Thanksgiving weekend in the north

After some debate and studying of ridiculous hunting maps we determined that it was safe to hike on the north shore this weekend.  That had been the original plan and my mind was pretty set on it so all that was left to decide was how cooperative the weather would be...   not that it would stop us, but it sure had the power to decide how much fun the trip would be.  I get tired of browns and greys this time of year so was pulling for enough snow to make things beautiful.  As the weekend approached things were looking like I was going to get what I wanted!

Noon Thanksgiving day:  packing up in Rochester

2pm Thanksgiving:  Arrive in Red Wing and spend around 5 hours with family.

9pm Thanksgiving:  Through the twin cities and we hit the snow.  Roads are terrible.  A police cruiser literally spins past us into the ditch.  It takes us an extra 90 minutes to get to Duluth and there are a total of 18 cars passed in the ditch.

Midnight:  Snocross!  Entire parking lot of hotel full of large trucks, info posted all over lobby for snocross racers.  Would later hear that there were 30,000 spectators???

10:30am Friday:  Finally to Lutsen!  At the Mountain Inn to drop off our bags and bikes.  The front desk is closed and won't open until 3.  Luckily got an employee on the phone and they opened up the office area for the gear.

11:45 am:  Reluctantly buy a MN state parks pass in order to be able to leave car overnight in an entirely empty and unstaffed Temperance River State Park.

Temperance River State Park-  things look perfect!

12:30ish:  Leave the State Park and begin the real superior hiking trail.  Maybe 2-3" of snow on the ground and the going is great!

Almost hard to believe the conditions were so easily passable and just also awesome

Another of trail

Wind?  there was a long section with trees like this

Carlton Peak-  really amazing area

Heading down from Carlton Peak

2pm:  Crap, the sun is going down!  Seriously, it's going to be dark at 4.  Total mileage back to the Mountain Inn is around 19 miles and we've only covered 5.  Time to put down some effort for a while.

Not something I was expecting to see in the middle of the woods!  Thought about coming back with fatbikes later, but no time.  Also, what an awesome sign!

4pm:  Stop and cook Easy Mac at one of the many backpacking campsites along the route.

5pm:  It's gotten COLD and we are bundled up after sitting at dinner but throw the headlamps on and get going.  Map shows 2.4 more miles to a lakeside campsite that we hope to make.  Camera freezes, no more pictures until Saturday.

8:30pm:  Bedtime?  No idea on the temperature but I'm warm enough and happy.

10:45:  Colder than hell and my hip is asleep.  Things suck.

11:00pm-9am:  I realize my borrowed sleeping pad has completely deflated...  It's a lot warmer again after I blow it up.  This cycle will repeat until 4am or so when I realize that my tent-partner (who has exactly 1 eye exposed in her Mummy bag and is clearly warm) has an 'extra' jacket.  I stuff it into my bag under my hip and figure that it will pad things enough that I won't wake up as soon as the pad loses air.  I wind up sleeping until 9am!

Morning!

10:30am Saturday:  Back on the trail.  We had noticed the snow was getting deeper and deeper in the dark the night before and that was really confirmed by day light.  There are now drifts in places up near my knees.  Snowshoes would almost be beneficial.

11:30:  The sun is starting to heat things and the miles are flying by.  Beautiful trail!

Nearing Oberg Mt. Trailhead-  one of the few areas where we saw other tracks

Backside view of Oberg Mt.

We filtered water from this creek

Another of creek

Beginning of climb to Moose Mountain

2:00pm:  Getting super super hungry but on the Moose Mountain, walking the long ridge to the ski area part.  A large wolf has walked the same path sometime since the snow.  We talk about the wolf hunt and the wolf population.

2:30:  Lunch in the new Moose Mountain GS start

View from Lunch-  tons of snow being made on the mountain this weekend

yup

Walking down Moose Mountain-  almost done!

Lutsen!

3:30pm:  At the Mountain Inn with plenty of daylight.  Feels great to be in a hotel but definitely looking forward to riding the bikes too.  In the meantime it will be dinner and drinks at Papa Charlie's.

7:30am Sunday:  Early morning but no idea how long the bike part might take!  Make arrangements with hotel staff for an indefinitely late checkout such that we can come back whenever to get our packs.  Take off up the mountain.  I took a ton of bike pictures that I won't post here now...  but I'll make sure to link you to them asap once that is appropriate.  Here is one:

11:45:  Back at Temperance River to the car.  Very enjoyable ride.

