The Weeks That Were

There hasn't been a lot of biking going on in the past two weeks. The colder temps make it much easier to go to the gym and spin for a couple hours.

I went up to Lutsen for a snowboard trip that was a good time. Drank way too much every night and ate unhealthy food. I don't think that I was fully recovered until yesterday.

I went on an 8 mile fat bike ride yesterday. Some snow covered paved path, some wooded trail. It is always fun to get first tracks!

The snow was pretty soft and I was always cutting through to the bottom surface. Combine that with being dressed way to warmly and it made for a tough ride. Getting the winter clothing dialed in has been tough this year with the mild temps.

This brought up my main issue with the fat bike though. While fun to ride in the winter, it just doesn't go that fast. It makes it hard to get in the miles that I would like to.

While riding my cyclocross bike a few months back I made a wrong turn down a closed road and stumbled across a nice wooded area that it seems a few people use to walk their dogs. I road around on the trails that were already there and it seemed like a nice place to ride in the winter on the way over to Carver.

Speaking of Carver, they are having a race there on Sunday which I plan on attending. It should be a good time.

Other notes:

I need to take more pictures. I notice that I will write this blog if I take pictures. A lot of posts have been lacking pictures and thats not very interesting.

Why does it take some parents soooo long to drop their kid off at school? You wait in line to get to the front and then they pull up and it's still a minute before their kid gets out because they are probably saying goodbye. Do that shit while waiting in line, not once you get to the front.

I'm about to end my "No Facebook for 2012" Twitter is great for news and articles and the occasional funny comment, but I don't like it to "connect" with people or carry on a discussion.

It won't be long until Ragnarok training begins. It is going to be a grind on the SS, but I am confident that I can do it.

I'll probably have a race recap on Sunday night.

Fat Bike Race

I was lucky enough to not have hockey practice this past Sunday so I decided to head up to Elk River for the first race of the Cold Bear Challenge.
The beginning was typical of the races up there. More people standing around and bullshitting rather than riding the trainer and waiting for the best starting position.
I got excited when I saw they were giving away a 9Zero7 frame and carbon fork at the final race of the series. I don't know which one I'd like more. Probably the fork. I'd spend the $600 for the frame, but I don't know if I could justify the cost of the fork($400), especially with the beating that I put on my Pugsley. Plus there's all the "hidden" costs to winning the frame. I'd have to move my components over to the new frame and I would ultimately decide that they were unworthy of the new frame and buy new ones... Oh well, given my track record of winning things I'd be happy to leave there with a free GU pack.

Back to the race.
It had a new prologue that was fun to ride. I entered the singletrack in about 11th and was happy riding there for a bit. I only wore two layers of clothing but quickly realized that it was too much. I decided to suffer through it and not stop to shed some clothing. I passed a couple people, but was then passed by two riders that had been behind me the whole time when I fell on a patch of ice.

I settled into a good spot and rode by myself for a majority of the race. My main goal was not to get passed by the skinny tired bikes. It wasn't till the end of section 4 that I was passed by the first guy. I wouldn't see another one for a while.

I got to section 1 and was ready to put the hammer down but it was icy as shit. I fell 3 times and saved myself from falling about 3 more times on icy turns. The bike would just slide out from under me. I hit my thumb pretty hard one time and was sure that it was busted open and bleeding but I decided not to look.

I made it through and headed on my second lap feeling good. Shortly into section 3 at the stairs I locked up my rear brake and went down hard again. Now my pointer finger was in real pain and I was fairly certain it was broken, but once again I decided not to look at it and since it didn't hurt holding on to the bar on went on. I shook the cobwebs quickly and got through the remainder of section 3 pretty quickly. Section 4 was tough, but I made it through alright.

Once again I wanted to use some of my reserves of sections 1 and 2 but was nervous about the ice. I went a little faster as I could see that the sun had melted some of the slick spots. As I neared the end I saw a guy that I had passed a little earlier start to creep up on me and decided to go fast and if I fell, I fell. I made it through fine and finished strong.

All in all it was a good race. I ended up finished 15th out of 33 finishers (37 starters) 16 minutes behind 1st and about 10 minutes behind everyone else. There were a lot of areas that I can improve on that I think will cut a lot of time.

Other weekly notes:

Still waiting on the final entrants list for the Ragnarok.

I mailed in my postcard for the Almanzo 100.

If I had to make a guess there are not A LOT of people registering for the Leadville 100. I seem to get weekly emails from Lifetime that start out about losing weight and then throw in Leadville at the end. I'm still not sold that I really want to do it again this year. There are other races out there that I'd like to try out. But, I really like the feeling when I finish that thing. There's nothing like it.

It seems that a lot of people have already fallen off the wagon and are not going to the gym, which is good for me.

That's it!

What's new for 2012?

I ended 2011 right. I started the day with a 55 mile road ride with some surprise gravel, got hammered drunk, and a cougar made a pass at me while my girlfriend was in the bathroom.

So how can I top this one day in 2012? I don't know, but maybe it'll all unfold in this blog.

On the 55 mile ride I got a flat tire from what appeared to be a rose thorn and had to break out my single speed wrench in order to take the rear tire off. It wasn't that difficult, but it is a pain in the ass to have to lug the wrench around in the back of my jersey pocket since I refuse to wear a hydration pack while road riding. So on Sunday I switch the the wheel set out on the Bianchi with my road bike that I hate. There are quick releases so if I have to change a flat it shouldn't take too much time or require me to have that wrench. The only problem so far is that it does not have a single speed hub on it. Not a huge deal, but I have to get some spacers for it. I messaged a guy that does some carbon work to see if he could make me some custom spacers (Lamest custom thing ever? Probably.) and he said that he could hook me up. I want them custom so that I only need two of them and they line the cog up perfectly. I also saw a clamp that you can buy that goes on each side of the cog that looked pretty cool. I may try that out if the carbon isn't cutting it.

Today I also decided that I am going to layoff Facebook for a while and do a little more on Twitter. My Twitter account (@Brett_100) has been pretty lame for the maybe year that I have had it. My main issue is status updates. I have relatives and people that I respect enough not to clutter up their feed with a bunch of updates and profanity. How long will I stay away? The Vegas sharps are setting the line at 20.5 days.