SMNDFBR - MoPacula

Showed up at the usual time, in the usual place for the Saturday Morning No Drop Fat Bike Ride yesterday morning ready for a bit of a chilly and dreary fall ride. I've been to the shop millions of times but never realized that the alley behind Cycle Works was frequented by the Prince of Darkness until I found his teeth in the parking lot. I guess him and Frankenstein must have tied one on last night and in the process of stumbling home he lost his chompers. It's a shame that you can be "blessed" with eternal life but if you don't take care of your teeth they can still rot out of your mouth. Let that be a lesson to you kids, always brush and floss your teeth... or at least all of the ones you want to keep, otherwise someone might find them in an alley on an early Saturday morning and post them for all to see.



Despite the wet and dreary weather, we had a really good turn out. It was way to wet to ride through Wilderness Park so the plan was to ride out on the MoPac towards Elmwood and see how far we got before we decided to turn around and come back.


While not the single track we had hoped for, the MoPac in autumn isn't without it's own advantages. The falling leaves and vibrant colors aren't the worst things to look at on a ride.


Hmm, approaching the "tunnel of love" with a Drunk Cyclist (because of the jersey not the amount of actual alcohol consumed... yet) hopefully he doesn't swerve and take me out in the cramped space.


Ludicrous Speed!


Whew... luckily we made it through the tunnel in one piece and were able to slow down before we went plaid.


Made good time out to the Casey's in Eagle and stopped for a little food and drink. We decided to turn around here and head back rather than pushing on to Elmwood, the sun was supposed to have made an appearance by now but it was still fully covered with clouds and most people were a bit chilly.


Not part of our group and I'm not sure whose Segway it was but if they rode it out all the way from Lincoln, that is pretty impressive.


Fully refueled and warmed up it was time to head back to Lincoln. As you can see from all the skunk stripes, even the MoPac was a little moist.



More leaves, best time of year for leaf peepin.


What would be a ride out to Eagle without a hut stop?


And what would a hut stop be without a little refreshment? Did a little drink sampling, trying to get idea's for GFBD on the 5th of December. This one seemed to be pretty popular so it'll probably get a nod... Fireball and Cream Soda, if you haven't tried it you should.


We had no caps to leave, so we paid our respects to the collection and got ready to roll.



Great group for the ride as always, appreciate them going with the flow on the last minute change of plans. Despite the reroute, the clouds and chilly temps it was still a pretty good day to be out on a bicycle.


I'll give it a thumbs up seal of approval.

Putting Your Brest Foot Forward

Thursday night we had Rebecca Clark, a local randonneur, in the shop sharing her experiences from the Paris - Brest - Paris brevet, affectionately known as the PBP.


What the heck is a brevet... or a randonneur, are you even speaking English? Well, no, both are French terms actually. A randonneur refers to any rider who has complete a 200 km ride, or brevet as they are officially called. The odd thing, for us Americans any way, about brevets is that it is not a race but rather a ride with a time limit but where you place doesn't matter as there are no winners and no losers. Whether you are the first person to finish or the last it doesn't matter as long as you complete the ride in the time allotted both finishers are considered equal. In fact it is often expected that riders will ride at a certain pace, for example no slower than 15 km/h but no faster than 30 km/h, those who show up at the controls (check points) faster than the maximum pace will have to wait before they can leave again. Those crazy French!


A few of the interesting facts we learned about the PBP beret, it is one of the oldest bicycle "races", the first one occurring in 1891 and held as an actual race rather than a brevet. Eventually pros were separated from the rest of the riders until it was dropped altogether as a professional race in 1951, due in part to it being such a long format race. As you can see it is kind of the Grand Daddy of the Tour de France and uses some of the same route that the Tour uses. Plus I think we may have found a picture of the very first Rapha kit.


The route from Paris to Brest and back again, including the various controls (check points).


And just because 760 miles within 90 hours was too easy, look at all that climbing you get to enjoy. My legs are tired just looking at the elevation profile.


In addition to sharing her story with us, Rebecca also shared photos from her journey which included lots of awesome looking French pastries and some very unique bicycles. Sorry, I was drooling too much to get any pictures of the pastries but trust me, they all looked delicious. I really enjoyed the presentation and learned a ton about randonneuring and the history of the Paris - Brest - Paris brevet, it was truly a great night of bicycle talk.


Oh, also, if anyone knows a pastor missing a pew I might be able to help you out. I've always joked about dirt church being a real thing but Sondy's taking it to a whole other level. Church is in session!

