On your marks,

I think it was last Wednesday since I last rode. Knee is not behaving. I wanted to try to get it to simmer down so I can race, I mean ride with the pack tomorrow in Triple D. This coming Wednesday I see the ortho doc and try some knee grease.
Lance the  race director/racer wanted me to ride with him last night and check out the proposed route. With hopes of being able to ride Sunday, I stayed off the bike and opted out for the preride.
I have been taking things on and off the FatBackBike so, I knew to be wise I needed to ride around a bit today make sure all parts are working and adjusted right. So in my blue jeans I rode through neighbors' yards, up to my dads, and around the neighborhoods. Neighbors must think this is all crazy I suspect. Bike is running well but weighs around 44 lbs with gear, a butt breaker on hills.

Tonight is some PreTripleD things going on. Beer, pizza, swap meet, slide show down at the Hotel, Birgit and I are headed down there next to meet and greet all those that ride the snow.

RideON,

DAve

NIGHT RIDING

After a busy day at work, and a visit to my dentist I decided a bike ride would be a treat. A night ride.

Heritage trail, the Triple D race route is a great ride now, some fresh snow recently smoothed out the bumps, covered the ice, and rides well. I want to plan a ride soon where I night ride late into the night and cover some mileage. 
Night riding on snow mobile trails in the country gives a whole different perspective. Sounds seem amplified, snow crunching, owls hooting, coyotes yapping, and Gnomes out and about. Hmmm I think a couple cans of beer and my flask filled with brandy might make travel even  more pleasing.

My indoor bicycle rollers waited all year for some attention this winter, and I haven't visited with them yet this winter. This picture is last winter before the "fat" arrived.

OverandOut
DAve.

taking a look at your soul

I didn't ride tonight, having complications from a tooth I had pulled last week. Dentist said he could do a root canal and a crown but there was a 30% chance that it would work, so I said yank it. But I guess the roots were fused to the jaw, and the nerves close to the roots, and it took an hour to pull. It has slowly been bugging me more and more and now it's pounding. Spose if it is still doing so tomorrow, I will have to go visit with my dentist again tomorrow.

Ok that's enough whining, health issue severity to me is solely based on  ---> Do they mess up a bike ride or not?


I leave you with this quote from John Stamstad. John is a ultra distance mountain bike racer. He had some huge great acomplishments, from a competitive standponit.  But he says here, what really matters is what we all can have on our rides, and I agree.

"The beauty of any long trail has nothing to do with the route, nothing to do with your bike, your gear, your food. Rather, it is an opportunity to look at your soul, to give you a totally unique perspective into what matters in your world" John Stamstad

Finally a riding I go.

It's funny sometimes, you schedule yourself for a good work out on your day off, and you have trouble getting motivated and out the door and getting started. The problem is I knew I could waste time and still manage to get done what I wanted to do. I sometimes get er going much faster when my day is very busy and I have to rush a ride between work and some other event.
So it wasn't until after 2:00 p.m. that I got on the FatBike, at 0.13 miles I noticed two things, I had too many clothes on and my 4 inch front tire was so low that it was rolling off to the side of the rim and causing the bike to wobble. I had the pressure under 5 psi to try and not slide on icy snow earlier this week.  So being so close to home, I returned home removed a layer, and added air to front tire, and rear. PROBLEM. The rear rim tape had moved to the side and the inner tube was bulging out the holes that are cut in the rim to reduce weight, and cut itself.
So dayammmn, I had one spare tube, replaced and remounted and again I go. I had lighting with me, and would be needing.
I took the back trails to get out of town, riding on a snow mobile trail, the trail started to slant to the left, and turned to ice. At 10 mph, I knew I was going DOWN!!!!! WHAM, I did. Nothing broke, on me or the bike, so I hobble back on the bike and keep going.

Rode 20 miles out and turned around, turned my headlight on and headed home. How come when it gets dark and your alone out in the woods, you start to hear things 'out there' and then objects in the dim light become monsters. Well it does help me keep my pace up.

Well almost home. I sagged out in Sageville, I called Birgit and pleaded and begged for a ride. I didn't want to take the back woods at night on those icy frozen snow mobile trails where I crashed on the way out.
Ok I didn't really beg, Birgit said no problem and her and her daughter drove out and picked me and the FatBike up. OH LQQK the girls love the FatBack. I had trouble getting them away from her so I could rack my bike on the car.

