The Farm (Updated 9/28)

My family has a piece of property about a hour and a half north of the cities. I think that it has been in the family for a little over a hundred years now. My Great Grandfather bought 40 acres of land and began to farm it. He quickly realized that he was not making as much money as he would have liked and quit to pursue other endeavors. As time went on he bought surrounding properties and there is now 280 acres of land. There are two good sized fields, lots of woods, and a river that runs through. It is a good place to go deer hunting and that is about it right now... Everything else to do with the property is work. There is always something that needs to be fixed or updated, but it keeps my Grandpa and Dad busy so that is good.

1953(?) Farmall Super M

Today's project is building a large shed that will house the above tractor and some other odds and ends. Three years ago my Dad restored another old Farmall and enjoyed it so much he decided to do it again. He says that this one has "Live" hydraulics so you can use the hydraulics while you are driving rather than having to come to a stop. It also has a wide base on the front rather than the narrow base on his other tractor.



 

Two trusses up.

When I got up there in the morning the walls were already up and the trusses were built. We had to lift the trusses up on to the frame, stand them up and put the supports across from one to the other. My Grandpa being an old Honeywell engineer is very meticulous with how things must be done and in what order. There is no convincing him to deviate from his plan. Sometimes this proves to be frustrating, but today everything went together very smoothly. No CAD  needed, just a pencil and a few pieces of graphing paper.

Getting there.

After we had everything up it was time for me to go up top and start screwing down the roofing. This is where having a nice drill comes into play. I have a cordless Ryobi that is adequate for small projects around the house, but is heavy and the battery life isn't great. My Dad brought his DeWalt with and it worked great. It was light, powerful and the battery lasted. The only issue that we ran into was the metal getting too hot. My shoes started to slip and I couldn't put my hands down because it would burn. There was one point where I though I was stuck sitting down and started to slowly slip down. I wasn't real worried because it was only about an eight foot drop, but I managed to get up and back to the peak where I could put a foot on each side. I screwed in the top, and they screwed in the bottom for the remainder of the day. I need to go back there and finish screwing it down in the middle.

From the inside.




From the outside



Done for the day.



At the end of the day we got everything accomplished that we set out to do and no one got hurt! It is fun working on projects where things are planned out properly and everything goes the way it should.





59 Cadillac



Side story. This is a 59 Cadillac DeVille that my Great Grandpa drove. It is the last year the they put the wings on the back and has the first stereo that you could preset the stations. He was t-boned by a drunk driver in Mora where the Vasaloppet statue sits in 1964 and there the car has sat since.

It is smashed in pretty good on the other side. There is no doubt that if the same thing happened today he would have been crushed to death. Instead, he had a few bumps and bruises and walked away relatively unscathed. 

Gents Ride

I wanted to do this race for a while but getting a team together proved harder than I thought. The week before I had no team and just planned on going down and enjoying the ride. On Tuesday I got an email about being on a team and decided to go for it. When I got to Spring Valley in the morning I met up with my team and we made our way to the start line across the street. We started out at a good pace with all of us riding together at a comfortable pace. With a little leapfrogging we made our way to Preston together. They wanted to stop at the store, but I hate stopping so I continued on at a slightly slower pace. It is hard to ride slow with all the rollers on the course. You either have to hammer up a hill or coast down it. It was cold and windy and all I could think of was this video:



 I arrived at the checkpoint where there was water, coke, cured meats, cheese, the works really. Shortly after I stopped my teammates arrived as well. We hung out for about 10 minutes and then got back on the road. I decided to  snap a few pictures with the day old iPhone 5 before we left though.



35 miles to go.



The climb out of Forrestville State Park is always tough because your legs are not quite back into riding yet. I managed to climb every hill until the 92? mile mark. This Oriole hill is a pain i the ass at this point. truth be told, I don't know if I could climb it if it were at mile 5. Anyway, I got to the top and rode the rest of the way back to the finish. 99.7 miles. This felt like my best gravel race yet. I never went to a dark, f this, place or didn't want to be on the course anymore. The clock however would show that I was 8 minutes slower than in May. I analyzed some data and am still baffled by this, but hey, the clock doesn't lie.

