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It has been a while since I was on a adventure ride so when D-Rider posted one up for Saturday morning I decided that I was going, even though I had been to this particular drain before.

We met at Hidden Falls part and made our way to the first drain. It was so cold outside. My face was frozen and my fingers were in great pain by the time we need to make our way down to the drain.

It was hard enough to get down to water level with all the snow, but doing it with a right hand that wasn't very functional made it worse. There came a point where I didn't feel safe continuing to descend while holding my bike, so I gave it a slight push and hoped that it would only slide for about 10 feet. It went about 30 and got a nice scrape on the seat tube. Not a big deal, that's why I have this bike. 

My hands somehow got colder and since I knew I couldn't be any help to the other guys I headed straight to the drain that I knew would be much warmer. Once I came around the corner this is what I saw:

Someone had dragged in some rocks so we used them to make the hole even bigger.

Once past the ice wall we saw these two guys guarding the drain. I have a feeling their not too picky about who they let pass by.

This was one of the better paintings. The picture turned out alright I suppose.

Some water flowing down from up above

There was about 4 or 5 different paintings that looked similar to this one

There may be a fight to the death in here one day

I didn't really know where we were, but this is surely not correct

Uncle Sam? 

He looks unhappy

Someones Selfie

Very bottom of the helix

After a 10+ story climb we were close to street level. I tried to get a GPS signal, but was unable to.

Getting back out was much easier. We rode along the river for a bit till we found a better exit point. We then headed to Chipotle for a nice lunch. We then headed back to the cars to head to another tunnel. I was short on time so I had to bail. It was a fun time and I look forward to exploring some new drains in the future.

I think this is enough

People like to joke that you can never have enough bikes. I am starting to disagree. At what point is it just excessive? I think I've reached that point. I feel as if I added one more bike that it would just be a waste. There's just no reason for it. In the past year I have gotten 3 new bikes. Two of these were replacements, but none the less I think I am at my limit.

However, I am very happy with the 3 bikes that I bought this year and I think that they will serve me well for years to come with maybe a small upgrade here or there.

The two bikes that I could be replaced are the Monocog and the Pugsley. I don't really see an immediate need though. The Pugsley is old and heavy and there are a lot of better option out there at this point, but the truth about it is that despite all that I have only had time to get out on it 5 times this year. Does that justify selling it and getting a new one? Hardly. I think that I'll get myself a new one when I can manage to get out at least twice a week for a winter.

I like the Monocog, but I just feel that I could be riding something much lighter. The bike has served me well and is great for family rides so even if I got a new SS MTB I dont think that I would sell it because it's actual worth to me is more than the $250-$300 that I could probably get for it.

The other issue with so many bikes is maintenance. I wish that I was better at it. I feel that I can get things 98% of the way there, but it never comes out perfect. I always end up erring on the side of caution and bringing it into the shop for a once over $$$.

The Pikey

Pictured above is the latest and greatest. Full carbon frame and fork. Rival everything. BB7 mechanicals.

Holding the frame without the wheels the bike is very light. I was surprised how light it felt. Once I added the wheels it was "heavier." That's OK though. I am sure they will be just fine. I'll upgrade them next year.

I have a Thomson X2 stem and a Masterpiece seat post on the way and I will be moving the seat over that is currently on the Pugs. I need to swap out the tires as well as the ones it came with are too aggressive for gravel/asphalt use. The stem will be 20mm shorter that what is currently on there and has a 10 degree rise to give it more of a gravel bike feel over a short cyclocross race feel. 

If I had to pick one thing that I am not thrilled about it is that the frame says EASTWAY all over it. The one in blue looks cool, but I could do without the white and black ones. Maybe there's something that can be done. 

I'm going to have to put my St. Croix Troy frame bag on this and see if it will work. My initial thought is that it will fit great.

                                       

*Quick Edit*

The frame bag fits perfectly. I held it up to the frame and I thought "No problem" Then I had a moment of doubt when I looked at the headtube. I didn't know if the straps would be long enough since the bike it was originally designed to go on had a much smaller diameter headtube. Once I started velcroing it on I saw that it wasn't going to be an issue. It looks great and fits nice and snug.

Straggler Build Complete

I finished up the Straggler build last night. I really like the way that it came out. I think that it is going to be a nice commuter bike and do just fine for training and some gravel road races. It also looks like a worthy replacement for the San Jose Pro, but time will tell.

Here are some shots and if you want to re-live the 6 week process that it took me to complete the bike check out this link: Straggler Build

Fizik bar tape and Jagwire brake cables

44t Surly Chainring, FSA SLK Carbon Crankset, 16t cog

Carbon Seatpost and Fizik Saddle From The San Jose

Custom Painted Carbon Fork 

Hayes CX-5 Disc Brakes

Surly Straggler Build *1/23 Update*

Back in September I went to the Cottage Grove Bike Park and put down the winning bid on a certificate for a Surly frame.

