recovery week: milltown tuesday night ride, BALLS Madison preparation, my race schedule for spring/summer/fall

I'm still feeling the effects of last week's almost 400 miles (roughly, I commuted all week and went on 3 mountain bike rides that I didn't keep track of mileage on).  The climb out of Rochester to my house is weighs heavy all afternoon.  Each of the last two days I've been passed on my way home by riders going at least 2x as fast as me.  I can't remember being passed on my commute.

That said, I wanted to check out Ben Witt's Pofahl, drop bar, fat bike...

click here for better pictures than I could have gotten and some specs

My OG powertap pro (the wired version from before like 1999) also was in need of some assistance, as it now takes about 200 watts just to turn the wheel due to bad bearings that I've let go way too long.  It only made sense to throw my fat bike in the car, join their ride and drop off my wheel.

Here are a couple pictures-

 and one of Dickie-

Tomorrow night I'm going to ride the Caffeine a bit at Eastwood and then head to a Midnight Muse Burlesque show, so I tried to get everything ready on the Pugnago for the 180 or so miles this weekend at BALLS.  Only major changes are that I added two more bottle cages, some Revelate designs bags and switched the rear shifting to friction (I just prefer it).

Been getting a lot of inquiries about what road races etc. I'm going to be in etc..  I'm going to post a bit of my schedule/plan here so that people can see it, maybe we can carpool etc..  

BALLS this weekend

WORS Iola plus a couple extra days after to work on MTB handing etc.

rest

Royal 162

maybe race on the road Memorial weekend (doubtful)

Mankato MMBS

rest

Keeweenaw Chain Drive (staying up through Wednesday to ride)

Chequamegon 63

rest/attend a wedding

Northfield crit (may have hit a Tuesday night or two earlier to get ready for this depending on how I feel)

Iowa Gravel Championships???

Hopkins crit

2 days of road/crit on the weekend of Southside Sprints

Birchwood RR

Thoren Heuval Kermesse

MN RR Championships

full rest

Sugar Bottom Scramble

copper harbor festival, race?

gravel tour race? (not 100% on this one yet)

misc. fall gravel

full CX schedule

Triple D

CIRREM

Iowa Spring Classics

Ragnarok

This hasn't changed much, if at all, from what I was thinking back in December.  There are a lot of events there, but racing one crit or road race a weekend and within easy driving distance will feel pretty restful this summer.  I obviously want to win, but the ultimate reason I'm doing that stuff is to gain experience with race strategy, bike handling etc. while getting ready for cyclocross season.  I intend to ramp up again for the fall gravel stuff and then transition to CX a bit earlier this year than I did last time around.  I hope I can continue to improve my fitness etc. through the Royal and Chain Drive, rest/reset during the summer and then build to a strong fall.