SMNDFBR - Trolling In The Park

Crazy weather we are having here in the Midwest, one week away from the end of October and we're still averaging temps in the 60s, will we pay for it later with piles of snow and freezing temperatures? I certainly hope so, Fat Bikes are fun in the dirt but they are even more fun in the snow and we are starting to get a really good group showing up on Saturdays, a really, really good group.


Barely 8:45 am and the parking lot at 27th & Vine was already buzzing with activity, as a ride leader sights like this always put a big smile on your face.


While we aren't all Fat just yet, we are slowly whittling that number down... just last week Todd was riding a "normal" mountain bike for the ride and now look at him on his brand new Farley 5. The numbers just keep growing for every ride it seems, just off the top of my head I noticed that there are two fewer Mukluks and one less Farley in the shop this week, hopefully that means a few more people for the ride. Lincoln is starting to embrace the whole Fat Bike thing and I for one couldn't be happier. Riding a Fat Bike for the first time brought me that same feeling I had riding my first bike as a kid; they really are just that much fun.



An early Husker game meant a little more paved trail getting to Wilderness Park to avoid the downtown area with the throngs of fans and all those tailgaters with their delicious smelling BBQ grills.




Once we made it to the Park we wasted no time dropping in and getting some perfect fall singletrack. With the little bit of rains we had at the end of the week I was a little worried that it might be a tad bit wet in there as Wilderness isn't the quickest drying trail around but to my delighted surprise, the trails were perfect.


If our numbers keep growing, fingers crossed that they do, we're going to need a bigger bridge. Fist time joining the SMNDFBR this week was Russ on his cross bike, the kid is a fast and skilled rider on that cross bike. The freewheel on those Zipps make a noise that sounds a whole lot like GOOOOOOOOO whenever he had to stop pedaling because you weren't going fast enough. Russ and others his age are the future of the sport and it was super rad to have him come out and ride with us old folks, hopefully we didn't slow him down too much and he comes back out for more rides.



With the Jamaican Trail completely blocked off near 14th street, we decided to make a loop using both the east and west trails. We went out on the west side, a few of us zigged at the proposed turn around point and a few of us zagged. Those of us who zigged tried yelling to rope back in the zaggers but we were unsuccessful so I jumped on the Pugs to try to run them down and pull them back to the regroup.


Caught up to them at the first creek crossing and Bob the fungus tree, I think they suspected we took another off shoot of the trail because when I got there they were all waiting around.


All back as one group again, we stopped for a little break under the bridge like a clump of trolls, sharing stories and refueling. It seems like the nicer the weather the longer these "breaks" last but on a day as beautiful as yesterday, nobody was complaining about hanging out in the Park.


After a few minutes it was time to make the climb to the top of the bridge, cross over and drop in on the east trail for the ride back. Love this bridge, one of my favorite parts of Wilderness as it's a great spot to come and just chill.




Trails on the east side were just as fast as the trails on the west side and it didn't take us long before we were out of the Park and back to the Van Dorn area. We also started shedding riders at this point as it was getting near 11 and a few of us wanted to try to get home for the game.



Those of us left decided that it was close enough to game time that we could safely sneak into the Haymarket and Crescent Moon Coffee for some delicious caffeinated beverages.


Boom! Lots of cars but very few people out and about.


Besides the great coffee and pastries, the other great thing about Crescent Moon is that we can "invade" the coffee shop and get out of the weather (for when it's colder) without taking over there main seating area.



Smiling, caffeinated faces both new and old... the faces not the people.



Had a brief camera takeover when Tyler got all hopped up on the bean, the struggle is real people, I think I'll stick to taking the pictures for now. From the look on Jorge's face, I think he agrees with me.



Re-energized and reinvigorated, we mounted up and headed back to Cycle Works. If you've never been downtown on game day, some amazing things happen during the magic 40 minutes. The magic 40 are the 20 minutes before kickoff when the crowds are thick and you can barely move without bumping into someone and the 20 minutes after kickoff when you feel like you almost have the town to yourself. Riding on game day, I much prefer the 20 minutes after kickoff.


Back at the shop, bikes loaded, it was time to find some food for the drive home.


Tyler and I decided to hit up Honest Abe's. one of the best Lincoln originals that never disappoints with their creative and ever changing selection of burgers. The American Gothic was a winner as are most of their offerings. Now I feel like I need to get out for another ride to help burn this guy off.


Shameless plug time... December 5th is Global Fat Bike Day and we are planning on doing something special for the ride. All of the details haven't been worked out just yet but we have a ton of ideas that we need to sort through and dissect to come up with a great event. I can tell you that there will be a ride, a bonfire, food, drink and most likely a few prizes and contests after the ride. We would love to see you all at the event, even if you don't have a Fat Bike, stay tuned for the official event page and additional details as we hammer them out.