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I love fall.
We had a quick trip up north to attend my company picnic. We had a super nice cabin on Namekogan Lake. Carrie and I headed up on Sunday to make it to dinner out with most of our staff. Afterwords, there was cribbage until fairly late. As we were "camping", I was up before the sun and wandered down to the water to see the sun start to show.
After some breakfast, Dan and I shot round of golf. Really nice course. A little tricky, as I haven't played much, but beautiful golfing. And with that, it was about time to pack up and come home. Not a single minute on the bicycle. It was a little strange, and I did have a small tang in my brain, telling me to get on the bike, but I don't have any regrets. I am liking the small distance away from the bike.
We have an anniversary weekend planned and I am borrowing a new camera from my cousin. I can hardly wait to try it out and evaluate it for what will hopefully be an upcoming purchase for me.
This morning Dan and I went on a ride with some other industry folk. It was a small group (5 this morning) that do some urban off road riding at various places around the cities. There was a nice mix of a couple cyclocross, couple mountain (one being my 3 speed XO-2), and a 29r. As we had to work at 10, we rode the somewhat off road trails along river road, to Ft Snelling, and then Dan and I turned north while the others sought further adventure.
I don't ride with very many different people and I was reminded of why this morning. Although I didn't have any problems with how these folks rode (a common issue with me), it was the talk of some that bugged me. I have a hard time competing with people as I don't really care how I stack up to others. So it ends up that I listen to a lot of what other people speak at me. And a lot of time, it isn't anything that they should be sharing.
But the riding was great. It was the second time in a couple of weeks that the XO-2 was out and I even received a very nice complement; "I like your bike". No drooling over this or that, just a simple "nice ride" is music to my ears. Thanks Dave.
As I stayed a little late to work on a repair after work, I left the shop around 7 PM. Not moving too fast, after a full days worth of work and a little longer morning commute, I realized that the sun was setting around the time I would be crossing the Hamline pedestrian bridge. I picked up the pace, but was a little late. I was still able to capture some images, and I think this one is the best. I like the way the amazing color is offset by all the industry of cables, towers, and buildings. A little ironic.
Have a great Labor Day. Labor away!! Wait, I guess don't labor. Think about labor. But don't labor over it.
I just ran across this wonderful new product this morning. While I appreciate the use of the White Industries hubs, this is one of the stupidest marketing launches I have seen yet. I suppose for those who want to show off their bike and make it look "cool", this would work. But for a bicycle to be locked up and not worried about, missed. For a bike you can maybe true the wheel without taking the tire tube and rim strip off, missed. Or for general abuse and neglect, missed. They say they are to be strong because they are used for "pro athlete race wheels", which are never a true test for a product. They get ridden hard, but not in real world conditions. Good for selling race wheels, not everyday, round town wheels. True I haven't ridden these wheels, but I guarantee my 32h wheels will last longer.
Just couldn't help myself.
I rarely buy stuff without a little research. But last week I saw a blurb about a new product from Dahon and I decided I should try it right away. Enter the ReeCharge. Peter White has had a product similar to this for a while, but it costs quite a bit more and needed a secondary caching battery to use with a phone and such.
This battery unit is very much self contained. There is a regulator that hooks up to a hub dynamo, and then the battery unit itself. Plug your phone, or mp3 player, or GPS unit, or laptop, or whatever else you wish to charge, and you are good to go. I haven't actually hooked it up to my hub yet, but right away it seems like it is going to be a nice accessory for uber long bike rides.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the ReeCharge came with adapters for a bunch of different electronic devices; Nokia, Samsung, Apple, and then more generic mini USB. Even an EU plug in! The device is super easy with a plug in to charge the battery and a plug to charge your devices. There are some decent covers to keep it somewhat water resistant and the strapping should make it mountable almost anywhere. I'll probably write some more about this after I have used it for a while.
Now I am starting to crave my new Droid I ordered. My current phone is not nearly as power hungry as the new one will be, so it will be interesting to see how this keeps it going. In the meantime, I will use it for as many different devices I have. Not being super into electronic stuff, I am a little limited. But I think I can get the gist.
All of last week was spent working the MS TRAM. It is a ton of fun, getting me out of the shop but still working on bikes, and raises money for a great cause. The days are VERY long and it takes a lot out of me after 5 days of it. This year I came back on Friday and then had to work on Saturday. No time to settle and ease back into normal life.
I then followed that up with riding the Tour de Loren on Sunday. This is an urban century ride 
that one of my customers has put on for the past 7 years. He goes waaaaay over the top, using 2 cars for support vehicles, hosting 3 rest stops, q sheets, t-shirts, and a party after. All just to gather up people he knows to go riding. It is an amazing time. The ride was really stepped up with the addition of a Mavic neutral support car. One of our normal riders couldn't ride due to a broken bone, so he was willing to follow us around all day. I'm not bragging, but I know some very neat people.
So now it is the start of a new week. Back to work and time to start settling down a touch. My basement is overwhelmed with piles everywhere from last week, and there is a lot of work to be done beyond just cleaning.
