Posts Tagged ‘bicycling’
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!
.
.
Trail Tunnels
Morning started out wet and drizzly again so we lingered in our tents for an extra hour or so.
Walked delicately down the steep, slippery hill to start riding to Sparta from Elroy.
Had to climb long gradual inclines to reach each of the 3 tunnels.
Finally got some sunshine!
Total elevation biked for the day: 1300 ft. Not bad for railroad grade trail.
Total mileage: 51.5.
Tunnels are an interesting experience. The longest one, completed in 1873, cut into an overhead natural spring that rains down still to this day.
We met a DNR staffer who agreed to check our state trail passes while being photographed.
Since we were camping in Elroy, we turned around after making it through the longest tunnel and didn’t ride all the way down into Sparta.
Rode into a brief rain shower on the way back but didn’t get too wet. By the time we reached Elroy again, we were dry.
Meal highlight of the day was lunch at a Mexican home cooking restaurant in Norwalk. They had tubs of ice cream to choose from to top it off.
The Elroy-Sparta trail and its tunnels were a primary goal of this multi-day excursion. Mission accomplished.
We hope to ride down and back on one more different trail today before driving home in the afternoon.
It’s been a fabulous few days of adventure with Rich. ++👍 Highly recommend!
.
.
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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
.
.
Thinking Things
I hope you don’t mind that I haven’t asked you, dear readers, for money, and I haven’t splashed advertisements all over this virtual space, either. It’s not what I do. I consider myself lucky that I can get away with that. Obviously, asking for money is a reasonable thing to do when you have no other source of funding.
These thoughts have been triggered by two things. First, the multitude of activist organizations that are bombarding my inbox with messages emphatically spelling out all the atrocities occurring in our country that need to be stopped.
“Send us $9 monthly.”
“Donate now.”
It’s hard to argue with the craftily written paragraphs that imply the money I give will stymie all the threats to our democratic freedoms unfolding over the last three months. Alas, they are undone by the repetition of requests and the absolute nothing that happens to stop the horrors piling up by the day.
The second thing that has been irking me is the massively intrusive advertisements that a certain weekly documentary series mashes into its podcast format with overdone hype. I am grateful that this person is traveling far and wide to gather stories and employing a crew of staff to record sound and video, which costs a lot of money, I’m certain, but there must be other ways to finance the project.
The current method they use is making it hard to listen to their otherwise very interesting story.
I had a very interesting –read that “chilly”– bike ride yesterday afternoon. When I finished mucking about with various small projects, I was warm, and the air temperature was almost 60°F. I figured the exercise of cycling would naturally heat me up, so I didn’t put on long sleeves.
From our wonderfully nestled property, I did not perceive much in the way of wind. I also didn’t notice that the brief clearing in the sky we had been enjoying was over, and thick clouds were blocking the warm sunshine.
I soon discovered it was closer to 50 than 60°F and felt more like 30 when creating my own wind chill effect during rapid spurts down hills.
The route I selected was a short square that ended up putting me into a stiff headwind for the last miles to our driveway at a time when my arms were already uncomfortably cold.
Checking the wind speed when I got home verified why the neighbor’s flag was stiffly blowing straight at me as I passed. My weather app indicated a steady 15mph directly out of the north. Yeah, brrr.
I’m thinking I should have worn long sleeves.
.
.
50th Tour of Minnesota
I haven’t left home yet but my vacation week begins today! As I’ve done many other times, during my week of cycling the Tour of Minnesota and tent camping in various towns around the state, I have prepared scheduled posts for the days I’m away showing the planned routes so you can follow along and know our approximate location when the inevitable severe weather warnings pop up.
I wish that was a joke, but anecdotal evidence indicates wicked storms are becoming more the norm than the exception during the middle of June in Minnesota. In years past, I have ridden out storms in my tent while many others chose to sleep en masse in school buildings. After a too-close lightning strike one night and a screaming alarm on my phone indicating an imminent tornado another night, I realized I could no longer trust my judgment. I intend to be quicker to join the throngs indoors this year if warnings are posted.
The changing climate likes to point out these are not my father’s thunderstorms. Message received.
This being the 50th anniversary of this middle-of-June biking and camping week and my 25th (+/- my first year was 1994, but I missed a few throughout), I am thrilled at the switch from the far reaches of the state –over the years we’ve slipped into every state around Minnesota plus Canada– to a route that will take us directly through the middle of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Somewhere between 250 and 300 people will gather this afternoon in Cannon Falls, MN to pick up our registration packets and set up tents to kick off the most fun like-minded cyclists could possibly have. I can’t wait to see Doobie, Joyce, Joey, Rich, Julie, Steve, Gary, John, Jim, Steve, Roger, Dick, Al, Suzanne, Laura, Rhonda, David, Tim, Cynthia, Scott, Luther, Joseph, Marilyn, Geoffrey, Ed, Deanna, Mary-Jo, Luke, Staci, Jennifer, Dan, Jim, Peggy, Lance, Mary, Cindy, Scott, Jackie, Mary, Jerry, Ellen, Joan, Melanie, Dusty, Karen, Dick, Jan, Pat and the rest whom I will recognize but not remember their names, plus the many people who I will be meeting for the very first time.
