Trace Ridge, on an early Wednesday afternoon, in 56 minutes.

I got out for a great little ride this afternoon. After a few hours at work this a.m. I decided it was time to play hooky and hit Trace Ridge. I started at the first gate on 5000 at 1:15 and was headed to Spencer. It's been an unusually hot last couple of days and the temps were hovering right around 90 when I decided to walk through the steep field. I got into a good rhythm after that though and was pleased with my time to Trace.
One thing that kept the pace high today was my mind was hardly on the ride. As I left the Jeep one of the powered windows decided to stop working while it was still down. What's a guy to do? Pull the plug because of a little material goods insecurity? No way. Well I was second guessing myself the whole time and blazed over the top and down the ridge. I kept seeing beautiful flowers along the way and had to convince myself to stop. I had to say to say to myself more than once, 'stop. enjoy the scenery.' before I actually did.
Anyway, I otherwise didn't stop and kept a speedy but not over the top pace down the hill. Oh, I realized when I got out the camera that I didn't have a tube with me.... so, as I was saying, not over the top speeds all the way to the parking lot. I said thanks for getting me to the bottom without crashes or flats and was immediately on the way up 5000 to the jeep.
When I arrived everything was just as I had left it, of course, but the little fire under the ass got me through the loop in 56 minutes. Not bad for me.