The entire point of riding to Duluth this past weekend was to hang out at Fitgers, something Dan has wanted to do for some time. We had to make a quick stop at Pizza Luce to grab Dan's credit card from the night before. Screaming down the streets of Duluth was excellent! I wouldn't mind heading up there to just ride around some. Finally arriving at Fitgers was a welcome treat. We grabbed a table and started in on lunch. Beers were already on the table by the time I made it inside, but I decided to start out with a bloody mary. I have to say the beer chaser was better tasting. I wasn't feeling the greatest at this point, yesterday's ride still doing a number on my stomach. I opted to not finish the last couple bites of my burger and we hit the streets of Duluth.
Having been on the bikes enough for the weekend, we left them locked up at Fitgers and walked a while. Being Sunday and the Fourth, we didn't find a lot of things open until we hit Canal St. We headed into Hell's Burger as they had a happy hour special going. I couldn't muster the thought of alcohol into my stomach, so I chose a couple glasses of lemonade. I had been craving it for a while, and it turned me around. After those had settled a touch, I felt amazingly better. The power of the fruit! Unfortunately, Rich didn't have any lemonade. He was struggling a bit with the sleep deprivation. At this point, some people next to us at the bar commented: "I think your friend's dead!"
I think the low part of the day was our stop at Grandma's. People were a little confused heading in, Dan downstairs and everyone else upstairs. Dan ordered drinks at his bar, and we as well up at our table. Short lived confusion led to a couple tall beers, Jameson shots, and one frothy margarita. I don't have to go back there. We did get a call from Alex saying she was a little early (about an hour) so we drank up and hit the boardwalk.
There are a few things I am not proud of. I have lived in MN for twelve years and I have yet to enter the BWCA (horror!). Nor had I set any body part in Lake Superior. Somehow this was mentioned on our walk back and we had to rectify that. Dan was obviously feeling good at this point, as he plunged right into the lake. Then we convinced Joe that his Batman underwear were perfectly suitable for swimming. Good times.
We met up with our saviors at Fitgers and of course had to have a couple more beers. Packing up the cars was interesting. Loading 5 bicycles, a trailer and all our crap into two fairly small cars was quite the challenge. Fortunately only a small amount of disassembly was required and we turned our faces south. I was surprised how much of the trip back I stayed awake. I'm usually good for crashing hard in the car, but I had to sneak another couple pics of bobbing heads. I did crash hard once my head hit the pillow.
All-in-all it was a fabulous weekend. I doubt I will ever recall any of the haikus I composed. A couple were halfway decent. Although, I was under the influence of heat, or lack of sleep, or booze, or some weird combination.
My coworker Dan is getting married next weekend. Unfortunately, my mother also chose to be ordained that same weekend. Family always wins. So it is that I cannot attend the wedding and felt it absolutely necessary to ride to Duluth with Dan and some friends for a bachelorish party weekend.
We left Saturday morning and as always when trying to gather 6 people together and roll out, we left about 30 minutes after we wished. We picked up a 7th part way through the cities and all headed out north. We have done this Duluth trip many times in the past, but always with the design of riding up and back, stopping only for snacks along the way and breakfast in Duluth (we usually leave in the evening to get the darkness out of the way). This time it would be different as we were loaded for camping overnight in Duluth.
We were fortunate enough to have Ken ride with us as far as Hugo. After breakfast, he pealed off, having to buck a pretty good headwind for the return ride home. Down to 6, we continued north. Our progress was slowed somewhat in Forest Lake as we had to maneuver our way through a parade. I am still kicking myself for not taking any pictures. A quick stop for some cool drinks in North Branch and to say goodbye to Michael and it was the long stretch of highway to Hinckley. We were moving at a pretty slow pace, even with a strong tailwind. Too many stops and general lolly gagging was starting to make this into one of the hardest Duluth rides yet.
After lunch in Hinckley (a very good i
dea) we hit the Munger Trail. There was some serious miles left and we put it to the pedals. The stopping was kept to a minimum and the pace was kept up and we found ourselves climbing up to the campground at Spirit Mountain around 10:15. Unfortunately, that was not enough time to make it to Fitgers (our ultimate destination) before the kitchen closed. So we called a cab to take us to Pizza Luce. A few cold beers sure felt nice, but after 160 miles of hot, humid riding, we were buzzing and sleepy very quickly. There was barely any talk when we made it back to camp. Everyone crawled into their bunks and crashed hard.
(a present from the trail gods)
I awoke Sunday morning not sure if I was going to ride home, or hang out with people in Duluth. I was still quite tired from the day before so I figured I would see how breakfast went and take it from there. No sooner had I poured my first cup of coffee and the rain started. And it really rained. We took shelter under an overhang at the bathrooms and made our plan of riding into Duluth to wait for our rides to come fetch us. The rain only lasted for roughly 30 minutes and we soon were cranking our way slowly toward Duluth proper. None of us are from that area, so we grabbed a map at a convenience store and decided to ride Skyline Parkway all the way into town.
Anyone familiar with the layout of Duluth, knows that it has the steepest streets in MN. They aren't that long, but there are some VERY steep ones. And of course, anytime you are talking about Skyline anything, you know there are going to be some hills involved. It was spectacular. We all felt good on our bikes (I'm sure because we knew we didn't have to be one them for 15 hours) and we just enjoyed the morning. Stopping to check out the views, taking a dip in a small swimming hole, and soaking in the now beautiful morning. And the day was just getting started.
