Adventure time... Part 1.

Last week was the Nerstrand trip and boy was it a lot of fun.

Weather was beginning to concern me but it ended up not being as bad as I thought. I went to Brian's place with all the gear and we figured out who was carrying what. He had prepared breakfast burritos and they were delicious. I went back and loaded up my bike and he met me where I was. It started raining as soon as he showed up and we headed out. It would rain the entire way.

My rig all loaded up.

Brian and the bikes.

The trek was pretty easy through Minneapolis and into Apple Valley. It wasn't raining too hard and luckily I had purchased a rain jacket the night before from work. We had a tail wind and the first 25 miles were easy. We stopped at a CVS to utilize the bathroom and I took the opportunity to stretch and snack on some munchies to hopefully warm up. The more we stood around the colder I got. When we were ready to leave Brian's front tire was flat. He changed the tube, used his frame pump to pump up the tire, and then ripped the valve core out of the stem and the tire went flat again. He changed that tube out and I let him use one of my Co2 cartridges and we were off to get some warm coffee.

Pee break.

Look at that handsome guy.



So we went into Farmington and right about at mile 30 we hit Dunn Bros and stopped for some nice hot coffee. If you are ever heading through Farmington you need to stop here. The manager was super friendly and offered to refill our water bottles and even gave us a Dunn Bros water bottle. We also had some random fellow stop and ask where we were headed and if we needed to crash in a warm house for the night. At first I was kind of creeped out but then he mentioned he was with adventure cycling and it all came into focus. So we drank our coffee and headed out. It started raining a bit harder at this point as I became thoroughly soaked after that.

Coffee to warm the soul.

I was trying to photobomb his selfie, little did I know he was trying to get me in there anyway.

The ride between Farmington was farm land and the roads were rolling hills. The tail wind picked up and we were moving along at a good clip, most of the time it was over 20 miles an hour, I was impressed at our bikes going that fast with all that gear and handling as good as they did. So ten miles of that and we were in Northfield. We were both famished and we stopped at a local diner called The Quarter Back club. If you are passing through Northfield and looking for some cheap eats, the food is pretty decent for the price and you get a lot of it. I pretty much inhaled my food and then felt sick from eating way too much. So now cold and sick I was eager to get to camp. The rain was till coming down pretty good and I was getting fatigued from being cold and wet. So we headed to the beverage store and got some beverages. We then checked with Google for the nearest grocery store. It was about a mile in the opposite direction that we needed to go. I made the call to skip it because I had some bike food with me, it was a bad decision. Another 17 miles of biking in head winds, off the side of a horrible highway and we finally arrived at the entrance to the camp. I thought I saw a dead body, but it was the rib cage of a decaying deer. It scared the hell out of me.

So we finally got to camp and got the tent set up and then it stopped raining. Once we had everything situated we headed out to find the showers. We found them, there was hot water, it was life changing. After the shower we headed back to camp with a bundle of fire wood and tried to get a fire going. It was a major fail. We were also really hungry and I had not really packed as many cliff bars and such as I thought I did. So we pigged out on some trail mix and called it a night. Mistake number two happened before we even set out on the trip, we had no sleeping bags. I did not expect it to dip down into the low thirties over night. We spent the entire night not sleeping and freezing our collective asses off. It made for an interesting second day.

We had an inappropriate knick name for that lower shower head, I'll let you guess what it was.

(To be continued...)

Dear Diary

Life back at the bike shop is good. I'm staying busy and having a lot of fun, even more fun than last summer.

The ol' bike camping trip is rapidly approaching. Since school has been out I've been at the bike shop nearly every day. I am getting a little tired but the three days of booze consumption, sunshine, fires, and bike riding should be good for recharging my batteries. I bought this collapsible cooler from REI and I hope it works out. The plan is to go to the campsite, dump our gear, then head back to town and pick up booze and "food", though that would be a lot of riding for one day. We'll see what happens though, nothing is set in stone, which is the best part. I picked up some trail mix and food stuffs for the journey, as well as peanut butter and honey fixings. The last time we went we had no back up food and by morning I was starving and it was about 10 miles of rolling hills to get to the nearest food source. I vowed to not let that happen again.

In other news, I have figured out what bike I am going to get this year. First I decided I was going to get a road bike. In my current situation, being so far from everything, a road bike just makes more sense, plus I really just want to get some more miles under my belt. Once that decision was made I had to make a choice on which road bike I want. My first thought was to go with the CAAD 10 with SRAM Rival. I have Rival on the Cross Check and it works well, but if I am going to have a road bike I want to have a nicer group set, so I figured the cost of buying the bike and upgrading to SRAM Red, and the cost came out to about as much as it would cost me to buy a Supersix Evo with SRAM Red already on it. I have always thought that I would probably not own a carbon fiber bike, but after test riding a handful of really nice plastic bikes, my mind was changed. The Cannondale guys were out last week and I rode the bike I wanted and holy smokes it was nice. I acquired the money to buy said bike and when I went to check availability on them, they are out and there is no ETA on when they will be in stock. Well poop!

