BloodNStuff at the Hex

Good times with Q and Tom Harris.  Getting a bit old to wait until 1am for a band to start their set.

I gotta get me one of these

You aren't supposed to do that

Coolest guy in the NFL

Yep folks, the coolest guy in the NFL is a punter.  A punter for the Minnesota Vikings.

An open letter to Emmett Burns

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

That's gonna leave a mark

A gold medal and new world record

Not fake

Impressive photo.  Looks fake, but apparently it isn't.

Finally got around to finding a good road ride

Since moving back to Richfield I have realized how spoiled I was in Saint Louis Park with access to a great trail system less than a block from my front door.  I could ride for miles with very little time on any sort of actual "street".  Today I decided to quit my whining and start a road ride from my driveway.  And guess what.  I had a blast.  I learned that going up Minnehaha Parkway to Lake Harriet is a very nice stretch.  Once I got to the lakes it was familiar territory.  All in all a very nice ride, but the lose gravel that the city of Minneapolis has laid down on the side streets is AWFUL on a road bike. Avoid at all costs.

When I got home I got to see the genius of my wife's insistence on setting up a softside pool in our back yard.  Floating around in cool water after my ride felt fantastic.  The beer didn't hurt either.

Blood, guts, storm damage and dirt.

Last week, John, Jared, Heath and I went out for a sweltering Sunday morning ride at Murphy Hanrahan. All was going well until my attention drifted and my face was suddenly driven into the ground. Almost simultaneously Jared’s chain broke on his Moonlander. While I was lying there covered almost head to toe in a mixture of sweat and dirt more riders rolled up and started talking to the rest of our group. Some sort of discussion about possibly cutting corners or something. Not sure. I was still stunned. There must have been some bad vibes at that particular spot. We went up to a mosquito infested shaded area so Jared could fix his chain and I could walk off my fall. Good thing Heath had insect repellent. We managed to finish the ride with no further incidents. I got home and surveyed the damage from my little face plant. One very swollen upper lip with a dash of road rash, a chunk of road rash under my eye, two bloody, swollen knees and a set of lenses on my glasses trashed.. Good times.

This weekend I headed up to the cabin and hit the trails at Cuyuna on Saturday. The damage from the series of storms that has rolled through the region in the past six weeks was still very evident. Flooding, washouts and landslides were visible in numerous locations. One section of trail is now interrupted by a stream running across it. I don’t recall there being ANY water in that spot before. I had yet another crash on that ride. Not nearly as bad as the weekend before. This time it was caught on video. It left me with a sore hip but nothing more. Well, except the leg cramps in the middle of the night.

Sunday I went for a nice mellow road ride with Just a Cool Cat who was visiting our cabin with his clan. The ride actually made my hip feel better. Good weekend all in all.

Something else

One of these days I will post something else

Saturday ride at Murphy

Trying a new approach to this GPS thing with a Garmin Edge 200. Nice being able to get rid of wires and magnets on the bike. Initial scratching of the surface show some odd things. I uploaded the info to both Garmin's site and mapmyride.com The Garmin site's mileage reading matches what the computer itself said and personal experience on that particular trail. Map My Ride showed some odd behavior. When I initially uploaded it from the device the milage showed the same, but as soon as I went in to fill the descriptions and other info it changed from a 9.5 mile ride in Savage MN to a 8.9ish mile ride in Prior Lake MN. Weird.
Find more Bike Ride in Prior Lake, MN Here is Strava's take on the same ride: Lets not talk about the heat.

Rained out

Of COURSE it rained all weekend! Cuyuna tempting me with its proximity while mocking me with its closed status. Mother nature is a bitch.

Minnesota River Trail vid

My first stab at a GoPro video.

"With or without religion, you would have good men doing good things, and evil men doing evil things - but to get good men to do evil things, that takes religion" Steven Weinberg.

Nice mellow ride

Cool, grey Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis. John and I stopped by the new Hollywood Cycles location then meandered down the river road to Fort Snelling. Despite the less than ideal weather the trails were busy. After being spoiled by a March that had previously unheard of weather conditions, we are now reduced to "Damn, it isn't raining! Outside! Now!"

When given lemons...yada yada yada

While packing up the car to come home on Sunday I noticed that what I thought had been just a low tire that needed filling the day before was completely flat. Being that it was early Sunday evening and my car only has one of those next to worthless short range spares, I was kinda screwed. I let the boss know I was going to be late and started planning on getting the tire fixed in the morning,

Monday morning saw me pumping up my car's tire with a bicycle pump. That was the first time I have had the pleasure of doing that. It wasn't quite as time consuming as I expected. A quick drive to a repair place in Deerwood resulted in me learning that the tire was not repairable AND they didn't have that size in stock. Next stop, Crosby. No luck with a replacement there either. They could not get one until the next day. I decided to head back to the cabin to come up with plan B. The folks at Tire One in Crosby were kind enough to fill my already low tire with air.

Back at the cabin I used the old Googles to find some Tire places in Brainerd. I topped the tire off again and headed out. A hundred bucks later-Great success! By the time I got home it was almost one o'clock. No point in trying to make it back to the cities to go to work for MAYBE an hour.

So what is a poor guy to do with an extra half day off? Oh, twist my arm-head back over to Cuyuna to do some more riding on the best trails in the state. What a drag.

This time I stuck to the dirt-no paved shortcuts between sections. I rode hard enough that by the time I was on the last stretch of trail heading back to the car my legs felt like lead. I went back to the cabin to grab some food and chill out for a bit, then packed up and headed home. The drive seemed longer than the regular two hours-probably because I was wiped out. Oh well-it was worth it.

Cuyuna

First Cuyuna ride of the year. 47 degrees. Cloudy. Perfect.

They make it look so easy

It is amazing how Steve Peat and Greg Minnaar, who are at the absolute top tier of their sport, make terrain that would make a typical mountain biker curl up into a sobbing ball look like just another day going down the bike trail. Peat is following Minnaar in this clip.

Damn.



Worthless Trvia: Minnaar used to race on downhill bikes made by some obscure Asian company named, oh what was it?...., oh yeah-Honda.

Playing with new tech

GPS app on my lame ass Blackberry. Road the Gateway with JACC. Nice trail.

Killer MRI

A video demonstrating how powerful the magnets in an MRI machine are.



"Fun, games and safety implications with a 4 tesla (T) MRI magnet that was about to be decommissioned."

What is wrong with this picture?

Salem Hills park in Inver Grove Heights. The mountain bike trails were officially opened for the first time this year. 80 muggy degrees. Sounds great. The problem? It was flippin MARCH 18th!!!!!!!!! MARCH!!!!

Last year my first ride on dirt was May 6th. The winter of 2011-12 will go down as the weirdest I have ever experienced. I am not a big fan of winter, but this was ridiculous. We are in the middle of a huge drought and it isn't even April. I have absolutely no idea what the hell this summer is going to be like.

But remember folks-climate change is a hoax.

Yes, I had a great time riding. But what the hell?

More like a journey

30 miles. One flat tire. Three bike shops.

The Best of Archer

Now THAT is aero!

It is DONE!

Odd, but I kinda like it...

This looks cool

Not a bike vid. A documentary on the struggle to get the rules changed so Mountain Bikes can be used on US Forest land

Pedal-Driven: The Official Trailer from Howell at the Moon Productions on Vimeo.

More info at Pedal Driven