Home again

Got home from the long w/e in Leadville to find that they'd been hit by powerful storms here over the last few days too. winds up to 70mph, hail the size of quarters and 2 inches of rain in half and hour. Destroyed the veg garden. Broke limbs on nextdoors tree and up rooted another in the street.
Toms have lost all their leaves and flowers. Not too likely to get much of a crop there.
Rather sad salad
And a flattened broccoli or two! The hops on the new deck also got stripped. On a better note the house suffered no damage, although there was a lot of water in the garage. It will all dry out.

Riding in Leadville

I rode the Firecracker 50 to mark the 4th of July weekend on Monday. Shocked to find out that it was actually misnamed this year as should now be the Firecracker 56! Those extra 6 miles took the toil on me. Had an okay race and finished in about 5hrs 53 mins. Sounds a long time on a bike, my butt will confirm this!

Got back into town and headed up to the high country for a few days of riding and storm dodging. Leadville sits at 10,200ft and offers some good hard mountain bike riding. Is also home to the Leadville 100 trail race. Camped out near Turquoise Lake for 3 nights. Luckily the rain shelter provided some much needed cover as most nights/afternoons a storm would roll into the camp and soak everything.
Approaching storm across the lake
Most of the riding took place on jeep roads. Here Goose is just above the tree line on the Columbine climb - 3000ft in about 7 miles. Heads up to the turnaround point in the Leadville race, and tops out at over 12,000ft. One of those climbs up spend forever going up. Only to spend 15 minutes going down.
Views from there are stunning. Turquoise lake is the one in the far distance.
Next day we rode more of the race course. Here Goose powers up Power Line climb! One of 4 big climbs we did in the day.
We had a good break. Got in nearly 90miles of riding and managed to relax quite a bit too. Back to town as Goose has to work. The midpoint of my vacation has been and gone. Yikes.

Steve's visit

Buddy from Mexico, Steve, popped up for a few days last week before heading back to blighty for his summer vacation. We did a bit of a road trip, with some fishing for good measures. Didn't take any bikes- just camped, fished and chilled. Headed down to Salida, through to Gunnison and Crested Butte before returning to the front range via Cottonwood Pass and Leadville. Caught more fish than expected on this adventure!

Steve trying his hand at fly fishing in O'Haver lake. We fished mainly in the lakes as the run off in the rivers is still extremely high due to the huge snowpack we're experiencing this year in Colorado.
Not likely to win any prizes for this picture, or this fish, but Steve with the first of many.

Camped along the Taylor on the second night, next to the river - too fast for much, although next morning Steve landed a beast. Hooked himself on a hopper! Ended up doing a minor operation to remove the hook after I'd cleared my stomach of it's contents. Steve had to push the hook through more so we could remove the barb in order to pull it out. Anyone who knows me will know I don't do those things too well. Pictures are too much for those who suffer a similar disposition to myself!
Caught in a hail/ thunder storm atop Cottonwood Pass. Then drove on to Leadville and made the mistake of eating in a place that claimed to have 'good food' on the sign outside. Never believe these signs! Fair to say that we will never eat there again. 45 minutes to produce a burger and cold fries. Headed back home from there. As we'd had no biking we drove up to West Mag the next day for a quick spin before Steve headed out to Blighty. Fair to say that we had a great little adventure and always good to hang with my buddy Steve.
He heads home then off to Africa for a 14 day safari with Kim and their nephews. Enjoy Mucka!

Lynx

UPDATE: phone made it

After a quick trip to the ER (A&E) the phone survived. Spent the day recovering in the blanket warmer. Dry and running well! Thanks for all the messages of hope.

Lynx