Bonjour le pamplemousse de racinette avec poubelle rempli d'education physique

I rode with team QC today. Great times. They speak French much better than I do.

For yesterdays ride I decided to venture north into the wilderness that is over by two first names for a last name's place, do a loop there and then come back into civilization and finish out the rest of my ride there. Perfect weather and a delicious mid-ride snack (fresh baguette with choco spread and banana-totally into those right now) made the 4 hours pass by almost too fast. I came home and treated myself to some yogurt and granola before going for a walk/run to a Safeway about 4 or 5 miles away from my place to pick up a few necessities ie. cottage cheese, soy milk, avocados. Picked up a coffee and briskly walked back home while the sun was setting. It was totally beautiful until it was actually pitch black because there aren't any streetlights here whatsoever, and did I mention there aren't any sidewalks either?

Got up and did some leg lifts this morning before having a delicious oatmeal/blueberry/peanut butter mix and sorting out some important interweb business.

Today the ride I had planned was 2-4 hours with a little bit of once a week intensity thrown in. That being said, it was team QC's last day here before they take off back up north and they were doing Lemmon with some other Ontario folk so I decided to join in. Only went up to mile 21 or so before everyone decided to turn around but at about mile 16 things started to split up so i had a chance to sneak off the front for a bit and get my heart rate up nice and high a few times.













Over the past few rides I've discovered a few interesting things. The first being that Arizona is the only "free-range state" and that no cattle are bound by fences. This means that if you don't pay attention to the road and smoke a cow, YOU owe the farmer (and probably an insane amount to replace your messed up car).


















Arizona is also privy to soil that doesn't absorb water very well (naturally), and eeevery once and a while they get pretty insane flash floods. To prepare themselves for this, urban planners developed these things called washes that funnel the water. What I'm trying to get at here is that for 99% of the year, the city is FILLED with pseudo-BMX and freeride bike parks. Just wild.











Miniature horses.....why?




Anyhow, had some good coffee with a few good people when we arrived at the bottom of the hill, saw a few more good people on their way up, then decided to head home to satisfy the stomach. Tasty burrito followed by a shower is a great way to finish a day of climbing. 5 hours tomorrow.