Bogus Basin

I have met this road under different circumstances in the past (in a car, usually with skis). Yesterday, I met it on my bike. Bogus Basin Road is 16 miles of 5% grade- climbing all the way to the top with very few breaks. I realized, about 2 miles in to our ride, I didn’t have my sunglasses on. I wasn’t warmed up yet, so I was breathing heavily and couldn’t imaging repeating the hill that we had just climbed up so I decided to not go back to get them. I’m not sorry that I didn’t go back, though I would have been more comfortable with them on, and hopefully, won’t forget them again.

Joe came with us on this ride, using his one speed bike. It wasn’t by choice, but he wanted to come with us and his spoke hadn’t been fixed from when we all rode to Arrow Rock Dam. So, the one speed it was. He would stop and wait for us as we would catch up to him, we would all get a little break and then off we would go, Joe taking the lead.

It truly was a beautiful ride. We went from brown, dry hillsides to the lush green ski hill. Just before we got to the tree line, I could smell the pine trees. When we got into the trees, it was so nice and cool. I don’t think we hit 75° until we got back to the bottom.

It took about 2.75 hours to get to the top. My speed was between 4 and 5.5 mph all the way up. At the top, we took a break, admired the view of the chair lift, re-filled water bottles and headed back down the hill. Getting to the bottom took about an hour. Yes, sore muscles in my bum today. Sit bones-just fine.

34.37 miles, 3 hours 45 minutes. 9.1 mph Average Speed. 34.3 mph Max Speed Total Miles on my bike: 461.