I started looking at what they had online and there was nothing that fit exactly what I was looking for so I thought I might just get the Pacer and use it for riding around town.

Then I saw this Straggler bike pop up on the Surly website. It met my 3 criteria:

1. Road bikish.
2. Horizontal dropouts
3. Disc brake compatible

Believe it or not this is a very difficult combo to find.

Stock image

So I emailed the Surly and got in touch with Tyler and let him know what size I wanted. From there the frame got delayed (for everyone) and things took longer than expected (It happens).

yesterday I got an email from Tyler that they would be sending me the frame. I jumped online and started ordering the bits and pieces that I would need to complete the bike and have it rolling. At present time I think all I need it a headset and to get the front wheel I have at home trued.

I'm going to post pictures of the frame, parts, and the build process as this will be the first bike that I have put together from start to finish and will post updates in this blog. I'll try and change the title when I add things, I'm not quite sure how it all works out yet.

Hopefully the bike arrives soon and I can get working on it.

***11/30 Update***

Got in the remainder if the parts that I think I will need. Now just waiting for the frame. 

I was at One on One today and saw a complete build in person. I don't care for the glitter dreams color and with black components the bike didn't look that great to me. 

What did look great was this bike, as well as the price tag ($1550) however, no disc brakes and lower level components had me over it quickly. Still a great looking bike though. 

***12/13 Update***

I had to send another email to Surly to see if the bike had shipped or what was going on and it seems like it got forgotten in the basement. Irregardless, less than 24 hours later the Straggler was delivered to my front door. 

I opened it up and found this beauty waiting inside:

Shortly after opening it I had to get Cooper to hockey at West Side Arena, so after I dropped him off I went over to the Lowertown Bike Shop to have the headset installed. This is a volunteer shop and the guy working when I got there said he had never installed one before and that it would be a few days before someone could get to it. I'm not gonna lie, I'm nervous about the bike sitting there for a few days. It's nice to support places like this, but when it takes a while and there are volunteers going in and out of the store who knows what could happen to it. I might go pick it up after work and bring it somewhere else...

I almost forgot. I got a steal of a deal on ebay the other day. I picked up this lightly used carbon crankset and bottom bracket for $61.00. I'm sticking with the single speed build for this bike so I am going to ditch the current rings and get a new 48t to go on it. 

***12/31 Lame Update***

There has not been much going on towards the actual building up of the bike. I got the headset pressed in and then dropped off my front wheel for truing. They called me back and said that they were unable to get it true since it was so far out of whack. So I went online and got a decent set of 29er wheels for $125, about the same cost as getting a new rim, spoke, and having it built up. The one catch is that the front wheel is for a thru axle so I will have to buy an adapter for $21.

I am putting a carbon fork on the bike rather than the heavy steel one. The problem with that is it says "Bianchi" in large white letters on both sides. After inspecting it I could see that it is a sticker that is under clear coat. So I messaged a guy I know from high school because he works at an auto paint shop. He told be that he can strip, prime, and paint is for a bottle of Jameson. Done deal. I should be getting that back soon.

The only thing left that I think I need to buy is a single speed chain ring. The cranks have a 130 BCD so I will probably get a 48t. 48x16 is good for around town and 48x20 maybe if I ride some gravel, Maybe buy a 22t as well since it is cheaper than buying another chainring.

That is about it for now. Hopefully the next post will include a functioning bike.


***1/10 Update***

Almost a month into the build and it is almost complete. The new wheels are in and the 15mm through axles appears to be working great. I taped up the left bar, but still have to do the right. I thought that I would be good at it since I've probably taped a hockey stick 1000 times, but I wasn't the best. The wrap was always even and looked good, however I kept running out of tape. 4th times and charm and it looks good. I kind of messed up the ending though. Hopefully the second one goes better.

I also installed the brake cables. Not much to say about that.

For my birthday I got a new Surly 44t chainring. It is in the mail so that should be installed early next week. I think that the 44t will be more versatile than the 48t and I won't have to ever change it.

I also have a pair of bolt on skewers in the mail. I think that they make for a cleaner look than QR's.

I got the fork back from the paint shop, and it looks great. I think that it will really shine in the sun. In the picture it looks like an exact match, but if you look close there are some blue and silver flakes.

The stem is a little long so I will have to get that cut and have the star nut re-positioned.

I promise the next post will be a complete build...

By the way, the frame bag that Troy made for my San Jose Pro fits the Straggler nicely.

***1/23 Update***

The build is complete! Got all the parts together finally. Had to get the steer tube cut and install the new chainring. 

Deer Hunting 2013

This past weekend was the annual deer hunting trip. The weather was looking OK and I was excited for a day off of work and getting out in the woods.

