Not as many pictures this time- We were riding a ton and the weather wasn't so nice. See my posts from late June for many more.
Here are a few-
Our first stop was the Angry Minnow in Hayward. The food was almost perfect, but the beer wasn't quite as good as I remembered. We tried their seasonal varieties and the River Pig Pale Ale that has been a mainstay. I don't know what was "off"- maybe I've just become more picky due to the improved beer selection available at home. Regardless, we left with multiple Growlers of Octoberfest and River Pig and continued on.
We spent Friday night at the Wolverine Village. As always it was welcoming and comfortable. We rode the trails there Saturday morning. It was fun to show some other people the trails I've been talking about for a while. I think everyone enjoyed it... even if it is far from "polished" and the leaves had made things even more tricky than normal. It felt sort of like bringing a bunch of Midwesterners out "West" skiing and then heading down an iced out bump run the first time up the lift (although, of course, Trevor was the one showing me how to do it).
The remainder of Saturday was spent working out way up the shoreline. We basically did the opposite trip of my last day in June. This included stops at the Black River Harbor, Porcupine Mountains, Ontanagon etc.. This time though we went on a tour of the Adventure Mine. I had heard about their bike race
http://minersrevenge.com/
but hadn't realized the extent of the tours that they offered http://www.adventureminetours.com/ We went for a gratuitous ride in a Pinzgauer, which is sort of like this-
but not quite as cool.
We saw Bats everywhere
which the tour guide knew very little about. Good thing I used to "teach" Mammology (shot out to SSC if you ever read this, ha).
It was mostly big open rooms with piles of rocks. We did the $23 tour and it was well worth it. I'd bet that the more expensive ones would be pretty incredible. They have a lot of climbing equipment set up in there and let you use it to go down lower in the mine. I also got to scope out the part of the XC course that takes place in the mine- I've been using visualization and my bat senses are strong. I think I'll be able to race it without a light... should be just the weight savings I need for next years race.
Once in Copper Harbor we settled down at the Mariner North, moved everything into our room and got some dinner. Sunday we rode about 6 hours. I love Copper Harbor riding! Hopefully everyone else had as much fun as I did. The "flow trail" is now complete and it is insane! We also took part in the Keweenaw Cup CX race (see pictures I posted yesterday). Trevor blazed to 2nd place in that race, only losing to Tyler Gauthier. I had a great time despite my mechanical issues and wound up finishing OK. We convined Tall Mike to do the C race. He thundered to the win by over a minute! Picture a 6'8" tall dude wearing basketball clothes on a Trek Rig SS with toe clips absolutely crushing people, sorry this is the best picture we got...
but here is another-
and here is Trevor leading out the "chase group". I'm about 4? behind him.
We celebrated hard Sunday night, but were up and ready to ride around 8 on Monday. Sadly the rain had finally come and the 40 mph gusts had been constant the whole time... That combination meant it was time to go!
We hightailed it all the way to Levis. Hard to beat riding Levis and Copper Harbor back to back.
I'm looking forward to more Cyclocross this weekend up just north of the Twin Cities.
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