Mammoth Looming

I heard local weatherman Dave Dahl on the radio and he said "If you haven't had enough, there's still more of this same bullshit to follow."

Next 5 Days

• Today

  Apr 16

  Chilly with sun and clouds48°Lo 33°

• Wed

  Apr 17

  Afternoon rain38°Lo 34°

  more

• Thu

  Apr 18

  A bit of snow and rain44°Lo 31°

  more

• Fri

  Apr 19

  Rather cloudy and chilly41°Lo 27°

  more

• Sat

  Apr 20

  Sun followed by some clouds46°Lo 37°

  mo

If there is any positive to all this, It looks like things might be alright for the Mammoth Classic (I know I missed the Gravel part, but I think they did too)

Now that I've had the GPS for over a year I can look back at what I did in years past. I completed the Mammoth last year in 4h14m. Not too shabby, but far from the best.


So, I've dragged myself, against my will out of the house for 3 possibly 4 rides in the past two weeks and they haven't gone half bad. I always start out feeling like shit around mile 5 and then remember that no matter how much I ride I always bad from mile 5-10. The numbers don't lie though. I've only lost about .5mph average from where I was last year. These are shorter rides though, so we'll see if I suffer in the long run.
By last years Dirt Bag I felt like I could go 75-80 miles before starting to feel real fatigue/pain. I'm guessing that I will dip into that zone around mile 50-55 at the Mammoth.

I have a quick route that gets in a fair amount of climbing without having to repeat sections or back track. It ends up being about 1,400ft in 19 miles. I am going to try and switch it up and hit some of the West St. Paul hills if I can get one more ride in this week.

I knew I was on to something special

Some good news on the home front. We got a nanny for the kids this summer. What does this mean? 1. Believe it or not, there will be more money in my pocket. Daycare is expensive, and there are not enough, so  that drives the weekly rates are sky high.
2. This also means that I should be able to ride my bike to work most days. This is going to be really nice. I have a few different routes in mind to keep things fresh.


When I was searching through pictures on my phone I came across this one, and since the last "guess what this is" contest went so well (0 guesses) I thought I'd throw this one up. Without further ado:

Where is this from?

I collected this myself.

Consolation Update

Well shit.

I've already heard whispers that this has the makings to be the most epic Consolation 86 ever. Snow covered roads. Peanut butter roads. Minimal training. A chill in the air. One person asked if I had a "Arrowhead type mandatory supply list."

Not needed

 I think that the gravel roads will be fairly hard pack to start out with, and once we get towards Wabasha we hit pavement for the next 30+ miles. Then on the way back, when the roads could (will?) be soft, there will only be about 15 miles of gravel.

So, it is what it is, if you don't want to ride gravel in the afternoon, take the pavement back to Lake City.

These hills in Nelson are no joke, be prepared for them. There's big climbs in other races, but no Cat. 3's like these that I see.

I'll probably do one more brief update Friday.

Sometimes, I ride them

Lately I've been feeling like I never get a chance to ride my bike. I feel like whenever I do I am "sneaking it in" between other activities. There is always something else going on, or, what seems to be a recurring theme this spring, whenever I do have something planned, the weather is shitty, and I would rather go grind away on a trainer than ride it rainy, wet weather unless I have to. I don't think there is anything to gain from it, and I'd end up spending a few hours cleaning my bike afterwards, which I would like to avoid. I've only ridden 180 miles so far in March and April. Pretty pathetic. I started looking at my "race" schedule and there are some big rides coming up very fast. 86 miles this Saturday, 100 at the Mammoth on the 20th, 120 on the 4th of May, 100 on the 19th. If I don't find some more time to ride these are going to be painful rides...

I did get a few bike related things accomplished this weekend. I bought the GF a new mountain bike frame and put it together for her. She was riding an old FS Iron Horse and the thing is a tank. It probably weighs 4-5 pounds and was too big for her. She only rides it on paths so I think this will be a little easier for her to ride. Her main concern was it had a water bottle holder, as the Iron Horse had a coil shock that ran through the middle of the frame, and she did not like the water bottle mounted on the bottom. Once she saw it all put together she was happy with it, so that's good.

Note the horn she thinks is so funny

A few posts back I asked for a guess on what this is:

Mystery revealed!!!

And I got 0 responses. It is homemade tire sealant. I dug around on the MTBR forum and found a thread that listed how to do it. There were a ton of variations. Most of them pretty complicated. I found one of the original recipe's and it stated that it was better than the Stan's sealant, but not the best home brew. Well, I've never had a problem with Stan's and I didn't want to buy 10 different ingedients to get a slightly better product so I went with 2 parts RV anti-freeze, 1 part liquid latex, and one part tire slime. It was very easy to make and mix. Now it was time to test it. I have been riding the Monocog with the Exiwolfs that it came with for the last 3 years and they were getting pretty well worn. My new bike came with some Small Block 8's, that I immediately changed out for Racing Ralph's, So I thought they would be a good new tire for the spring.

$24 in supplies

I used the "Ghetto" method as this has worked well for me in the past. I bought a roll of 1' gorilla tape and sealed up the inner part of the rim. I put the tire on and left and little open spot to pour the sealant in. Once sealed up I hooked up the air compressor (Side note: I don't have a presta specific chuck so I bought one of those adapters that makes it a schrader valve. I noticed that the end of the air gun was threaded on the inside and using another adapter I could hook the compressor directly up to the valve. This works better than using the standard tire chuck as all the air easily goes straight into the valve rather than seeping out the side if it's not on perfectly.)

Once it was ready to go I pulled the trigger and the tire inflated pretty easily. There was some air and sealant leaking out the side, but rolling the tire while giving it some air seated the bead quickly. There was some leaking fluid on the tire and rim, but it cleans up easily with a rag. Total time spent, maybe 45 minutes for 2 tires. While the tires are sealed and holding 50lbs of pressure, the true test will only come with regular use.

Finished Product

Consolation 86 Specifics

This is still going down for all interested.

The plan is to roll out of Patton Park in Lake City, MN at 8am sharp. If you are late, I hope you have the notes/gps.

The route will be a 50/50 mix of gravel and tar.

As stated in the previous post there are multiple gas station stops along the way.

Here is a map of the route:


And here is the link to the GPS file:

Garmin Connect - Consolation 86

I also have directions that I will email or bring with to the start. Unless I get an accurate number of people, there is no guarantee that there will be notes left though...

Please let me know in the comments or on Facebook if you will be able to make it.

-Brett