1:00pm: in Grand Marais to check out the art gallery and lunch at the Gun Flint Tavern. 

Pugnago carbon fatbike update

If you are seeing it for the first time-  this is a mostly carbon fiber frameset created in my basement.  The stays/BB are from a broken Surly Pugsley, the headtube is from an El Mariachi, the fork lowers/dropouts are White Bros., the steerer tube is Look HSC5, and the carbon tubes in the main triangle are from a Colnago C40.

Build kit is relatively straight forward otherwise-  Chose friction shifting 10 speed due to personal preference.

Paint was Kim with the hand lettering/bats.  None of these images show the retro-reflective clear...  this thing lights up very brightly under flash or headlights.  More pictures to come showing that.


Here is is-

Jinglecross 2012

Jinglecross came up fast, so fast.  I had 12 months of looking forward to heading back down to this.  It's been an interesting fall season and I felt like my transition from 'endurance' type fitness into CX had been going well and that I had some positive momentum.  Then I DNF'd, rode slow, fell hard on pavement last Sunday and DNF'd once again and all the sudden I was at Jinglecross in the Cat 2 race hoping there was somebody there I could beat. It's funny how quickly confidence can come and go!  In the back of my mind though I was holding onto the progress I had made around this time of the year last year.  Holding out some hope that I could continue to replicate as all my base transitioned into the right kind of fitness.

Got off to a great start!  Went down in a surprisingly slick corner and sealed my fate early...  although I didn't know it at the time.  My derailleur was slightly tweaked and would derail the front at the least opportune time for the next couple of laps.  Stupidly I didn't swap bikes immediately after the fall, or after the first time, nor the second time that the chain came off.  The chain would pop off on the steep sections, I would fix it and then it would work fine for half a lap such that I'd forget about swapping bikes or anything but riding prior to the pit.  In the end I got the chain very solidly stuck between the stay and the small ring and it was game over.  It was disappointing and I felt stupid for not finishing again!  That said, I took some positives from the couple of laps I did make near the front.

Saturday I felt much more confident and rode cleanly throughout the race.  No mechanicals, no falls, no real bobbles even.  As soon as I finished I felt like I should have pushed things harder.  I wound up 12th.

Sunday I had a good sense for where I "fit" in and knew I wanted to do better than that.  At the same time though, the course felt too "herky-jerky" for me to have my best performance relative to the field.  Much more like Theo Wirth where I had suffered hard to stay in the lead group in the 3 race than like the Jackson Meadow or Cross a the Y courses where I had been able to ride away. I hoped I could partially limit my suffering by riding the run-up (I would have ridden it Friday night when it was on the course too, but that's where my chain was coming off!).  At the start Fred Mills took the holeshot and no one was really taking the reigns and giving chase.  I had no intention of going to the front prior to seeing Fred up there, but I felt like I could ride with him and I might as well.  He bobbled in front of me on the run-up (ride-up?) and I wound up leading the race over Mount Krumpit and a bit further on lap 1.  There was a prime at the top too!  Certainly not something that I would have ever expected to have a chance to win.  The rest of the day I suffered as much as expected and slowly fell back all the way to 11th.  I did ride the run-up each lap though and it was awesome all the cheers and support.

In the end I did a bit better at Jinglecross as a cat 2 this year than I had done last year as a 3.  I wanted more but I think I have to be happy with it. I'm glad the season isn't over.

This is too many pictures, I'm sorry. 

Friday night before too much trouble with the shifting

Bike repair in the hotel room...  always fun

So different this year on the hill without crazy mud

I know-  lots of pictures of me

This was incredibly fun

Josey was only? other ride in our race riding up-  either we are both awesome or we both wish we could run better

This gives a sense for the vertical sense the pictures don't show the grade very well

Fred made it at least this far on his bike-  'epic' suffer face

Wisconsin CX at Cam-Rock and Ripon Cookie Cross

 I raced a couple times Saturday.  Only photos are of the singlespeed race.  I got the holeshot pretty solid and then my friend Mike Curtes managed to bridge up about half way through the 1st of just 3 laps (long laps).

I pulled the rest of lap 1 and let him pull most of lap 2.  There was a large group of 5-6 back there but we were steadily pulling away and I figured it was going to be a race between the two of us.

 By the way, Mike has a pretty incredible SSCX bike!

