus i didn't have a negative attitude after getting dropped.  i chased for maybe 10 minutes and then saw BK headed back home so i turned around and we rode back together at a decent speed.

It was a great ride.

Did i mention that earlier in the day i dropped my Mountain Bike off at One Star Bicycles for a pre Little Sugar tune up? 18 days until that race.

Did i mention that last nights weather was absolutely perfect? Around 68 degrees when we finished.

Did i mention that the sun is setting much earlier but we finished the ride with the last bits of light in the sky? Sunset was around 7:13 but then you get that 30-45 minutes of lovely fading light.

Every once in a while everything clicks into place and with a superior attitude you can realize that despite getting dropped from the group ride after 13 minutes it was still an amazing night.

36 Miles

Today is Sunday September 21 2025 and this morning i did 36 miles of pavement on my single speed bicycle.

It was bad a**.

I'm trying to cram in two big weeks of riding prior to Little Sugar. Two big weeks for me would total about 20 hours or riding and with yesterdays big day (50 miles) and todays solid day (36 miles on the single speed) i'm well on my way. 

Again, i should be riding single track to prepare for the mountain bike race but hey, riding a single speed around a hilly area seems like adequate practice. 

Besides... i make the rules around here.

Also i stopped for a coffee at the same spot as yesterday, which was lovely.

Also for the first time in a long while i did the Lord of the Rings steps from Southwest Boulevard up to mid town. i counted something like 161 steps, and not many spiderwebs. 

Bicycles!

50 Miles

Today is Saturday September 20 2025 and this morning i rode my Mountain Bike 50 miles on pavement.

It was pretty great.

I should be riding single track to prepare for the upcoming Little Sugar Mountain bike race but as i mentioned previously i'm having trouble wrapping my head around early morning rides on trails filled with spider webs. So tbd if i ever get that figured out.

But at least today i did managed to do a lot of climbing. 2,975 feet. The 50k Little Sugar race apparently has 2,830 feet of climbing so i did just a bit more that that, and felt okay doing it so that's encouraging. 

i started todays ride with a long casual warm up to Downtown and then made my way west to the Argentine Neighborhood, which has lots of steep hills. I almost had to walk the climb up Valley Street. That one is brutal. 

Have i mentioned that i'm signed up for the 100k race at Little Sugar but i intend to downgrade to the 50k. i've done this before and it wasn't an issue so fingers crossed for the same deal this year.