I had a great time and am looking forward to the 2013 Almanzo/Gentlemans Ride.

The panoramic shot is not easy to take

It looks a little hazy, but the day was beautiful.

Recap

Family evening ride to the city.

Work is going well, but keeps me away from posting updates. The last thing I want to do when I get home is sit in front of the computer again. Maybe I should start writing my updates at work. Anyway, August was a fun month. We went to the Wisconsin Dells for a weekend and had a great time. I've also been riding my bike to work so that helps me get that in without taking time away from the kids. I got in about 430 miles for August, I am happy with that.

DT Stillwater

Yesterday I went on a river ride with Josh, Ben, and Marty. We started just outside Cannon Falls on the Cannon Falls river and rode our fat bikes through the river until Welch where we had lunch and took the Cannon Valley trail back to the cars. It started out so so, but after some experimentation you can really see what these bikes are capable of. There were times my handle bars were underwater and I was still pedaling along. Those guys took a bunch of pictures and video that I will link to later. All in all it was a great day.

This month I am riding in the Heck of the North in Duluth and am going to try and get on a team for the gentleness ride in Spring Valley.

I'll try and update more and take some pictures, because a blog without pictures is pretty lame.

Rora checking out the bikes at the fair

Out.

There hasn't been much going on this summer. Just riding my bike around and that's about it. No races, no weekend trips, nothing note worthy. What I have been doing is working and it can be a real pain in the ass. I've been on about 11 interviews in the past month and a half. It is a process that I hate so much.  Not the interview itself, but the runaround that follows afterward. Everyone takes forever to get back to you and it gets real nerve racking. The average wait time seems to be three weeks. So I got notified that I had gotten a position at US Bank in downtown St. Paul in the administrative services unit closing out Trusts. I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork and then wait almost a week to get fingerprinted to make sure that I am not a criminal. The day I did the fingerprinting I found out that I got an interview at Prime Therapeutics for the following Wednesday. So I started at US Bank and everyone there was really cool and welcoming. It was an alright job, but I could see that I would be bored with it after a few months. I went to the Prime interview and things went well. I got a call that Friday that I had gotten the position at Prime and I was very excited because the pay was almost double that of US Bank. It brought a sense of relief that I wasn't going to have to struggle to make ends meet and that I would be able to get back to be able to go do shit that I wanted to do. I needed to go to some training the following Monday so I had to let US Bank know that I was not coming back. They were not too happy about it, but you have to look out for number one. US Bank wasn't exactly looking out for me either... So this past week I went to training which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Now I have this coming week off and start full time at Prime on the 6th. I am really looking forward to it. It seems like a great place to work. I still have 2 interviews pending but unless they make me a GREAT offer, I will be staying at Prime.

The Strava

The Strava App (or website) has become pretty popular amongst road and mountain bikers. It is a good way to log your miles and the website has turned me on to some big hills in the area that I was unaware of, and that's about it.

The one feature that I have come to dislike is the King of the Mountain (KOM). At first I thought that it was cool that I could "race" against local strangers and compare times, but this has proven to be almost pointless. Sure, I am the "King" of this hill or that hill, but that only includes the small group of Strava users. I have never finished in the top 30 of a big (100+ people) race so how could I even begin to think that I am the fastest up a particular hill? I've also never been in a true road race and if I was I bet I'd be even further back once I reached my expected category.

I also don't like that people make downhill KOM's, or even flats for that matter. You can't go on the website without seeing orange lines all over the map. The other thing that gets me is when people make the same hill into several different KOM's. Take this hill in South Saint Paul for example:

There are 3 different routes, all up the same hill that vary by .1 mile. Are the users who created the 2nd and 3rd segments bitter that they didn't get the KOM so they tweaked it slightly so that they would?

I think that Strava needs to make a few tweaks to its KOM formula. In order to create a KOM the route should have to exceed a formula of distance vs. grade. I am sure this is how Cat. 4 and above climbs are measured, but they could just drop the scoring down a bit.

