Archive for the ‘bicycling’ Category
Interesting Day
I recognized his face right away, but it took a second to figure out from where. When he turned to me and instantly recognized me, we both quickly knew it was PHI.
It was John Newman from the Lab at Physical Electronics. Finding him in the kitchen of a Catholic Church in Ely, Minnesota where the Knights of Columbus were serving us breakfast was a wonderful surprise.
We shared the classic life comparison that follows “What are you doing here!?”
We biked mostly roads to Babbit and back before packing our gear to drive down to Chisholm.
After dinner, some stretching was needed before the walk back to our tents.
My bike was back with the mechanics again to continue their efforts at silencing the ratchety creaking.
Efforts were suspended after a screw sheared that will require more work than they are able to provide from their mobile repair trailer.
I’m going to try gently riding it as is today and see how it does. I will have the phone number for the sag driver handy, if things don’t go well.
It was an interesting day.
Happy Juneteenth today!
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Constant Shifting
We rode from Ely to Tower after barely surviving the epic downpour on Monday night.
I took a picture of the high water mark where floating debris remained after the flood receded.
Just a little further and our tents would have been inundated.
Riding was superb on this leg of the Mesabi trail.
In the photo, I am secretly trying to hold Steve’s pack so he can pull me while I coast.
The up and down gyrations of this trail forced the most shifting of gears that I’ve done in a long, long time.
Eventually, the sky cleared up so we could dry things out after we returned to our tents in Ely.
It looked like the tent had regurgitated its contents.
In honor of Rich’s sharing his photos with me to use here, I will close with a shot he took that features him prominently.
Thanks, again, Rich!
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Telling Trend
I seem to be all too willing to skip a day of riding lately when rain looms close on the radar.
Some folks squeezed in their miles before rain reached Grand Rapids, others got a little wet.
I joined a group that opted to pack up dry tents and set out for Ely early to put them up in the park here before even bigger storms arrived.
There was a possibility of riding around Ely, but we chose to eat lunch and wander the shops instead.
Back at our tents, we debated the amount of rain headed our way .
It was a LARGE amount.
A single dripping leak in a rainfly can lead to a big mess in the tent.
Looks to be much dryer today, so the likelihood of riding is high.
I suspect the trend of becoming more willing to forego biking on “iffy” days reveals my priorities are on spending time with these special friends more than accomplishing big miles on the bike.
Unfortunately, I still ate yesterday like I was burning a lot more calories than I actually did.
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Grand Start
The day is starting promising with visible sunshine.
I’m ready to ride!
Almost Packed
Today, I depart for the annual Tour of Minnesota biking and camping week. I think this will be my 26th time in the 31 years since I first tried my legs at long-distance cycling. I guess you could say I found out I liked it.
I almost finished packing last night.
The bag currently weighs in at 45 lbs. That’s not a concern this year because the tour has changed from them hauling our gear from campsite to campsite, to riders needing to drive their own cars to each destination after biking a loop that day. Unless this new routine really ‘wows’ me, I believe this will be my last year riding the TOM.
What brought me back this year? The people who have become treasures whom I get to share the week with, submersed in the great outdoors and pedaling together for long hours over many miles.
One of the things I find challenging about packing for trips is the number of things I am still using, and thus don’t get packed until the last minute. After that, my challenge becomes trying to recall where I put things that did get packed.
Usually, I end up figuring out a system by the 3rd or 4th day, but by the end of the week, I’ve started tossing things anywhere and everywhere, and my duffel bag becomes a big mess. The amount of chaos in my bag is often related to how rainy the week has been.
This year, the forecast looks like a good chance of rain up north. We are starting in Grand Rapids, then heading up to Ely for two nights before coming back to Chisholm. I predict my bag will end up messy.
I’ve not prepared any posts in advance this year. Hopefully, I will be able to connect to the internet through my phone and, at the very least, provide an image or two each day.
Northern Minnesota Iron Range, here we come!
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Goodbye Trails
We said goodbye to the Rails-to-Trails in the driftless region around Sparta yesterday and made our way home. I am very happy to be writing on my laptop again instead of my phone. The horses look to be in great spirits. Cyndie sent me a picture of Mia getting some nice attention from Light as they practiced a little mutual grooming.
It probably goes without saying that the grass needs to be mowed. That meant I couldn’t dawdle upon arrival yesterday just before dinnertime and had to set in almost immediately with processing the post-trip routine of cleaning and drying the tent, the rainfly, the ground sheet, my sleeping pad, airing the sleeping bag out, and sorting out clothes that need to be washed. I’ll get to the clothes later, but everything else is cleaned and dried in preparation for packing it up again in two weeks for the Tour of Minnesota biking and camping week.
