Bike #1

• 1h 05m 45s
• 5.60 miles
• 5.11 Mi/hr

Did the Thumb Butte lookout climb again, same as the other day. Temperature was a bit more agreeable, felt like 10-12 degrees cooler which helped a lot. I felt a lot better than I did on Wednesday and was sure that I was going faster, perhaps by 3 minutes or so? Was kind of surprised at the summit when I found that I had knocked 9 minutes off the other days ascent! It was quite a bit windier at the top too, and with the southeast direction, there was more smoke haze in the air from the forest fire.

Bike #2

• 17m 01s
• 5.60 miles
• 19.73 Mi/hr

Descent from the lookout. I was going to take it easy instead of bombing it like I did the other day, but still ended up going down pretty fast. Got held up behind a car for about a minute and then finally got around him and left him in the dust.

Bike #1

• 1h 14m 37s
• 5.60 miles
• 4.50 Mi/hr

Monster uphill climb to the lookout above Thumb Butte. This is a butt-kicker of an ascent, 95% of it in the blazing sun on a rough dirt road. Left the parking lot, 5720 feet in elevation here and slowly worked my way to the summit with 1 brief rest stop. The lookout tops out at 6950 feet above sea level for an elevation gain of 1,230 feet in 5.6 miles. Was a great view from the top, as the wind was blowing from the east which pushed the smoke from the Gladiator Forest Fire westward.

Bike #2

• 16m 52s
• 5.60 miles
• 19.92 Mi/hr

I logged this ride as two separate workouts in order to keep the speed calculations. Over an hour and fourteen minutes to ascend and made it down in under 17 minutes, averaging nearly 20 mph around the hairpin turns over the rough dirt roads. Hit a top speed at one point of around 30 mph which is pretty spooky when the bike is bouncing off the rocks and potholes.