So that was my weekend.
Over and out.
DAve

Tundra

Riding the Studded tires, 41 miles, out on the trails. Saw a total of 2 people all day. Both walking. Really enjoyed the day, mostly sunny, and 12 degrees F. Heritage trail is almost all hard packed very ridable snow. Triple D racers that are checking this blog for  trail reports, 2.X tires are riding very well.
Riding in snow I think takes about 3 times the energy. I always bring snacks. Raw Pop Tarts double stacked are one of my favorites.

 It's all relative, this bike is a fat tire bike in the summer, and now in the winter it is a 'skinnie tire' Tomorrow I ride the FatTire.

Is this a giant country meth lab?

Sun is sinking, it's getting colder, headed home I be.

Did something good and fun happen to you today? I hope so. If not, how about tomorrow?
Thanks for visiting.
DAve.

Zen and the art of bicycling.

I think I'll bicycle to Dyersville and back today in snow, just to show my demons who's boss. :-)

The above comment I left on my sister's blog this morning got me thinking,





In bed after 11:00 last night  up before 6:00 this morning, seems that's how I sleep. Restless. I have today off work, it's 9 degrees F with a wind chill of -8, and I am waiting for the sun. The thoughts of trying to put  many miles on a bicycle, alone, across a icy, snowy path has made my mind want to get up and get going more then  the need for adequate sleep.

I don't watch what I eat, never really did, the only time I have restricted my usual massive amounts of junk food was in the 80s and I needed to make weight for Power Lifting competitions.
I don't smoke, smoking would really mess up my hill climbing fun I have on a bicycle in this city of hills. I think somebody said it is bad for you too.

My left knee is acting up too much lately. I could have left well enough alone back in 1970something and not took on a man 100lbs bigger then me for his verbal challenges he threw at me, but 22 years old, drunk, cocky and stupid, didn't think that way then.

But now over 35 years later, the knee, is still a problem. The problem is it is limiting how far and how hard I want to ride a bicycle. This month on the 19th I'll have my doctor try a type of lubrication injection, maybe it will help.


My bike is ready to roll, today's ride will be the Trek HardTail with studded snow tires. I got everything ready last night, she's ready to go, leaning against the dining room table, waiting to be rolled out the front door. Birgit never complains about that, she just says 'make sure you come back to me' My mom used to tell me your lucky Dave.

So today I'll ride, I see the sun coming up, time to get ready and go.

Oh, one more thing, if you didn't pick your favorite bicycle on my previous blog, please do so. I'm really curious what is your favorite. Even if you only ride one bike, pick the bike you would own if you could have your pick of any. Thank you.

Thanks for stopping by,
DAve.

IF YOU HAD TO PICK JUST ONE.......

ONE QUESTION ONLY SURVEY

Bikaholics  like me, and a bunch of you, own various bikes that we ride. Some times we pick the bike we are going to ride based on the conditions we are going to ride in. Like pavement, gravel, dirt, snow, or our mood.

IF  and God forbid it doesn't happen, but IF you had to pick just  ONE bike to ride for the rest of your life what one would you pick? You can change components and wheels as you see fit. What bike would it be?

Please comment in comment section. Thank you.


Me I would have to go with my Trek XO2 Cycle Cross. I could mount road tires for pavement, 35 cc knobbies for dirt and gravel, and Nokian Studs for icy roads.

THE BIKES IN MY STABLE THAT I RIDE



Riding my bike

Yikes, been busy, doing stuff, including working on a couple of snow bikes, my Trek 6700 HardTail and the one and only FatBack. My arms, hands, and shoulders do not like straight bars if the ride is going to be 5 hours plus. I am trying the Titec H-Bar on my Trek.

It offers more hand and comfort positions then a straight bar, but is not accommodating my handlebar mitts well.


I ordered a angled bar for the FatBack and will experiment.


I let the FatBack rest today and I rode the HardTail out on the snowmobile trails today for 40 miles. The trails are frozen rock hard, you can't take your concentration away for a minute or you'll bounce off a rut, and start sliding out. The well Studded tires I rode today did as good as any tire could do. At least a dozen times I thought I was going down on my arse but the studs caught and pulled me out.
I really couldn't push myself hard on this ice and frozen snow, I was holding around 10 mph, weaving around trying to find a safe line to follow. To go faster would sooner or later put me down. The older you get, the more you want to avoid bouncing up the hard frozen ground.
For the most part I avoided the hard ice you see in the middle here and rode up on the side which was hard frozen snow.

