![\"MacGyver](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/ce036e4f9205acb8714981f0ab59a9f3.jpg?resize=650%2C433\")
<\/p>\nI woke up really tired this morning and was not really feeling a desire to ride.\u00a0\u00a0 I knew I needed to ride, but I just did not feel too interested to get going.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Over the last four days I had not been sleeping well and I spent most of yesterday at the hockey rink as it was opening and both of my boys played games.\u00a0\u00a0 So after setting on the couch\u00a0for a while\u00a0flip-flopping on wither to go back to bed or not, I decided to go for a ride “anyway”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0The San Juan trail was the trail of choice today and it was to be a solo effort.\u00a0 As luck would have I ran it Mike and Larry who I had not ridden with in a couple of years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I would tag along with them for the whole day.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was quite comfortable\u00a0 at the lower trail which I knew from experience meant it was going to get hot today.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I had my logged legged bike so I was going to be mostly a spinning effort up the trail.<\/p>\n
On the climb up, Mike’s rear shifter went on the fritz keeping the bike in the 11 tooth cog in the back.\u00a0\u00a0 This is not exactly a gear you want to try pushing up San Juan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mike had a bit of thin rope in his pack so after a bit of MacGyver action when had in a gear the would be manageable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I have always been slow to adapt to the heat so the 80+ temps and my fatigue were catching up with me near the top, so after reaching Cocktail Rock, I decided to just head back down from there.\u00a0 Mike and Larry decided to\u00a0come down from there as well.\u00a0\u00a0 The extra effort required to\u00a0get the bigger bike up the hill paid\u00a0off\u00a0 with a very cushy and zippy descent back down.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Heading](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/ce7c0886ff6bc7720abfe84dcfe56ca6.jpg?resize=433%2C650\")
\nAwesomely Beautiful Day<\/p>\n
I ended up running to folks I had met a few weeks earlier out on a ride, and then further down the trail I ran into one of my frequent riding buds\u00a0on his way up the trail.\u00a0\u00a0 After a few minutes of chit-chat he was back to climbing and I was back to having a ripping good time down the hill.<\/p>\n
![\"Larry](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/6515c6ab8b76565cb7f1841fdcda1ee7.jpg?resize=650%2C433\")
\nLarry on descent<\/p>\n
![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/f72003ed8839251dc5690dbe9fb0f11b.jpg?resize=650%2C433\")
\nMike on the way down.<\/p>\n
Once down at the bottom, Mike whipped out a cooler with some Deschutes Brewing Company’s Mirror Pond Ale.\u00a0 Yummy!!\u00a0\u00a0 So this solo ride that almost did not happen turned out to be a really good social event<\/p>\n
\u00a0-Bill<\/p>\n