That road is gravel more's the pity

When you drive north on 22 towards Black Diamond, away in the distance you can see a small chunk of road exactly in line with 22. Even from way out you can tell it doesn't directly connect. There's a river in the way, and there aren't many bridges between 22 and Okotoks, though there are a couple of fords. No ferries though.

I've always wanted to ride on that road and see if the hill is as big as it looks, and I finally figured out how to get on it. Here's the route I was planning to ride this morning.

Unfortunately, that road is gravel. I'm not going to ride Estela on gravel roads, especially not when hills are involved.

I found this out after heading down Road to Nepal on a brilliant warm sunny morning. I got to the bottom in about 1:05 without really working it. I briefly thought of turning around and heading back to see if I could break 2 hours, but I had made other plans.

No surprise, 549 is as rough as ever. After I found out the road I wanted was gravel I headed along, trying not to get run over by the shoppers eager to get to the Millarville Farmer's Market. Some of those people are in a hurry. Here's the revised route. Plus 15 K to get from 22X to our house.

I checked out the north end of the mysterious road, just in case. Not. But what a view! I'll have to drive it to see just how steep the hill(s) is/are, and if it would be worth pressuring the local MD to pave it.

I was also tempted to ride down past the Leighton Centre, to build the distance and add more hills, but I got all distracted by this view. I can see why people pay big bucks for land out there.

In any case, the point of the ride was to get a good hilly workout, but not to totally trash my legs. I wanted to run after, with the goal to be tired at the start. I wanted to make my legs struggle a bit at first to settle in, run for a while, and call it before they gave up. This is a first brick in quite a while, after all, and I've regularly given people crap for overdoing their first workouts when they get back at it.

It worked out great. I had a super ride, saw a ton of people on their bikes, and some of them even waved and said hi. The run was a bit wonky to start. That lasted about 15 minutes then I settled in for an easy run, with one short walk break when I was suddenly feeling really really hot. I'm not sure why.

Once home I stretched, showered, read the papers, played with the cats, and snacked on some dates. Do you like dates? I think these are the best I've ever tasted. Look at the size of them!

Plus for a little while I was snoozing to the sounds of stereo purrs. Then it turned into a bit of a lick-fest that woke me up.

I am trying to choose between the next season to True Blood to find out what happens to Sookie in fairyland, or bottling more wine. I somehow think Sookie is going to win.