 At the beginning of the third lap Mike and I were still together but I heard his girlfriend yelling that "Mark was catching us".  Now I didn't know Mark from Adam, but something about the way she was yelling it made it sound like it was time for me to try to get the hell out of there.  I absolutely pinned it for the first third of the lap and basically prayed it would be enough to drop them both.  However, we turned into the wind in the field and they were both right there!  I was thankful I had the legs to grab Mark's wheel!

 He spun like a mad-man on the back stretch and broke me before we even got near the finish!  Strong, strong dude!

We immediately got out of there to get food during the 3 hour gap between races.  However, despite ordering at 12:05 I still had no food at 1:16.  When the food did come out I decided it was too close to the 2:45 start and I just ate a couple of gu packs.  I started well in the Elite race but slowly faded throughout.  The only strong part for me was the technical log section into tight corners.  Without that section I would have probably wound up last!  It hurt/sucked to not be able to even hold wheels on pavement.  I'll be sleeping more, eating better, not racing prior to my upcoming goal races.

Sunday found me at Ripon College

 Those images are all you get...  I went down very hard on lap 1.  On pavement.

And what is this?

Images courtesy of Kim

REI Brand Merino Wool at Dunham's?

A few months ago Karlene and I dropped into Dunham's to look for socks for her size "s" women's feet.  She had a long backpacking trip planned and wanted to upgrade.  They didn't have ANY but I found some merino wool socks in the bottom of a huge bin for just $3.99.  I've bought 4 pairs and I've been wearing one of the pairs at least 2-3 days a week ever since.  Wool is awesome but I won't go into details, that's not the point of this post...

This past weekend I found myself near the same Dunham's and I thought I'd run in and see if they had any more of those great, cheap socks.  Here is what I found-

Well, almost.  What I actually found were a few pairs of the same high quality merino wool socks that I'd been looking for in "Ballston" branded packaging.  The packaging also stated that they had cosmetic but not material defects.  However, when I got them home it was pretty obvious the iron-on Ballston patch was maybe covering something up.

Interesting.

Update on the Steel SS Disc Cyclocross bike

Images by Kim Larson from the "midwest SS championship" (the MN version, I may also do another "midwest ss championship" in December...  this is almost as bad as the 17 "fatbike world championships")

bike details-

1996 Marin Pine Mountain 26"
rear disc tabs
generic carbon disc fork (405 a-c?)
mavic tubulars on hope ti-glide hubs (by Ben Witt)
shimano mechanical discs/tektro levers
short reach/shallow drop dimension brand drop bars
white industries crankset (stock and with original BB)
old school ti-railed saddle from my 1993 Jamis Dakota
Ritchey WCS seatpost

So, I've 'raced' this thing 4 times now and ridden it hard a bunch of times on various local CX courses that I use for practice.  I say "race" because a few of them were half-assed efforts where I knew I wasn't "all-in" due to already having raced earlier in the day and not feeling great due to the knee pain I've been suffering through (which I think I've solved).

I'm happy with this bike!  It fits well and rides fast.  The changes that I would make (should make) would be to find a way to increase the grip I get on the brake levers with full-fingered gloves and to use wider 'q-factor' pedals so my shoe doesn't 'click' every pedal stroke when it hits the crank-arm.  Other than that I'm inspired to race it in the SS National Championship race just as it is and I've been eyeing one or two other weekends/days where adding the SS race might make sense.  

The disc brakes specifically are amazing to have.  That said, I still don't think they are at all necessary.  The biggest dimension that they add though is that they make the bike much more fun to ride 'conversationally' on singletrack with...  as I can sit on the hoods and comfortably ride while also braking appropriately.  I can see myself pulling this out once in a while all year round to make some laps of the local mountain bike trails.

It was fun to make something new out of the old bike and I love the character that it has.  To me, it embodies some sort of ethos that I dig... this is what SS CX should be about!  It's the partner/opposite of a mass-produced in Asia aluminum thing with some beer logos plastered on... eh?  

Thanksgiving weekend in the midwest?

We have family dinner Thursday afternoon and then???  Looking for adventure.  Where would you backpack, bikepack, generally travel?

A couple nights on the Superior Hiking trail?

Bike/hike/ride in the Cable area?

What's over north of Green Bay?

What about those Dunes down near Chicago?

