Delayed Report: Swift Moab Madness

Yes, there was Swift road riding in Moab March 24-26 in nice warm weather. Tim, Andrei, Stephan, and Henrik had ventured out with intent to cover some of the classic Moab rides.

The opening day saw the Colorado River road out past Dewey bridge and back on the menu. Nice scenic road with twists and short hills. The team was doing steady pacelining with some solo efforts thrown in.



This is a somewhat rare sight in March; the prez in the big ring and grabbing those horns



Big Tim approaching the turning point



Henrik's data:
Entire ride (191w)
Duration: 3:39:37
Work: 2507 kJ
TSS: 204.8 (intensity factor 0.749)
Norm Power: 236
Distance: 72.121 mi

Only the fact that I was the one in possesion of the post-ride beer made Stephen reveal the location of our condo for the weekend, and only after some considerable hesitation.
The beer was warm though: In UTAH the state stores do not peddle cold beer, as there need to be a cooling down period between wanting a beer and having/drinking it. Otherwise things could get out of hand.

Day Two was the La Sal Mountain Loop, epic climbing with a fast descent. It was a windy day and before we even got to the climb we had to negotiate the local wild life



Andrei



Tim



Stephen



The backside of the climb down towards Castle Valley was very dry with just a little melt water running across the road in a few spots. Unusually dry for this time of year.



Henrik's data:
Entire ride (166w). Peak 30min @ 254w
Duration: 4:17:12
Work: 2555 kJ
TSS: 185.5 (intensity factor 0.659)
Norm Power: 208
Distance: 64.178 mi

Last Day we did and out and back on the very flat Potash Road for some speed training, and a cool down up beyond the Archers entrance. There was only three of us that day as Andrei had other obligations.



It was nice solid paceline work, doing fairly long pulls on a day where the wind jumping around in the narrow river valley had us work the shifters a lot.

Henrik's data:
Entire ride (163w). Peak 30 min @ 237w
Duration: 2:20:09
Work: 1365 kJ
TSS: 103.5 (intensity factor 0.667)
Norm Power: 210
Distance: 42.494 mi

In conclusion: Unfortunately the word of the trip cannot be revealed, but the important message is: Never give up; all pain is temporary...