Grant Trail and Farm

Saturday we did a family ride on the Grants Trail from the newly opened Kirkwood parking area at Big Bend and I-farty far. We got there early-ish. Sara had her shify mountain bike with 26" cross tires and I had the cross bike with the trailer. Getting started we took it easy because Grants Trail has a ton of traffic. Walkers, kids on bikes, beach cruisers, roller bladers, and runners. The pretty cool thing is that at all the major roads they have stop signals that serve no purpose other than to stop cars and allow Grants Trail users to cross the road. As we got closer to the south end of the trail near Grants Lodge there were less people and Sara picked up the pace. She had the biggest gear she could get cranking full on. I was drafting her with the trailer. At one point we had a girl on a road bike drafting the trailer for several miles. When we turned around she kicked back up to full tilt. I was hold her wheel for everything I had. It was a interval that far exceeded anything I have had at Tuesday Worlds race this year. I was pretty impressive really. Yeah I'm pulling a trailer, but she is dropping the hammer while keeping her heart rate below 150 bpm. She kept it up until we went back by Grants Park where there were more people again. I was relieved the trail got crowded because I wouldn't of been able to sustain a full 8 miles of that pace.

So we made an out and back run on Grants Trail. Went back to the car, put on some street shoes and road 2 miles back to Grants Farm which was now open. I enjoyed the ride and it saved me $11 for parking at Grants Farm. We boarded the tram to the farm where we did the usual feed the goats, checked out the turtles and birds. Of course we sat down for a few cold beers. How sweet is that? Go ride with some intervals throw in followed by cold free beer. I'm hooked and plan to go back a few more times this summer before the Inbev folks close the place down in an attempt to squeeze all possible pennies (or euros) out of AB because they WAAAY overpaid for it.