Monday, February 12, 2024

Has Spring Sprung?

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Hard to believe that about a month ago we were riding in feet of the white fluffy stuff in temperatures so low that it hurt your face to be out in it for more than a few minutes unprotected.

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Fast forward to yesterday when we headed down to Marysville to ride with the Hoffmans at Backroads Bicycle. We went from every inch of skin needing to be covered up to wearing a jersey and vest yesterday. I'm usually a winter person over the sweltering heat and humidity of Nebraska summers but after the sub zero weeks this year, I am more than ready for warmer temps to stick around.

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The real question is, will the temperatures stay warm or is this just a lull before the cold returns? I did see geese flying north the other day which is usually a good sign that the worst of winter is over but living in the midwest is a lot like being on a Duncan Yo Yo. Temps this week start out in the 50s but drop down into the 30s by the end of the week only to rebound back into the 50s next week... Lindy Loop here we come! It is the Gravel Worlds Winter Endurance this Saturday so I suppose it would be befitting that the temps were more winter like than spring like.

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To be honest, I'd be okay with the temps doing their thing as long as the snow stays away. Roads are just now getting back to being good riding after a month or more of being very suspect if not unrideable and gravel season is just around the corner, seems like as it gets bigger and bigger the events are starting earlier in the year.

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Regardless if it stays warm or goes back to being cold, I hope you all got out and enjoyed the gravel this weekend because it was almost perfect.

 

Friday, January 12, 2024

Snow Where To Go

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Took a trip out to Fraser, CO during the week of Christmas when the temps were cold in Nebraska but we has yet to get any real snow accumulation. They had plenty up in the mountains of Colorado however so we took the Fat Bikes up and got in a little riding, not as much as we would have liked but with most of Jackie's immediate family up there with us there wasn't much time for too much riding.

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They do know how to do up the Christmas festivities up there though, the fireworks display on Christmas Eve is something to take in if you get a chance.

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Not to be out done, we did have a blizzard here in Nebraska the day before we drove back. That made travel a bit more interesting than it should have been. All that mostly melted by the time we got around to the Saturday ride last week but the temps were still chilly. Side note, as I write this we are currently in another blowing snow warning with single digit temps and probably 10 or so inches of snow on the ground.

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Had a pretty good group on the ride on Saturday when you figure in the temps and the winds. Still haven't gotten around to replacing the Canon camera, definitely a step down on photo quality with the iPhone and screen grabs from the GoPro.

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Made it out for a decent 37 mile ride to Bennet and back, I think that was more than enough cold gravel for everyone involved. So far winter in early 2024 is shaping up to be a cold and snowy one, been since about 2009 when we had single snow events in the double digits for accumulation... or at least that I can remember.

Video version of the ride.

 

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

2023 Global Fat Bike Day

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It's nutty to think that Global Fat Bike Day for 2023 was almost two weeks ago now! My how the time flies when you're... well, living life really, fun or not. It is alarming at times when you stop and think about just how quickly the days, week, month and years seem to go by at an ever increasing pace. Some days it seems like the days are like a tether ball arching around a pole, the shorter the rope gets the faster that ball travels around the pole until... WHACK! No more spinning.

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Well that was a bit of a dark turn, let's get this thing back on a positive axis. This was our 9th event, dating all the way back to 2015 when Fat Bikes ruled the biking industry there for a bit it seemed. We got more swag to give away in those first 2-3 years than some gravel events get now, it was crazy. Things have calmed substantially on the Fat Bike and the event has morphed to less swag and just more of a group ride with a chili cook off at the end, and you know what? That's okay, I kind of like the less hectic pace of the event now vs. it's heyday.

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Who needs swag when you can get all the smiles and comradery you could ever ask for.

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Camera took a shite so I'm down a camera right now and while the phone does an okay job it's no "real camera" for sure... then again it takes way better pictures than the camera makes phone calls, so there is that. Any way, bought the insurance due to other issues in the past with cameras so it'll get replaced after the holidays. Until then you get some subpar pictures. It's always a bit of an adventure getting 30+ fat bikes from the shop to Wilderness but it's great seeing people's faces as we roll by.

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The spin through Wilderness Park was pretty spirited at the beginning but then settled down to a more managable pace, as is always the case it seems people branch off of the main ride... and take unsuspecting people with them that follow thinking that they are following the main route. Herding cats man, just like herding cats.

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After the ride was the chili cook off, one of my favorite parts of the ride... so many great chilis to try and they are all good.

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This year in addition to gift cards for the top 3 chilis we also had gold, silver and broze medals. Joe took the top spot, Jackie and I took second and Gary rounded out the podium. I guess now we can say we make an award winning chili! Can't wait for next year, I hope this is a ride we can keep going for several years to come.

