Have you ever had one of those busy weekends where it seemed like there were enough things going on that you could have used 3 weekends worth of days to help get it all in? That, for me, was this weekend; had the SMBDFBR on Saturday morning, the Piedmont Oktoberfest Saturday night and then the BicycLincoln party for the end of the National Bike Challenge on Sunday... whew.
Five of us left from Cycle Works on what was a fairly chilly morning, luckily it was a Husker away game so traversing the Haymarket wasn't all that difficult.
Picked up Gary along the way to bring our numbers up to six for a spin through Wilderness Park.
First time I've ever encountered one of these signs on a trail, generally when you see it on the road it means good times are to follow... 'twas true in this case as well as it lead right to the single track.
Trails were fast and flowing, smiles abound.
Look over there!!! Not really sure what we were looking at but it must have been interesting to get all the necks craning at once.
While the Park is in great shape the Jamaican Trail is still a mess and getting worse in some sections, the bridge out by 14th Street is completely impassible now as the ditch has spread completely across the trail.
I got a new Lezyne Micro Floor Drive HG pump last week and Tyler was nice enough to get a flat so that we could test it out... worked perfectly. If you enjoy the plus sized tires, I recommend checking one out, I didn't do any scientific studies but it seems to pump the tires up faster than with traditional hand pumps.
Pumping up a fat bike tire works up quite a thirst and so we found ourselves at Crescent Moon Coffee post ride. It was delicious as is always the case with Crescent Moon.
After a quick shower the better half and I decided to head over to Born in a Barn to give it a try. Seems like ever since we moved to Omaha from Lincoln, the city has exploded with new places to eat. We had heard that the Barn-chos and Buffalo Wings (Angry Buffalo and McCready's Cujo) were good so we opted to split both and we were not disappointed. If I could have changed one thing about the food, I personally would have went with waffle fries for the Barn-chos over the thin kettle cooked type chips that it came with but they were still delicious.
Next up on the schedule was the Piedmont Oktoberfest at Cotner Blvd and A street, luckily there were a few hours in between Born in a Barn and the Oktoberfest.
Why you might ask... well there was beer of course, lots of tasty Oktoberfest style beers.
Plus more food, Greta's Gourmet was serving brats and German style potato salad, the brat was good but the potato salad was amazing... had to wrassle a little bit of it away from the better half.
Somehow they even managed to get Pennywise to come all the way from Derry Maine for a personal appearance, didn't personally say hi or see any of members of The Losers Club but I am sure they weren't too far away and keeping an eye on things. After a few beers and some good food we pedaled back to the hotel and then on to a bonfire to put a perfect end on Saturday night before crashing in the soft and comfy hotel bed.
The next morning we got up and chilled for a bit before getting the car packed up and checking out of the hotel. For lunch we decided to try another new to Lincoln restaurant, Capriotti's Sandwich Shop on 27th & Old Cheney. I decided to try The Bobbie which consisted of homemade Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and mayo... not being a huge fan of mayo I substituted spicy mustard. You would have thought I just peed on the salad bar with the reactions I got from the cashier and the better half, apparently mayo and cranberry sauce sounds like a perfectly normal combo but mustard is just weird. I really was digging the sandwich, one of my favorite sandwiches all year are the ones you make after Thanksgiving with all that left over turkey but now you don't even need to go through all the hassle of making it yourself. It's like a little slice of heaven you can have year round, it's a good thing we don't eat like this every weekend or I'd have to bike twice as much as I do now just so I could fit into my clothes.
We had a little time to kill and A LOT of food and beer to burn off, so we decided to pull the bikes off of the car and go for a nice leisurely ride down the Rock Island trail.
Cruised on down to check out the progress on the Sheridan Blvd bridges, looks like they are coming along and it should be a vast improvement along the trail underneath the bridges. Looks like instead of being narrow, dark and wet underneath it'll be a bit wider with better lighting, only time will tell if they have resolved the almost constant trail side water issue but it looks good so far.
With the ride in the bag it was time throw the bikes back on the car and head to Zipline for the end of the National Bike Challenge party hosted by BicycLincoln.
Pepe's food truck was there providing something to eat if you were so inclined but having just eaten my weight in food over the last day and a half, I opted for just the one beer and skipped the edibles.
Sweet trophies for those who placed in the top three plus one for the city of Lincoln for coming in 2nd in the nation and one for the state of Nebraska for also coming in 2nd in the nation, bested only by Madison and Wisconsin receptively.
Janine Copple took home the first place trophy for Lincoln women.
Randy Reed walked away with the top spot for the men again this year.
Great turn out for the event, on a beautiful fall afternoon.
While I didn't walk away with any of the winner's hardware, I didn't walk away empty handed either and ended up winning a pair of Team Eyeskull socks and a PCL glass to go with the one I got from Gravel Worlds. It was a great weekend full of awesome events in Lincoln but man was it great to get home on Sunday and plop on the couch and watch a little football after running since 6 am Saturday morning. Thanks for the great time old friend, lets do it again soon.
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