13 miles, 2.5 hours = complete bliss

Met up with nine others at Big Creek this morning to try and ride he snowmobile trails again. Brothers in crime included Sumpter, Blackford, Bach, Webb, Sedore, Resse, Bennett, Benson, and Squirrel. Squirrel, Bach and I met up with Sumpter and Blackford at 10 bells. Everyone else was running a bit behind. The trails were not as packed down as any of us had hoped, and the first sections of the trails were very difficult to ride on.

After meeting up with Rick and Sumpter the Pugsley Riding Bastard, and letting my heart rate drop down below 175, we rode back on the road and met up with everyone else. Everyone else was not all that thrilled about riding on the snow trails, but by this time I had dropped the tire pressure on my Nanoraptors down so low that the sidewalls were wrinkling when we were on the paved roads. While everyone else stood around and tried to figure out a plan, I blew through and onto the next section of snowmobile trail. THIS was now completely different. kept it in the 24x32 and just started motoring forward. With the trails not being rutted by the others I was able to keep flying along. Rick and Sumpter caught up to me, and we spent some time riding around on the lake. After meeting up with the rest of the crew, we split up, with Blackford and Sumpter heading for home, and Squirrel off riding the pavement and gravel around the lake. We spent the next hour or so riding the trails, and either pushing or riding bikes across a couple of hay fields. Oddly, riding in bottom bracket and hub deep fresh snow was easier than riding the snowmobile trails. We finished off the mornings ride with some pavement and gravel back to the parking lot. After getting home and snagging a quick shower, I quickly noticed the day's effort in my quads and hamstrings. We weren't moving fast, but it took a lot of work just to keep moving.

Track of today's ride is here.

Big Creek Ride - Saturday @ 9 AM

We're riding the snowmobile trails up at Big Creek on Saturday morning. Meeting at the main entrance by the dam. Should be good times. Will be good to get outside on the bike again.

Ugh

45 minutes on the trainer tonight... might as well pound a spike into my head. I'm riding outside tomorrow.

Here we go...

Thanks to the timely prompting of Cornbread, I am now registered for the 2009 running of the Dirty Kanza 200. For some reason I recall 2008's registration opening on Monday, so I assumed the day was the same this year. I owe Cornbread a beer or two for the assist. :) I've been perusing the list of registrants today, and it looks like we're going to have a good number of Iowa riders in attendance. For some reason the Nebraska crew is still missing Matt Gersib. What's going on MG?

Shenanigans

This photo sums up today's ride fairly well. Kyle, Taylor, Bruce, Kurt, Jordan, Brad and I left my house around 10:30 AM for a planned gravel ride. Kyle called me at 8 to ask if we were still going. The 6" of snow we received overnight had a few people wondering if we were still going to ride. I had planned on heading out for a ride today, whether it was urban or rolling on gravel. I took a few minutes to scope out the situation just west of my house. The east-west gravel looked great, but the north-south sections were definitely going to take some work to get through. Once everyone arrived, we settled on heading towards Dallas Center to start, and then figuring out our plan from there. We had a NW wind for the ride out. Between the wind, the first shenanigans stop and some mechanical issues, we rolled into Dallas Center around noon. After a quick refuel at the Casey's, we decided to head back. We stopped at the big drift for some additional shots at drift busting glory, most of which resulted in summersaults over the handlebars and into the snow below. We pulled back into the driveway about 1:30, loaded up bikes, had a quick beer and parted ways. 3 hours of easy riding (save for a final push by Kyle, Brad and I), but a lot of fun and good times.

Ramping up

Been trying to get a little more consistent with riding now that the weather has taken a turn for the better. Got some post work urbana in with the squirrel, carlson, Rick, Conlan and the Gov'nor wednesday night. Icy bike trails and a cross bike without studs didn't mix well, so I decided to stick to streets for a good portion of the ride. Left work early to meet with a vendor a few blocks from the office, and then putted around in the area between Meredith, I-80 and Alice's road for a while. A little pavement, a little gravel, some light, some dark. All good times. 20 miles last night, 17 miles tonight.

Gravel ride leaving my place around 10:30 AM. 3 - 3.5 hours. Anyone reading this is welcome to come along. Take a ride, maybe meet up with the Drifters down on Ingersoll afterwards. Should be a good day.

Cold, Icy ride

Taylor Webb and I took off around 8 AM this morning for a gravel ride. I opened the garage door to be greeted by Taylor's smiling mug and a layer of grey as thick as a Londoner's wool coat. After deciding on my ride for the day (the SingleCross) we were off. The wind was out of the east and helped to push us north and east to Woodward in about 75 minutes. We took a quick warm up and food break at the Woodward Caseys and started our push back home. The legs that took us directly east wore on our legs. Thankfully they were interspersed with south or southeast sections, so we had some time to recover. We were greeted by freezing mist about a mile and a half north of Granger. We were riding in the mist or in snow for the rest of the ride. Our last leg back was two miles directly into the east headwind. At the end of that stretch our bikes and bodies were covered in a thin layer of ice. We pulled back into the driveway around 11 AM, with just over 38 miles behind us.

There were a number of other rides going off today at 10:30 AM, Noon and 2 PM. I'm curious how those ended up.

Garmin GPS Track

Starting 09 Right

I, and a number of other obsessed cyclists met this morning for the annual Degree Ride. This has been a traditional local New Year's Day ride for a number of years. A bunch of us meet at a local coffee shop and the distance for the ride is dictated by the temperature when we leave. If it's 0 or 100, we ride a century. Today's ride distance was 25 miles, and gave us a nice paved ride to Granger, Iowa and back. I think we had 25 people show up to take part. 'Cross and road bikes were the dominant choice, but a couple of hybrids and regular MTBs made the ride as well. I was expecting a few others to show up today, but evidently their plans changed, or they came up with some fantastic story about why they didn't make it. I swapped the regular tires back on the SingleCross, which gave me a 39x18 to use on the ride. After three or four miles of head winds, our group turned north. At this point, the geared riders were gone, leaving me to question my decision to stick with the 39 tooth front ring. The ride back was much better, with the quartering wind providing enough resistance to make me work, but not so much that I felt like I was dying. We finished the ride off with a few miles of tailwind on the way back to Starbucks. I had 30 miles for the day, including my ride to and from Starbucks.

This was the first ride after the fit, and it was just about the right length. I did notice some newly located soreness in my legs during and after the ride. Just my body's way of telling me that things have changed some. I have not adjusted the Singlecross's saddle position to match that of my Paramount yet. but I can tell that my legs are putting in a more even effort while I'm riding. I'll take some time tomorrow to raise the saddle on the Singlecross about another 1/4 to 1/2" and get the fore/aft position adjusted and that bike should be set.

I'm hoping to go out for a gravel ride sometime this weekend. Not sure how far, or where yet. Wonder if I should try and sneak a metric in early before my body knows what I'm doing?

While I'm here, I want to congratulate my friend Tom Anderson on finishing his Once-A-Month Gravel Century quest last night around 9 PM. Tom managed to get the last one in with just a few short hours remaining in 2008. Tom was feeling as bad or worse than I did during the first of the century rides we did together clear back in January. I'm happy that he was able to see his goal through to the finish.