81 miles of gravel :)

good lunch in Adel with Dave and Lou

bar mitts were great! covered in ice but my hands stayed warm

I on the other hand froze

Another Round...

Monday the forcast calls for 23 degrees and 90% snow.  Those are good odds for me and the second attempt at a gravel Century this year.  I'm going for Single speed, big tires, and all day.  I do think that a little north/flat road is in order for part of this ride though.

Nice morning on the rocks

gravel road bike rack

gravels good go ride :)

Gravel Camping ride?

Found this on Bike Iowa site,  It starts from one of my favorite camp sites at Swan Lake State park.  It would be a 100 mile gravel ride up on the 10th and 100 miles gravel/bike trail home on the 12th, with a 35 party ride on the 11th down the Sauk rail trail (road it on ragbrai last year).  It's a week after dirty Kanza but still might be a fun way to get in 2 centuries in June.  If anyone is interested let me know the ride is $15 (t-shirt) and camping at swan lake is $10 a night (they have showers and modern restrooms).  I'm going to organize a ride out and back, self support probably 10+ hour ride out so medium pace.  If anyone wants to come and doesn't have gear let me know I do have some extra bags, racks, tents, etc.

Swan Lake Camp Ground

Swan Lake

Sauk Trail

Lake View

Brenda

:)

3rd day this week taking my 16 mile detour on my ride home.

More repair parts

So yesterday i broke my chain on my commuter (sram 951) after something like 3k miles.  So i steal a chain from my 29r same chain but more like 1500 miles.  On the way to work i notice it skips over the cassette so bad I had to walk a hill.  My cassette is a sram 970 or something like that with the same milage and totally covered in rust.  I give props to sram it still got me to work today (the largest 2 cogs hold the chain still).  I guess I'll steal the cassette from the 29r too and buy new parts for it.  So overall my review of Srams 9 speed is great this bike is only used in winter and some really muddy gravel riding and it still shifted perfectly up till the moment it broke.  I forgot to grease it last spring so it had rusted solid and i Rock 'n Roll lubed it back to life in hopes of no new parts this year but didnt make it.  So now to save up 50 bucks for some new parts on the nice bike.

Broke my first chain

I guess your suppose to lube them

sunset on my 17 miles detour home from work. a little colder than yesterday

go fast...

Almanzo 100 :)

Im in.

Ice Man

43 miles, 4 degrees, 1 gear = good times.

Drooling....

It also comes in RED

OH YA

So I might some day (not this year) get an AWESOME bike like this.  Looking at the options on this one it comes as a frameset ($1750) or complete ($3700), but the complete is XT and cheap wheels etc... So it would be a build (and that gets crazy expensive)  So for now I'm drooling....

At Wal-Mart we are bike friendly

It was -7 this morning we got 2 inches of snow and as you notice from the pic above Im (orange bike) not the only commuter, and the snow is cleared from in front of the bike rack.

It is almost time for a real ride

With the extreme cold and the large snow fall (10 days ago) and pulling a lower back muscle I haven't got any 'real' rides since my metric the first week of January.  I'm of course not counting my daily commute to work or any indoor/spin stuff.  However I get an email from Squirrel about a century on sunday!  I'm in 16 degrees for a high, warm enough, 1-2 inches of new snow, good enough.  I think I'll take the Mary SS and suffer a little more than a cross bike, but my Barr-Mitts will keep me warm while I'm off the back and traction on the large hills is always nice.

Spin Class

So first spin class this year (2010/2011) last night.  Started out the class about 20 minutes early and decided after listening to the encouraging statement from the guy behind me 'we do a medium pace until on of you rassy guys fly by then we try to catch up'  So I killed it for the next hour and my legs still hurt.  I'm not sure how the power meters work on spin bikes but there is no way I can put out 478 watts.  After the class the buy next to me who is not totally drenched says ' you worked really hard there'.  It feels great to get a good cardio workout in.  So maybe I'll make a couple more spin classes this winter.

It had to happen sometime

Well with the cold and ice we now have I have to admit it is impossible to get a good cardo workout.  I will finally break down and be going to spin class tonight :(  I am looking forward to next wednesday working out with the team at the shop.  I'm glad to hear a training "ride" at 6pm so I actually can make it on time.  Being on a bike trainer sucks but it is better with good company.  It's also okay if you play Wii (the only way to actually get a workout on the wii)  So back to the all time 'do indoor miles count as miles?'  I'm going with the final answer yes,  I didn't count them last year but why not?  So how many miles is and hour on a trainer/spin bike count as?  My current opinion is 16 but open for debate since I'm only entering these miles into my personal goal of hitting a 10k year (failed 2 years running) I dont feel that this is cheating, but only time will tell. 

Ice ride

I would love to post Denmans is ridable but it's NOT the first 300 yards looks good but here is were i turned around.  Actually had a good time riding the ice to work though,  managed to lock up both tires and stay upright :)

COLD....

This month is always a little wacky as far as weather goes.  I'm really hoping for an other day above 20 degrees that I'm not working.... I have 2 more days off this month so we will see about that, but one more metric would be great.  I got up early this morning but couldn't talk myself out the door at 17 degrees with 1/10th of an inch of ice on the ground.  NO FUN.  I will be leaving a little early for work and going to check denmans conditions on the way there.  Should have an update as to how it looks before noon today.

I miss my ride time

The past week i havent got any riding in (except my commute)  and I would really enjoy some double digit weather to ride in.  I have been getting to the gym a couple times a week and havent gained any weight this winter but i hate working out inside.  Looking forward to a short ride before work tomorrow morning before the temp drops off

First Snowshoe Race

This was fun...