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?