Here’s hoping for a safe and adventure-filled week pedaling two wheels and sleeping on the ground with friends.
.
.
Imagine That
Yesterday, I gave myself a day off from conditioning my body for long-distance cycling with a plan of riding this morning. Although it would be good practice for the upcoming Tour of Minnesota, during which we ride rain or shine, I did not have it in me to go out and get cold and wet while subjecting my bike to the abuse of rain riding.
I’ll wait for another (dryer) opportunity.
At least I finished mowing all but the wettest areas of grass yesterday afternoon before this latest dose of saturating precipitation.
It was rewarding to find the horses equitably sharing space under the overhang this morning as rain poured down. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise to me but they were even positioned properly for their feed stations. That is not a common occurrence.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
A volunteer from This Old Horse asked if she could feed the horses yesterday afternoon. I was not completely astonished this morning to find where she dumped the manure in my compost area and had to double-check with Cyndie about who dumped it.
I tease Cyndie about her penchant for choosing the most inappropriate pile, which is what our volunteer did yesterday. The thing that I don’t understand about the choice, whenever there are no obvious piles for freshly dumped manure, is how they decide to pick the oldest, most composted, most ready to be removed for other uses pile from the five or six options.
The last thing I want is to have fresh manure mixed into it.
My response each time this happens: “Imagine that.”
I guess I have become more educated than I’d like to admit about what the differing stages of composting manure look like. Newer piles that are very actively “cooking” may be hard to tell apart but it seems to me the oldest pile that looks like the closest thing to dirt should be the last of the choices.
.
.
More Miles
Not only did I get back on my bike for a second day in a row, yesterday I logged a new high for total miles in one outing. Sneaking out of the house a few minutes before 6 a.m., I drove down to Red Wing to ride the Cannon Valley Trail down to Cannon Falls and back.
The distance between the two cities is 20 miles so I knew I was biting off at least a 40-mile day, but I figured since it was all on a relatively flat paved trail, it wouldn’t be an extreme 40. Two other factors played in my favor: the return leg of the loop would be traveling with the flow of the Cannon River, so “downhill,” and the wind would be at my back.
The wildlife creatures were out in force and showed up almost everywhere I looked. There were so many bunny rabbits darting around the trail that I feared they would end up causing a crash. Who wants to run over a little bunny?
I saw a pheasant, a turkey, deer of all ages, a couple of eagles sharing carrion of some creature in tall grass with a flock of turkey vultures, snapping turtles digging holes for eggs right at the edge of the pavement, a red squirrel that crossed inches from my front wheel, and more rabbits than I have ever seen in my entire life.
When I got to Cannon Falls, I rolled up to the Veteran’s Memorial where I was able to pause and reflect on the significance of D-Day.
I found a bench in a park beside the river to eat a little breakfast I’d brought for the occasion. The Cannon River has risen well beyond its banks and was flowing with big energy.
After my short break at the halfway point, I was feeling pretty good and kicked it up a notch to celebrate the tailwind and the downslope. That lasted almost 10 miles before my body started tiring of the routine.
When your whole body gets tired of being on a bike, it becomes really hard to find a position that feels comfortable for more than a few minutes. At first, a new adjustment seems like just what I needed, but when it only lasts for a short time, the result is an endless rotation of standing up, sitting back farther on the saddle, moving hands to new hold on the bars, coasting, stretching, and looking for any distraction for my mind.
I got a kick out of the deer that was munching greenery at head height with its butt sticking out on the trail. I had a full broadside view of this big doe. I saw her turn toward me but then she just went back to eating as if I wasn’t there. I wondered if she might not have seen me or just didn’t recognize I was approaching.
She chomped a large bite of leaves and turned toward me again. This time her eyes grew wide and she froze like maybe I wouldn’t see her if she didn’t move. I had been coasting toward her at the same speed the whole time wondering how close she’d let me get, standing stiff with a garden salad of leaves sticking out of her snout.
At maybe ten yards and closing, she bolted up into the trees with her mouth still full. I hope I didn’t give her indigestion.
I made it back home by 11:00 and spent the afternoon leaving muddy tire tracks all over the place as I mowed with the riding mower. My legs were way too tired to walk behind the push-mower.
.
Weather Luck
My assessment at the end of our bike ride on the hills around Wintervale is displayed visibly in this image captured by Beth Bertelson:
It rained much of Friday night but we woke up to a pause in the precipitation and the ground was only a little damp outside. However, radar evidence indicated another batch of potentially heavier rain moving in our direction at a rate that would put it over us right when we wanted to head out.
Undaunted, the group of my friends who ventured the roughly hour-long drive to our place were going through the preparations to ride without hesitation.
As the minutes closed, I sensed the trend of movement on that next mass of wet weather was going to slide just south of our location. Instead, we ended up getting a dose of ground fog that faded the beauty of the fall colors and obscured the distance view of the horizon at the high spot that usually offers the best vista.