Isn't there a place even closer to me that I haven't had time to properly explore?

veloCX and midwest singlespeed cx championship

First weekend as a cat 2.  60 minutes of SS championship Saturday.  The modified 1996 Pine Mountain was feeling good, but my legs were not.  Got off to a wicked poor start and had to work my way up from the middle teens over the first two laps.  Eventually finding myself chasing a strong 3 man chase group (with Owen Thoele alone off the front of it).  I would close the gap and then get distanced on the fast sections, close it in the corners, gapped in fast section.  Eventually Casper and Koeneman caught up to me (they were always close) and we worked a bit, but then I got tired and spit out the back.  Was very happy to finish 7th! Might have been faster with one fewer teeth in the rear, might not...  next time I do think I'll gear harder though, sucks to get beat on the straightaway sections.

Elite race today.  Lost on the way to the velodrome, all out of sorts due to crap going on in life.  Got settled down, good start.  Found myself at lead of first chase group behind a bunch of guys I definitely didn't expect to beat.  about 1/3 of way through I fell on an easy corner but went right down onto a previously injured spot.   I've been babying this injury for the last 6-8 weeks now and basically right away knew the right thing to do was going to be to pull the plug on the race and live to fight another day.

Next weekend I think I plan to race two days of CX in the Wisconsin series/collegiate races that are going on over there.  Hoping I can put in hard efforts Tuesday and Wednesday morning as well.  I bet Jinglecross will be here before I know it!  Probably want to rest all of next week until that...  hoping the leg feels better so that it isn't even on the back of my mind.

dirtbag 2012... pure race recap and gravel season recap

It's been a long, long season of racing gravel.  The Ragnarok feels like it was 2 or 3 years ago, so much has changed but a lot has stayed the same.  Throughout I rode hard and perservered even when things went to hell.  My goals for the season were to make the selections, ride aggressively and to finish every race.

Late in the summer it started to become clear that the overall AGRS championship was going to come down to a race between Ted Loosen and I.  This prompted me to put together my wicked fast Gentleman's ride team which enabled me to get a few points ahead of my friend.  Then at the Heck my repeated attacks were foiled by the large group and, after an odd restart/finish/thing,  relatively fresh legs for Ted and Dom meant third place for me and a completely tied series.

This set the stage for an interesting race deep in Revolution country this past weekend.  I was hopeful as I'd left the Dirtbag in 2011 with an unlikely sprint finish win out of a large group including Ted and 5? of his teammates.  However, you never know who will show up to these things and I'm well aware that Revolution is stacked with guys who I would prefer not to race head to head, let alone 'en masse'.  This was all very good though because it would make for an exciting race.  I felt I had some cards left to play that hadn't quite been shown-  I knew how hard I'd been able to ride solo in the Gravel Conspiracy and that the way things had played out at the Heck and Heroic hadn't given me a chance to show the form I hoped I was on.  Skarpohl and Dom would also be in the mix (hopefully at least not deliberately working against me) and that also served to increase the interesting possibilities.

It was COLD.  I had to put my gloves in my bibs to not lose any man bits early.  I spent as much time as I could in the back of the pack until we approached the large paved climb that generally serves as the first real selection point.  I was lucky that I recognized the importance of moving to the front right when I did because two of the strongest Revolution riders, Toftoy and Beuning, absolutely went from the base.  I was able to get into third wheel and hang on.  By the top we were down to just a handful including a determined Monika Sattler!  Skarpohl was no where to be seen.   We rotated a bit and I rotated badly hoping to at least get Skarpohl back.  Eventually he came charging up to us solo.  My best hope for a strategy was going to be to hope Skarpohl could wreak enough havoc on the flats that I'd be able to counter attack somewhere and get a group without Ted...  maybe even with Dom or Skarpohl in it.  I did not want to go solo vs. any combination of that caliber of rider.

Nothing for a while.  A couple of pee breaks, a Kind bar or two.  Skarpohl went hard but the group did not split.  Then the group just slowly moves apart.  It wasn't an attack, more of a letting go...   I counted riders and stayed with Ted rather than even picking up the pace at all.  Beuning also stayed back and Monika was with us.  There was some cat and mouse.  We came to a hill where I had a chance to work and make them both work rather than just one of them.  Surprisingly I got clear at the top.  I had no idea how far forward the lead group of four (Toftoy, Schad, Talerico, Skarpohl) had gotten but I knew that if I were clear that I would put my head down and go.

