To get Heather ready for Mt Hood, and me for Elkhorn Classic, we rode early today to get in some serious climbing miles. We did a slight modification of our new favorite climbing ride: Riding up and over Seaman’s Gulch to Hidden Springs, then Cartwright to Bogus Basin Road, up to the Pioneer Condominiums, and turn around and return the same way. But today when we rode it, we rode the Bogus to Pioneer climb…twice!

Since we knew it would be an epic day, we took it easy on the Cartwright climbs and just rode low tempo up Bogus the first time. Even so, it was still hard and when we got to the top I double-checked with Heather if she still wanted to do another one, and she confirmed she did. The second time up we pushed the pace and ended up splitting up a little way up the hill. There were quite a few riders out and we saw a few of the competitors in the Camels Back Duathlon.

I pushed the Pioneer section of the climb as best I could and then refilled my bottles…again. Heather wasn’t too far behind and after she refilled, we headed down for the last time. It was nice and cool at the top and we really didn’t want to descend down into the heat in the valley below. The hill on Cartwright by the motorcycle park was even more painful than when we do Bogus only once, but somehow we managed to get over it in our 25s. Seaman’s wasn’t as bad, but we had a headwind the rest of the ride back to Eagle.

In the end, it was 104 miles with approximately 13,000 feet of climbing. I say approximately because Bikely, MapMyRide, and my Garmin all report different elevation gains. Don’t know which one is “right” but all I know is that it’s a lot of climbing and we were both cooked by the time we got home!