Then my new boss was talking to me about the new Ultegra di2 electronic shifting. I tried out a Madone we had with it, wow that is nice. Okay so I looked at the Cannondale with di2 on it, meh, the specs on it are not very impressive really. It comes with their Cannondale "hollowgram" crank set, which I am not really impressed with, not to mention everything I read said you want to use an Ultegra crank set for ultimate performance from your di2, so why would I want to spend more to have to upgrade the crank set any way? Well, in short, I don't. That is about the time I just happened too look at the 2013 Trek 5.9 Madone. Shit yes. It is still very light, even better riding than the Cannondale, better wheel set than the Ultegra tubeless, and the full Ultegra package and I can get it for less. That is a no brainer. So, my bike for this year is going to be a 5.9 Madone. My goal is to get my commute from home to work down to less than an hour. Even if it is 59 minutes I will be happy. Plus I would like to be able to ride 40 miles without feeling like I am about to die, not from being out of shape, but because my Cross Check is just so damn heavy.

The last thing I have had on my mind is my knee problems. I know that whenever the hell my new shoes come in, that will take care of some of the issues. I got re-fit yesterday and we made some adjustments that felt pretty good, but the boss was also telling me that I should stretch my feet. I have never actually heard of this but it sounds like a very legit idea, plus the man has been in the industry 10 years more than me so I shall take his advice. One other thing that I have been toying with the idea of is cadence. I know for a fact I do not generally pedal at a very efficient cadence and I am willing to bet that if I were to start doing so that it would help alleviate some of my knee pain. I am a pedal masher, I've always been, but I think it might be catching up with me. I need to start riding correctly. Funny story, cadence also influenced my decision to get the Madone. Trek put that "duotrap" in the chain stay on their bikes and it just makes the sensors so much more clean, instead of having that stupid thing zip tied to the chain stay. At any rate, I am hoping to start working on that stuff when I get the new bike, which should be early next month.

My riding recently has been sparse and very random. Just a lot of short-ish 15 - 20 mile rides around Maple Grove. I really have not been taking a lot of photos. I will be taking plenty on the camping trip next week so look out for those.

Be good out there.

Looking towards the future.

Looking out my window it is grey and rainy. I don't buy that it is going to snow but stranger things have happened.

I have been eagerly planning my first little camping tour for the season, It will be from May 22nd to the 24th. The route I am thinking about is from Minneapolis to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park. It is roughly 60 miles one way. My plan is to load up and head out in the morning. I'll probably catch lunch in Farmington as it is the half way point. Then I'll have to make a stop in Northfield to pick up some food for dinner/breakfast and lets not forget the booze. I would like to spend the next day exploring the area and relaxing/drinking. Tentatively I would head out in the AM but the reality is that it will probably be closer to noon. I am pretty damn excited. I had a lot of fun on the last one and it was one of the things that helped me make it through the long winter. My goal this year is to try and do at least one of these a month throughout the summer. Right now I am making an experimental gear list. I am also working out the route and making cue cards so we don't get lost like last time. I will admit that getting lost last time was part of the fun, but I'll also have fun sitting at the camp roasting a marshmallow and crushing a cold beer.

I've also been thinking about my bike purchase for the year. There are so many fun bikes out there right now that I would not mind having. I am trying to figure out what I would use the most and make my purchase accordingly. Right now I am kind of leaning towards a road bike. My thought on this is that I could use it for both commuting when I wanted to get somewhere quick and I could ride it recreationally. As far as road bikes go I am thinking about two specifically. It has come down to a Cannondale CAAD 10 or a Trek Domane. I really like the Cannondale CAAD 10 and it really likes to get up and go, but the Domane is just so damned comfey and is also super stiff and thus also likes to go. Obviously the biggest thing between the two is one is aluminum and the other carbon. I am still not 100% sure I want to own a carbon bicycle. I don't feel like I am careful enough. The other type of bike I am leaning towards is a mountain bike. Something like a Flash from Cannondale. It is a hard tail with the lefty fork on the front. I will never fully utilize a full suspension mountain bike so I don't need one. The problem with this is I can only think of one use for this bike. It is a great riding bike, I tested it last year at Murphy Hanrehan and it was boss. It ate up the rock gardens, the suspension was super stiff and worked great, and the wheels stayed in contact with the ground even with all the little bumps so it felt really fast. I am just not sure I need a mountain bike right now, I don't do a lot of single track, I like single track, I just don't find myself drawn to it as much.

School is pretty much done right now so I'll be going back to the bike shop full time next week. I am excited to jump back into the fray and do what I love. This job is the best job I've ever had and I could see myself there for a long time. I am almost done with school for good so this will probably be my last summer at the shop unless I have a hard time finding a job after college, which I don't think is really going to be a problem. I wish I could stay in the industry somehow but bike industry jobs are far and few between and are highly coveted so it would be a pretty hard sell to get into one of them. Not a big deal, I am sure I will love where I end up at. I just have never had this kind of experience at a job before in my entire life.

Well hopefully this weather clears up soon. I already miss those 70 and 60 degree days.