Hawes: The Whole Enchilada
Hawes All
20 miles all on Hawes. A great way to spend the mid morning. 64 degrees at 9:30 am on May 24. Three hours to cover 20 miles and it was only 74 when I finished. Unbelievably cool weather for this time of year.
Riding these miles was good for me. It reminded me how much fun it is to Mountain Bike. Lately I’ve been so obsessed with exploring, climbing, and pushing myself past my limits… today was all about the ride. No camera, no helmet cam, just me and the bike (GPS is still standard equipment).
I saw a singlespeed 29er guy out there and was a little jealous of his ride. I stopped on a down to let him climb past me and couldn’t help thinking how simplistic his riding looked. Two big wheels and one gear. That’s really all you need out there.
I really like that EveryTrail mapping application you use. GPS is amazing!
My friend lives in that area, south of Dobbins, where you were riding, except her house is a bit further west, closer to South 7th St. Her backyard faces south, it’s really nice sitting out there in the evening, or was until a few days ago and it got Phoenix-June hot. You were really fortunate to get such good weather for late May!
There’s a lot to be said for a simple bike. Mine was a 3-speed red Ladies Schwinn, had it for 10 years, it went everywhere with me. Such a sturdy reliable bike: I’d take it to the bike shop, get it packed and shipped to wherever I needed to go: from Arizona to school in California, home to New Mexico, then Pennsylvania, then back again to NM and finally AZ. I didn’t have GPS, still don’t, I used U.S. Geological Survey maps and string to measure my mileage for biking or distance running.
The graph feature for your ride is great. Nice how it offers speed and elevation on two lines and different axes. The speed data plot also has elevation for each observation point, but I’m uncertain if it’s correct, cause the numbers don’t match up with the elevation tick marks on the y-axis. No problems with the elevation data! The data points plotted along the blue line perfectly correspond with the elevation axis numbers.
Here’s an example: Compare the values at 1:41:22 hours into your ride, Elevation in blue says you were at 2293 feet, which looks correct. Yet velocity in yellow line has all the same values, time elaspsed, distance traveled (10.5 mi), same lat long AND the same altitude of 2293 feet. So what’s the problem? Well, it corresponds to about 1800 ft elevation on the axis! Or should I just ignore that, because the blue axis is for the elevation data only? If so, the map developers should leave elevation off the display values for points in the yellow series speed plot! Or I might be confused. Am I missing something obvious here?
It must seem strange that I’m so into these details, but it isn’t really cause I’m a statistician, and I’m trying to learn more about location-based services and GIS data in general, since I’m trying to get a new job. (You can just moderate/ delete my entire comment if it is too detailed, I understand, okay?)
Oh no, I spent well over an hour on your site today, just noticed, gotta go. Thank you!
I seriously considered adding on the Twisted Sister/Wild Horse stretches too. Next time… maybe I’ll throw in a little PM loop as well. It’s fun making epics out of the regular rides.
nice. I did that a few months ago, but added in the out-n-back to the Pit, and TRW. Gives you almost 35. took 4 hrs, 5k climbing. more than you think is possible on Hawes.