 Monika and I both have Strava...  over the next 30 minutes and change I was 2:36 faster than the 3 I had left.  I was well out of sight and on a couple instances timed my gap to the front 4 at under 30 seconds.  Once they all sat up and sort of looked back at me and I thought I had succeeded but they had other ideas and began pull away a bit and it took a while before I closed it at all again.  I needed the group up front to crack and leave me a straggler, or to reach the checkpoint or something.  I was forced to slow the effort slightly and consider the possibility that I would have to ride the remaining 50ish miles solo, could I stay clear of Ted, Monika and Lance?  As the lead had been so close I had stopped using my cue cards and just followed...  We came to a couple of closely spaced corners and I slipped up.  The cue card mileage was off by 1 mile and I knew this, but somehow I turned onto a road at mile 60 that I had already turned onto at mile 57 and now I was supposed to be crossing it. 

I figured it out in time to avoid total disaster but this was a cruel end to my almost successful move.  To make matters worse I watched the three who had been chasing start rotating nicely just 25 seconds in front of me upon my return to the course...  A gap that would take me another 7.6 miles at 21 mph to erase...  At that point I was grateful to have regained the group but knew I was in a bad position.  No matter what I ate or drank or how much I drafted I figured I was at a huge disadvantage.

We got lost, there was a mistake on the cue cards.  Everyone got lost.  It turned into a huge mess.  Ted and I agreed to "tie" for the day and for the overall (he would get the prize and notoriety due to a tie-breaker which I made up on the spot).  I found my legs again and we all worked hard together to reach the finish with 7 extra miles on the GPS.  No matter what we had agreed upon on the road Ted and I still had to sprint (I have no idea what place we were sprinting for after all the resorting of the pack on our detour)  and I went too early for what was left in my tank...  falling short on the same road I'd flown up the year before.  It was probably fitting that AGRS 2012 Champion and custom frame winner Ted Loosen beat me up the hill.


The lead 4 had similarly neutralized after the miscue and they all crossed together. After a year worth of racing I would have sprinted if I had to do it on foot, but I think they did the right thing too.

It was a great day on the bike with lots of strong riders.  Awesome to see such a strong group up front, particularly  Monika and Jenna Rinehart who both put in great efforts.  Cool to see women up front on gravel.

In a lot of ways the dirtbag was a recap of my season.  Proud of riding aggressively, accepting of the results whatever they were, finishing.

Another weekend of CX

Really cool that the Prenzlow's are doing this and I love this image!

Click that for a great example of the work they are doing.  If you are racing CX or road in MN  you will want to check out their site for photo coverage!



That one is from Jackson Meadow on Sunday.  Saturday was Green Acres which is the best venue/event on our local schedule.  Here are a few pictures-

They don't do a good job of showing the scope of the hill or the venue- but they show me!


There are literally thousands at the prenzlowperspective link above.

 This race is great because spectators can see almost the entire race from a central location, the course has a great mix of terrain, it has downhill switchbacks and goes straight up the hill, it has an appropriate feeling run-up etc. etc..

I learned something on Saturday that I probably should have learned the week before (and maybe countless times before that)...  You may as well go as hard as you can in a CX race when you can.   Without the benefit of drafting and with the addition of all technical features etc., busting your ass to get a little bit ahead might, probably will, be worth it.  If you play any games and get to the finish and it looks like the one above, and you wind up the loser...  you'll be disappointed.  I have no idea if I could have held the gap I had developed after the climb on the last lap, or if Dom would have countered up top and totally kicked my ass?  I do know that looking back I would have felt better about trying, than I felt about riding all weasel-like and then losing by inches. 

I learned another thing Saturday too...  CX is fun even when you totally suck!  The SS race was tons of fun for me even though my back hurt and I was literally walking the hill.  The run-up with people screaming, beer etc. and riding the little stair steps while everyone else ran were both just totally fun.

Sunday at Jackson Meadows I was able to more or less ride away from the field at the end of the 2nd lap.  By the middle of the fourth I knew I wouldn't be caught unless I fell or something ridiculous happened and was able to win by riding conservatively and hammering the road section and the gradual grassy rise.  It felt good to make a move on/over the top of a run-up.  Hope that is a good sign with regards to my weight loss.

I put my upgrade request in yesterday.  That had been the plan since I looked at the season schedule and at the non-CX stuff I was going to be involved in.  I figured these last two weekends would make a good block of training to use for the rest of the season (after a weeks hiatus to race the dirtbag and rest).  I'm pleased with how things have gone so far, but need to improve quite a bit over the next few weeks/month if possible.  The cat 2 racing at Jinglecross will be very fast.