With that taken care of, I hope to snatch a few precious hours this morning to mow before we set off for Savage, MN, to attend a graduation party for my grandnephew, Drew. I’ll cut what I can. We also learned that the person who was going to feed horses and Asher while we were away is no longer able to come. Sorry, Hays clan, our visit will be brief so we can get back for afternoon chores. Maybe I will be able to do a little more mowing as a result.
We have guests coming to brunch on Sunday, and Cyndie would like the place to look respectable when they arrive.
I’m still in the afterglow of the fabulous four days with Rich. Did I mention we were the only car and campers at the walk-in campground in Sparta?
We were also the only ones in the campground in Elroy (the one with the impossibly steep hill) on our first night there. Thursday night, one other campsite got claimed. After the first night sleeping in Elroy, we figured out ways to avoid making any extra trips up that incline. We left a lot of stuff in the car parked across the road so we could shower at the trailhead after riding and before heading out for dinner without climbing back up to our tents.
Yesterday morning, we were able to bring everything down in one trip, dropping it at the gate to be loaded after Rich brought the car over from the lot.
We added 44 miles to our 4-day total, riding the “400” State Trail from Elroy to Reedsburg and back before showering at the trailhead in Elroy and heading home. Brunch in Reedsburg was at Greenwood’s Cafe, a gem of a place for breakfast with a small-town feel.
The exclusive dose of gravel railroad bed trails took a toll on our minds and bodies, so if I were to do it again, I might look to add a change of pace with some miles on a few country roads. The trails plum wore us out each day. On the bright side, though, the effort should serve us well in preparation for the Tour coming up in just two weeks.
That reminds me, I didn’t give my bike a bath yet to wash off all the accummulated grime. I wonder when I’ll find the time to get to that.
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Valuable Miles
Saturday afternoon was darn near perfect for our World Labyrinth Day walk for peace. We had 8 people join us, which isn’t the smallest number of folks we’ve hosted for this annual event. They were all precious individuals, but the one person who was a particularly pleasant surprise was a neighbor we’d never met who dropped in after seeing an invite I posted on the Nextdoor app.
If anybody is wondering, my annual measurement of the trunk of the transplanted maple tree in the center of the labyrinth revealed a 3/16ths of an inch increase in circumference since my initial reading a year ago.
Yesterday, I took the day off from chores and went for a bike ride with Rich Gordon, one of my special friends from the annual bike ride in June. He was kind enough to drive all the way to Beldenville to join me in a loop of country roads over hills and through valleys of the driftless region around our home.
We are always looking for opportunities to season our butts against our bike saddles in preparation for days of long mileage in June on The Tour of Minnesota.
The Rush River valley offers some beautiful scenery after ten miles of farm fields.
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I was pointing out the top of the ridge visible through the trees that will soon be obscured by leaves. Climbing out of that valley was probably the most daunting of the many climbs we pedaled up, as may be discernible in the graphic above showing the elevations we traversed. We weren’t even halfway into the loop, so that effort made the rest of the route seem a little more taxing on our now-tired legs. When we reached the top, we paused for a snack break in the shade and quickly made friends with one of the residents who lived at that address.
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The second biggest climb came when we departed from El Paso. Rich made it look easy.
Compared to the biggest beast of a hill, it was a little bit easier. There was also the psychological boost of knowing we were that much closer to our finish line, and none of the remaining hills would be as long.
I’m encouraged by the fact that I was able to accomplish all the climbing without needing to rely on an assist from the battery I was lugging along in the frame of my Trek Domane e-bike. Having a friend along on the ride was a morale boost that prevented my usual lack of determination to push myself quite as hard.
My body will likely offer up some complaints today in the form of muscle stiffness, but I’ve got plenty of my usual physical activities on tap, tending to things around the ranch to keep me moving.
I’ll probably wait another day or two before my next conditioning ride of any substantial miles. Maybe I’ll opt for a nice flat trail ride to complement yesterday’s hilly terrain.
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Record Win!
It may be Independence Day in the US today but my attention is on the greatest bike race in the world, the Tour de France. Yesterday, there was a historic sprint finish on Stage 5.
Mark Cavendish beat some amazing sprinters to the line for his record-breaking 35th Stage victory in the Tour de France. At 39 years of age and after overcoming illness, injuries, and depression, Mark came back and achieved what most thought was never going to happen. I had long hoped for him to reach this milestone but I figured it would never come to be. It is so cool that he has proved me wrong.
What a spectacular accomplishment. Bravo and congratulations Mark! I will forever remember how thrilling it was to witness this fabulous sprint win.