The DNR was piling up brush and downed trees and burning. The heat felt good.

Sure seems I talk a lot about biking, but that is what is buzzing in my brain the most.
Jan 19th I get my first knee injection of Synvisc. The cartilage was ripped out from an accident way back in 1970something. Now it is bone on bone on the medial side. So if  this works, it will help lubricate, and perhaps I can think about some long bike journeys. I got places I would like to ride.
Ok see ya lata.
DAve.

Day ride, Night ride, and Coyotes

So I rode the HardTail with studded tires around town for awhile this afternoon, was fun and haven't put many miles on that bike this winter ever since 'fatty'

Rode up and visited with my dad for awhile. He told me he was mentioned in today's front page of the paper.
"OH" I say.
He says yeap there is an article about the change in Iowa's law this year regarding getting a gun carrying permit and he shows me where it says a 86 year old in town applied to get a permit to carry handgun in public.
""YIKES.""
So I said,  "don't you have to take a class and such?"
He says, "Nope, WWII Marine vet with honorable discharge, doesn't need too."
Hmmm, well I ahhhh, have no further comment regarding this.

So I left and rode the HardTail around the outskirts of town for awhile.

The Telegraph Herald News Paper photographer phones later and confirms our photo shoot meet for later today. I tell him I was planning on heading there early and ride around the area for awhile. He says Oh, ok I'll head out early too and get some daylight pictures.

So we meet there, along with the News reporter who asked some more questions. They think these bike tires I have are "HUGE"

So I head down the trail and they take the highway out of town and hook back on the trail twice to take some more pictures.
I ride out another 10 miles and don't see them anymore, so I figure they must be done and I'll just wait and see how they write this up in the paper. 

I turn around, total darkness seems to happen all at once. Coyotes are howling  all around me. Their scream and high pitch yelps sound strange. There is no other sound but my tires crunching on frozen snow. I am alone out here, and most likely will be the last human here until midday tomorrow. I think those two guys from the News Paper are just as clueless as to why anyone would do this as they were before we met each other. 

Louis Armstrong when asked how can he play that horn all day long, every day, which he loved to do more then anything else said this,

"there are some people if they don't know you can't tell them"

 

Seems this weekend in spite of all the time riding, I didn't really get a good work out. Mostly trying to stay up right or laid back riding. I think I need a day this week, of just pushing it. Maybe I will try the HardTail on the trail for a hard ride the middle of this week.


Thanks for visiting
DAve.

I am seeing several Blog hits that are linked to the Triple D Jan 16th Race blog, looking for trail reports. This blog interconnectivity simply amazes me. Below is a map of recent hits to this blog.

But let me say this, I was on the Race route today for 7 hours. Trail was was a frozen hard solid. The center in some places was ice, but for the most part you could ride quite fast on the edges which were hard frozen snow. The best ride would have been my Mountain Bike or Hard Tail with 2.x Nokian Studs. I ran into some friend bikers, they were doing their annual Jan 1st Club ride, I opted to ride earlier thinking I would run into them on the return, which I did. I also saw runners and a skier.

I went down once, HARD!!! My helmet took a good shot. I wasn't paying close enough attention drifted to the center of the trail, it turned to ice and started to curve slightly. I felt my front tire start to slide out on me. There is that few second realization that are you going to bounce hard on the frozen ground and you can't do nothing to stop it. And that I did.
Didn't break anything, fortunately.

I bet you didn't know I am an artist, here I am working on some fancy nose drizzle art. The wind was wicked at times. I had 6 light layers on my upper body. 3 of them wool, sheep know how to keep warm, and we humans do well to borrow their technology. I cheated however. I don't want to mention this, but I put chemical warmers between my two layers of socks. I didn't want frozen feet to shorten my ride.

If this is nuts, I'm loving it. I don't have 'winter blues' Winter is just a different challenge, to ride a bike to me. Tomorrow I think I will ride some city streets in the day with the Harttail with  studs, and later ride the trail at dusk with the FatTire to accommodate the photo shoot the local newspaper wants to do for their article on night/winter bicycling. 

Ok gotz ta go, thanks for visiting

Dave