Soon after descending the invigorating glide down from that potential view, the fog dissipated and the dryer air hinted we were going to be granted perfect conditions for our time on the road.
One highlight of having my cycling friends join me on these roads was the combination of ride buddies from two different worlds. There were people I met on the annual June rides now known as the Tour of Minnesota and two riders I grew up knowing in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Paul and I have known each other since grade school and shared a number of epic biking adventures over the years. That shot is taken at Vino in the Valley restaurant near the Rush River. You can see in the background we were blessed with periods of blue sky at the midpoint of our route.
After a pause on a bridge by a limestone cliff, we started the long, slow climb up the steep hill that marks the transition between the two worlds of lush valley and wide open farm fields.
We made it back to Wintervale in perfect time and celebrated our accomplishment with a delicious lunch feast. The laughter and riding afterglow was precisely what I was longing for and very reminiscent of the week-long Tour of Minnesota we have every June.
Cyndie and I added a few tours of our forest, the labyrinth, visits to the horses and interactions with Asher to top off a perfect adventure that fit surprisingly well between bouts of inclement weather.
We needed the rain and I really wanted to ride with friends. I am very lucky that I was able to have both. Overnight last night we received 1.25 inches of rain. Ahhh. Perfect timing.
.
.
Overnight Guests
A lot has happened around here overnight lately. Construction (spider webs), Excavation (ground bee nest dug up), and now Guests! Barb and Mike Wilkus came to meet Asher for the first time yesterday and slept over so we could go out to dinner and then have some hang time together afterward.
Mike got a chance to tool around on my Greeworks riding lawn mower.
We visited Tattersall Distillery in River Falls for the first time for dinner and met a really great server whose accent hinted he might be fluent in the Spanish language. He told Mike and me that he is half-Bolivian. We told him to surprise Cyndie when she returned to the table by speaking to her in Spanish as if he already knew she would understand him.
It worked pretty well and triggered additional stories and visits with him throughout the meal, which boosted a really nice dining experience well beyond just the good food and impressive space they have created at the location that was a huge Shopco building when we first moved here.
The fall colors are turning finally and one day can bring a big change to individual trees that is startling to witness. If it were possible to stare long enough, you could watch it as it happens.
Tonight we are expecting more overnight guests to arrive in preparation for a group bike ride Saturday morning. I picked this day back in the beginning of August and have seen day after day of perfect cycling weather pass. Now a threat of rain is arriving, which we desperately need, but that’s one thing that really puts a damper (pun intended) on group riding.
Maybe that’s one way to break a drought. I’ll just plan way ahead for people to come to Wintervale for a bike ride and the odds of getting rain that day will go way up.
We’ll take whatever we get. No matter the weather, it’s always more fun around here when company comes to visit.
.
.
River Valley
There are some hills to contend with on the roads close to home and I frequently plot my route to limit my exposure to them when jaunting off on random bicycle excursions. It becomes a trick to avoid crossing the Rush River valley if traveling very far to our east. Early on Saturday morning, I decided to make the valley my destination. After the fabulous ride with Paul the day before, my goal was to see how I would feel sitting on the saddle for a couple hours right away again.
Before reaching the valley, a lot of the terrain is pretty flat and the roads pass through miles of plowed farm fields. I chose to drop down into the valley to ride the beautiful pavement past picturesque scenery to a specific bridge where I could pause for a snack. From there, I would backtrack my way to climb up the very same hill I had come down.
The speed on the way down is in the 40mph range. More like single digits on the way back up. The graphic of the elevation of my ride clearly represents the mirror image of my progress.
When I got to the bridge, two fly fishermen were preparing their equipment to cast bait that would match whatever was currently hatching. One fig bar later, it had become six guys seeking a sweet pool where they could ply their skill out of reach from one another. My snack time was abbreviated by my inability to escape clouds of annoyingly persistent gnats.
Every time I have been down to this spot I have seen deer somewhere along the road next to the river. Every time. I figured the early hour would guarantee the streak would continue but I began to worry as I started to get close to this bridge and hadn’t seen any. Oh, ye of little faith. The record remains intact. The first sighting was on the far side of a field and not right in the river like so often before, but it counts just the same.
Then I came upon another deer, and another, and when I pulled over to pee, there was one standing just a few feet away I hadn’t noticed until getting off my bike. He seemed a little flummoxed by my stopping but with little commotion, made his way out of sight in a blink.
Just before I reached the bottom of the hill on my way out of the valley, a big, fat woodchuck that I surprised reversed his direction and ambled off away from the road.
Although my butt was definitely aware I had been riding just the day before, I felt comfortable enough to decide I am ready for a week of riding next week. No testing will be required to find out if sleeping on the ground will cause any discomfort. My latest sleeping pad works wonderfully, even if my habit of sleeping on my side presents a challenge.
The physical challenges are more than offset by the gush of endorphins I get from hanging out for a week with really great like-minded folks who love to laugh while pedaling bikes all day and camping in tents overnight.
Counting down the days to the Tour of Minnesota 2023!
.
.
Relative Something 