We got up to the farm around 10:30 on Friday morning and I started putting together my Dad's new stand. After about a hour it was complete and we were hauling it down to the river.

Ready to go up

The stand went up pretty quickly and we were heading back to the house to get the other stands.

We drove over to the other side of the property to set up the two other stands and came across a bald eagle, falcon, and two ravens sitting on the side of the road staring down a flock of about 20 turkeys. I'm not sure how it all turned out.

After the stands were set up we went back to the house to get my gargantuan stand. It has a nice seat that can swivel 360 degrees and is very comfortable. This required 4 people to set up. So we had to wait for Roger and Matt to help us stand it up. 

Saturday morning we got out of the house a little later than  I would have liked, but oh well, I should have set my alarm. As I was walking to my stand I stirred up 2 does that were walking at the edge of the field, then as I was walking through the woods I scared up 2 more. 4 deer before I even got in the stand. I thought that I may have scared them all away for the rest of the weekend. Nope.

I got in the stand and took the strap off of my gun and sat down. Then a nice 6 point buck came strolling through. I quickly put the bullets in the gun and took aim. The deer was looking right at my and when I fired he hit the ground immediately and started flopping around like a fish. He then attempted to get back up but fell over again and didn't move. I sat thee for a second and made sure that I had clicked the safety back on when all of a sudden the deer got up and casually walked away. It all happened so fast I didn't know what to do. By the time I got my gun up he was out of sight. I got out of my stand and proceeded to look for him for the next two hours. Having not found him I returned to my stand to sulk. I say a few more does, but nothing worth shooting. 

When I went in for lunch Matt had shot a deer and thought that it may have an extra bullet hole in it. Matt's stand is a good 1/2 mile from me and I thought there was no way the deer would make it that far, especially after crossing the river. I went to take a look at it and sure enough it was the deer that I had shot earlier. It had a hole just to the right of his windpipe and the bullet exited the back of his neck just above the shoulder.I couldn't believe it. One inch to the left and his windpipe is gone. Slightly steeper angle and his shoulder is toast. As it was, it was a flesh wound. Such is life.

My view for  the weekend

Saw this when I was walking around the woods

Saturday afternoon I saw maybe 6 more does. This seems to be the case every year. I see way more deer than anyone else, but bucks seem to not like the area. At about 4:30 I heard some shot from my Dad's stand. He shot this guy (pictured below) just before dark. I walked over to check it out while he went to get the 4 wheeler. Not the biggest deer ever shot, but it tastes good.

Sunday morning I got up a little earlier to try and give myself a little more time in the stand before the sun started coming up. I started seeing a few does here and there and could make out a few deer across the river but they were too far away for me to identify or shoot.

We ended up going 3 for 4. Nothing monstrous, but a nice haul.

Maybe next year will be my year.

Orchard 2013

Once a year I give in and bring the family out to my favorite area to ride my bike. It was also Diana's birthday so, two birds one stone. I take the long way so they can see the rolling hills, the climbs, and the gravel(!). They love every second of it.

Then we get to the orchard and the excitement is immediately sucked out of me by having to pay $12 for the right to walk around and pick my own apples. As I walk through the door I ask the lady where the honey crisps are and she explains to me that since the honey crisps are a hybrid they require special care when picking and therefore they are only available for purchase in the store. This is more bullshit than the $12 fee. So we hop on the tractor and ride around for a few minutes until we get to the harlson's. 

We start walking down the row and there are hardly any apples at first, but as we get in further there starts to be more and more. I snagged a few off the tree for sampling as the kids looked for the perfect apples.

They collected a few apples and then we decided to go look for the sweet 16. We never found them and were tired of walking so we just went to the playground for a bit where I had the privilege of listening to one parent drone on to another about how her parents were in therapy together for the past several years. Like candida, I hope I never have enough money to require therapy.

Soon it was time to feed the animals. They love the food and the attention. This is the highlight of the trip for me. There was a white llama that was getting pretty aggressive to get at the food and it scared Aurora enough that she refused to feed the donkey. 

Albino pumpkins are scarier

Every year when we look at the pumpkins I always make the statement "We should buy some of the giant pumpkin seeds online and grow two of them next year." Never happens. 

I thought that it was a little early to get a pumpkin being that there is still 4 weeks before Halloween but every single pumpkin had already been cut off the vine. They probably know better than me. 

cowch

Once back inside the kids began climbing all over this couch despite the sign in the upper right hand corner telling them not to. My first thought was to this classic Chappelle Show clip (NSFW):

We then made the dreaded trip to the checkout. We had maybe 12-15 apples. Most were smaller in size so that Aurora could bring them to school for lunch. The cashier said $8.54. With a straight face. Thank god that there is no Apple picking union because if picking your own apples costs $20.00 then I can't even fathom how much a bushel would cost that is shipped in from Pennsylvania.