I'll still continue to use Strava to track my miles and so that I have the ability on group rides to yell at people to go faster because they are "Screwing up my Strava time." But as far as the KOMs go, I'll just assume that there is a non-Strava user who commutes to work and crushes my times on a daily basis.

Lame

My time on the bike since the Almanzo has been rather blah to say the least. I got in a few rides here and there, but nothing great. I took the Gary Fisher out a week ago and broke my XO derailleur in two and bent the hanger. I had to order a new hanger and I'll either have to put the stock X.7 back on, or take the X.9 off the Pugsley. Either way, this fucking sucks.

The Wednesday night group ride was fun. There was a double rainbow and the threat of rain kept the group moving at a swift pace.

I think this is my "road ride" year. I just can't get that into MTB. I don't know if its from too many laps or that I can ride about twice as far on the road as I can on the trails and I'd rather get the miles in.

This past Saturday Tom, Porter, Todd, and I set out on a three trail bike tour. We knew it was going to be hot, but didn't anticipate the humidity that well. We hit 95% of B.C. which proved to be much more humid at 9am than I have ever experienced. I was sweating quite a bit about 3 miles in and hoped that it wouldn't continue. As we made our way towards Carver I started to feel better and getting more warmed up. The two laps at Carver felt pretty good and I was ready to head out to Afton. The ride out there felt great despite the wind and we made it there rather quickly. Once at Afton I could really feel the heat coming on and fatigue was starting to set in a bit. As we started on the trail (Which I was very poorly geared for; 2:1)  I could tell in the first few switchback climbs that I wasn't going to be making a lot of climbs out there. I toughed it out and only walked parts of Manhandler and Shady Lane so that was a small moral victory. By the time we finished the lap I was so exhausted that I decided to accept Tom's offer of a ride home. It was a tough decision, but when I thought about the plans for the evening I didn't want to be exhausted and piss off the GF.  We ended up riding a little over 38 miles in 80-95 degrees. Not too shabby, but I think I need to get in one more long ride before the Cheq 100.

Windy City Heat

I had a pretty good week riding. I got back on the dirt Wednesday and rode a little bit of BC, over to Carver, and then back through BC again. I like this route. I get in about 20-25 miles and throw in a few extra hills on the way over to Carver.

I didn't ride again until Sunday. I really wanted to do the Chippewa Valley Century, but it was just not in the cards for me. I managed to get in a decent 40 mile ride in the wind and heat. This was also the first time that I rode my road bike in about a year. I really don't like that thing. Long term I hope to get a more gravel friendly frame and fork and just move the components over.

Today I went out for a 59 mile ride with the plan of winning some KOMs on Strava. There were a few segments where I was close to the top and knew that if I were to ever take the road bike out I would have a very good chance and getting the top spot. The first section of Upper Afton was going great and then I looked up and saw Eddie stopped, yelling at me from his truck so I stopped to chat with him real quick. The second Upper Afton hill was going pretty good as well until I got a phone call that I had to take, so there went that segment. Finally I got to the third Upper Afton segment and put the hammer down. I thought I was going to have to downshift at some point but it never happened. I ended up taking that KOM by four seconds (EDIT: I just got an email that I lost it by a second). That was the only one that I would get though. I had some decent times but the wind today was just brutal. Riding in Afton was windy as shit and I don't think I've ever had a harder time riding 12 miles.

I'm not completely sold on the gears thing. It's great for flats, no doubt, but I think I am a better climber on the SS. The gears allow you to slack off, the SS has no mercy. I'm sure I'll continue to mix it up a bit.

I have to get in a little more MTB with the Cheq 100 coming up in 4 weeks. I need to get to Leb to work on the technical skills a bit so I can keep a good time through Rock Lake. After that there is not too much technical stuff. Like I've said before, I can't decide which race I like more, the Ragnarok or the Cheq 100 but both are always an awesome time. I might have to go with the Cheq this year because it ends at the River's Eatery in Cable and they have great pizza and beer. I especially like this place since we showed up after close last year and the guy fired up the oven and made us a great post ride meal. This year I'll get there much sooner and I'm not driving back to the cabin. Troy and I will leave that up to one of the 62 milers.