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Nice Now
Now that our bike trip is over, the weather has taken a turn for the better. While many rivers in the area continue to overflow, the sun has come out at home and my gear has started to dry out. Last week’s rainy bike trip was not a bust due to the weather but it was significantly affected by it. We usually find ways to cope with crappy conditions.
This wasn’t the first time we’ve dealt with putting up or taking down our tents while it was raining. Most locations offer shelters that allow bikers to mingle out of the rain at the end of a day of biking. Often, frivolity ensues.
One of the original three goals set forth by Jim Klobuchar –the founder of the ride– is to bring economic development to the local businesses. We don’t just ensconce ourselves at the schools where we camp.
I am particularly fond of finding and spending money at ice cream shops. Pizza restaurants also tend to get a lot of attention from my circle of fanatics.
One of the more entertaining things to happen while we were riding occurred on the day Rich and I were sweepers, which happened to be a day of wind instead of rain. The wind was very strong and mostly steady out of the south. Luckily, we were headed north for much of the route and west occasionally. The wind was either at our backs or across our shoulders… until the very end.
Rich recorded some video of me coasting past him at more than 23 miles per hour on one of the sections with the tailwind. Meanwhile, he kept reminding me we would eventually be turning right into the gales.
On a stretch of trail several miles before turning into the wind, Rich called out that his crank arm had come loose and detached from the bottom bracket. The pedal remained clipped to his shoe.
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We called the sag support driver to collect Rich and his bike and I set off to sweep the final distance of the route on my own. Somewhere around this point of the story, our versions of what happened diverge. Rich denies it, but I contend that he purposefully yanked that crank loose so he wouldn’t have to deal with that ferocious headwind at the end.
Our subsequent tellings of the drama that played out became increasingly more outlandish with every telling and frequently had me laughing so hard it was difficult to get my words out.
All I know is, my version meets the criteria for seeming most likely.
Finishing those last miles alone made me very pleased that I had decided to install the battery on my e-bike. Without any other rider support against that wind, I didn’t hesitate to take advantage of the available power assist.
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Tour Complete
I’m home again and living under a solid roof for which I have a whole new level of appreciation. All the joys of tenting in nature are a great treasure, for sure, but after day upon day of wet conditions, it tends to lose a little of its luster.
As soon as I stopped my car in our driveway, I started dragging gear out to dry.
For those of you who may have been following along and watching the weather at each of our destinations, it should come as no surprise that precipitation dominated our activities to varying degrees for 6 of the 7 days. The visible difference in flooding of the Cannon River from the first day to our last was shocking. As we crossed the river on a concrete bridge near our last rest stop of the trip, we paused to watch large trees racing downstream.
One particular beast showed up with the root ball sticking out of the water on the left and very large limbs rising out of the water on the right as it rapidly flowed broadside toward us on the bridge. I regret that I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture because it was an incredible sight. The thought crossed my mind that we probably shouldn’t have been standing there as it slammed into the legs supporting the bridge with an impact we could feel. In an instant, the current forced the root ball end downstream and spun the full-sized tree in line with the flow and the tree scratched its way under and continued in the flow.
We hung around at that rest stop extra long while the mechanics rescued me from leaking tires.
That’s my bike on the stand being expertly repaired. (Steve: I thought my bike was “tubeless-ready,” but Joseph discovered it was plain old tubeless, much to my surprise. They had two new tires available and fixed me up since the old ones had too many tiny holes [and one mosquito-bite-looking bump.])
As they were finishing, Luther noticed the highway officials were closing the road at the bridge behind us. What a year for us to be riding around rivers that were overflowing so dramatically.
Despite the wetness, this year’s trip still offered up the most precious reward of all: meeting new people and horsing around with old friends. There was an uncharacteristic number of people dropping out early, partly due to the constant threat of storms, but for other reasons too. One pulled out because of a death in the family. Some suffered the consequences of their two bike wheels not remaining in contact with the ground at all times.
I’m pleased this year to be one of those who made it all the way to the end. I’m hoping to have inspired a few new readers, including the twins, Maggie and Kathleen, Tom from Atlanta and Kim in Winnipeg. A special shout-out goes to a pair of kindred spirits who I immediately fell in love with. I met them one at a time and in different memorable ways: CJ and Amy, I hope we might discover a way for you to come experience Wintervale in person someday.
I’ve explained to Cyndie that I have invited practically the entire tour over to see our place. The next best thing will probably be for them to read about it here.
No sooner than I had finished spreading all my stuff out in the partial sunlight, more rain started to fall again. I hustled to get it all into the garage.
It really doesn’t need to be said, but… the grass needs some serious mowing. Unfortunately, I may need to wait another day before starting on that project.
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Relative Something 