Then we went out for sushi and topped it off with my first ever trip to Cherry Berry.

It was a good day for all of this, the kids had a good time, and I got to see my second favorite animal in the world.

(s)he remembered me

Heck of the North 2013

As the day of the race approached I became more and more preoccupied with the forecast. What would all the rain and possible mud do to my newish drivetrain kept running through my mind. I didn't want to have to shell out a lot of money to replace things for a race that is 100% about pride in finishing (Note, even if the race was for money I would not see any of it anyways) On Tuesday I brought the Pugsley out of it's summer slumber and put a new chain on it and made a few adjustments. Wednesday at work I thought there is no way I want to ride that thing for 104 miles. Thursday I prepped the single speed. My thought being that it would be very cheap to fix anything that was ruined. Friday at work I decided "fuck it, I want the best time I can possible get." That meant back to the original plan of 4 months ago and riding the Ti 29.

Diana and I woke up at 4:10am on Saturday morning and were on the road by 4:35. It was a three hour trip to the start point in Two Harbors and I wanted to make sure that I gave myself enough time to get there, settle in, double check everything and roll out. The traffic was good (nonexistent)  and we got to the lot a little before 7:30.

The forecast had changed some and the weather was looking good for at least the first few hours. I was very happy to have a nice start to what I knew would eventually be a very tough day.

The race started off at and we were going down the snowmobile trail at about 18mph from where I started. I noticed there was more people than usual pulled off to the side early in the race with flats, and a lot of them happened to be wearing Ski Hut jerseys. I wonder if they had a bad batch of tubes? Things got a little congested at parts so I just sat back and enjoyed the scenery until we hit the open road. Shortly after a big paceline zoomed by me and I caught up with them and sat in/traded pulls for the next 11 or so miles. There was a good 2 mile stretch where I think we probably averaged 25mph.

From there it was a hard left back on to some really grass snowmobile trail. While the people with CX bike really struggled, The 29er got through just about everything. I was passing a lot of people and feeling good.
From there it was a bunch of small climbs with long flats intermixed.

At the 3 hour mark it started to sprinkle and the closer we got to Duluth the harder it started coming down. Once we hit Lester Road pavement it was a downpour. My shoes started feeling soggy and I had to zip up my rain jacket. At the bottom of 7 Bridges Road the rain let up a bit and I knew that the 60 mile checkpoint would be coming up soon. It was a bit of a climb, but it was manageable. I kept hoping that there would be some place to get out of the rain at the checkpoint. I needed a mental break from it.

The checkpoint had all of our bags in the garage and a few pop up tents to stand under. Diana was there and offered up a little moral support. I swapped out my water bottles, put a Red Bull in my pocket along with some beef jerky and drank a bottle of water. Foolishly I didn't grab at least one more powerbar. It was about a 10 minute break and I was back on the road head for Two Harbors.

I started out feeling ok, but after about 20 minutes I was feeling pretty tired and shitty. I slowed my pace, ate an entire bar and downed some powerade and just kept the legs spinning. There is almost certainly going to be dark points in a 100 mile race, you just have to tell yourself that it will end and you will start feeling good again. The ability to do that is what separates the finishers from the DNFers.

With about 30 some miles to go there was little downhill and I put it in a big gear and pedaled hard. It felt good. I didn't feel tired anymore and my legs felt strong. I was moving at a good pace and was mentally feeling 100 times better. It was still raining, but I had just become accustomed to it. At the 80 mile point there were some great volunteers with water and coca-cola. I drank half a coke and was on my way.

I just kept going hard. At about the 90 mile mark we were back on the snowmobile trail. I once again passed about 6 people. It was a little muddy but nothing bad. When I got out of the trail there was maybe 8 miles left? I knew that the people I had passed were clearly faster on the roads than me so I would have to push pretty hard to keep in front of them. The final service road to the finish had a lot of puddles and rocks so I thought that would give me a bit of an advantage. I kept looking over my shoulder about every half mile to see if anyone was closing in. With 2 miles to go I saw someone about 300 yards back. I just started mashing the pedals as hard as I could and I never saw anyone again.

I finished in 7 hours 7 minutes. Good enough for 37th out of 200. I am pretty happy with that time. It was not an easy course. After the race I just tried to change and get warm as fast as possible.

Not my best look

I wanted to stick around for a bit to watch other people come in, but with the cold and rain it wasn't going to happen. I am very pleased to report that everyone from our group finished.

It was a great time again this year and I am very happy to be a part of the race. Thanks to Jeremy and all of the volunteers for putting together a great event that is nothing like the other 100 mile gravel races. It is truly a unique course and a great way to cap off the end of the gravel racing season (for me).

Not great either...