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Sunday, November 26, 2023

365 on 38/17

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Back in November of last year I was gifted the best gift a cyclist can get, a new bike. Not just any bike though, this one was the Salsa Stormchaser a singlespeed gravel beast from Mark and Renee of Backroads Bicycle. Not to have to go through FOMO Jackie picked up one for herself also and so began her love and my getting reacquainted with riding a bike with just one gear.

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We lucked out and had a fairly mild November and December last year so we were able to get out and put some miles on the Stormchasers almost immediately.

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Then the snows came and it wasn't until March of this year that the Stormchasers saw any time on the gravel again but during that time an idea was hatched. We had decided that we would register in the single speed category for all of the events in 2023. First up was the Washington Jefferson ride and after not spending much time on the Stormchasers over the colder months of winter, we struggled a bit on that one and I wondered if we might have bitten off more than we could chew. Only time would tell on that one.

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April came around and we had many more miles on the Stormchasesrs by the time Stay Fired Up in Kansas came around. We started that race in a very inauspicious manner as I had a flat right out of the starting gate... literally. Despite that we both took first place for single speed, albeit we were the only entrants but it was a tough course and we did well time wise and rode strong so there was a lot to be positive about.

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I'm not sure that the idea was to ride the Stormchasers exclusively during the spring and into summer but it seemed like everytime we went to ride we pulled them out of the quiver rather than one of our other bikes.

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Our next event was the Solstice Gravel Grinder out of Beatrice, Nebraska. For this one we entered into the relay race category with the Stormchasers despite there not being a single speed specific relay category. Everyone on the team killed it but we came up just short of the top spot and ended up in second place, losing to a much younger, geared team by only 20 seconds.

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By the end of June when we lined up for the Coast to Coast in Michigan we had several hundred miles on the Stormchasers but this was going to be our longest race on them and also the first time where there was real competition in the category of single speed for both males and females. 100 miles of Michigan gravel, sand and single track later and Jackie ended up taking 2nd in the women's and I took third in the men's single speed category. This was a really fun event and the scenery of the course was pretty amazing, if you're looking for a late June race to fill a spot on your calendar give the Coast to Coast a real look.

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Most of the summer had been hot and dry so we had anticipated a dusty, fast course for Gravel Worlds but 3" of rain overnight thwarted that plan. That was a difficult course for sure and it changed plans but we still did pretty well, Jackie finished fast enough for a third place podium spot and got to get up on stage. I missed third by a few minutes and took fourth in the men's single speed category... there was about an hour where I thought I had pulled off third but there was a 150 mile single speed guy that dropped down at the last minute to the 75 and once the standings were adjusted, that was that.

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In-between Gravel Worlds and the Pony Express Gravel Dash the Stormchasers got a major upgrade by way of some deliciously sweet, Cantu carbon wheels. We may have broken the "don't change anything right before a race" rule and Pony was going to be our second ever ride on the wheels.

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The Pony Express Gravel Dash ended up being a real battle in the 120 mile single speed relay category. This one was fast and dry, both the second and first place teams were pretty much neck and neck the entire race. We were flying, ended up finishing the 120 mile race in under 8 hours as a team with a combined mph average of almost 16 mph and walking away with the under 8 hours hardware and second place. I'd done the relay one other time on geared bikes a few years prior and even then with that team we only managed under 9 hours for the course... single speed doesn't necessarily mean slower it appears.

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The Pony Express was pretty much the end of our competitive gravel calendar but we just kept on rolling on the one gear for some fantastic fall miles.

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Backroads Bicycle in Maryville, Kansas put on a fun single speed only ride that saw around 15 riders, of those 15 I believe 8 of us were on the Salsa Stormchaser. That's how good of a bike it is, comfortable, fast, lots of room for bigger tires with still room for mud clearance and the smiles per mile are almost unbeatable.

This wasn't my first single speed, I entered into single speeds back in 2010 with the legendary Redline Monocog and rode that bike almost exclusively until 2014 when it was replaced by a Santa Cruz Highball frame I picked up from Ben in Seward. Still have that bike and it is starting to see new life on single track again. Also had a Redline 925 for a couple of years that was my "road bike" but I let that one go for a better road bike, it's still around the Lincoln area last I heard; sold it to Tracy H and I think she's still rocking it. When fat bikes came and gravel blew up I abandoned the one gear bike in favor of fat bikes there for several years, had it not been for the gifting of the Stormchaser I'm not sure if I would have rediscovered single speed again. Hell had it not been a Stormchaser I still might not have embraced it like we have. Like I said lots of companies make single speed gravel bikes but not everyone has gotten all the checkboxes checked like Salsa did. Single speed made me a better rider back when I was riding the Monocog exclusively and now again the Stormchaser has made me a better/stronger gravel rider... not to everyone's delight as I forget that not every ride has to be a fast ride but we are working on that one. It's just so easy to fly on that bike and it's made me re-evaluate some of my cycling goals and learn that with the right pairing of bike and rider I don't necessarily have to be a mid pack rider. After one year and over 2200 miles later, I can't wait to see what next season brings on one gear.