roadcx.net

The second day in Fond du Lac, WI, we headed out on the road not knowing what the trails would be like after the overnight rain.  Since I knew it and it is a nice rolling course, we headed down to Greenbush to do the ToAD loop as a start.  Along the way, we stopped at the trailhead and found the trails to be in great shape.  The overnight rain turned the dusty trails tacky (meaning fast), but we had moist rocks to deal with so it was not a good plan to get up going too fast.  We rode most of the those trails and completed the Greenbush RR loop back to the car.

That after my brother came back from a morning fishing out on Lake Winnebago.  We decided to go out with him in the mid-day heat.  We ended up pulling in quite a bit of Perch, a few bass, and a healthy amount of Sheephead (not keepers).

The next morning, we drove north 5 hours or so to Copper Harbor (hitting the Lena cheese shop and Dobber’s in Iron Mtn for Pasties).  It was almost 6 before we got settled in after comparison shopping about every hotel in town (after rejecting camping at the overpriced state and private campgrounds).   We headed out on US41 to the end (or the beginning as the sign indicates).  Past the end of the pavement, gravel roads beckoned….  We headed out along the GPS track (past many forks) until we thought we need to turn off or turn around (the sun was getting lower and lower).  I thought it would be more interesting to make a loop, so we started to follow the loop around…   All was cool until the wide and open road in front of us went straight, but the GPS track went hard left into an overgrown double track.  Since the wide open road went away from town, we opted to go into the overgrown trail.  It was slower going, but in the end, we ended up popping out on a open gravel road (as shown, sort of) and back to the main gravel road back to US41.

After an overpriced dinner (Mariner North), we settled in for the night.  It has been relatively hot up in the copper country and most of the hotels (ours included) don’t bother with A/C.

The next morning, it was threatening rain.   We went down the street for breakfast and wondered what we should do… ride now or wait it out.  Andrea and I decided to head out and bail out on one of the many road crossings if it started to rain.  Our ride plan was to ride the IMBA epic ride from start to finish.  Andrea only wanted to ride about 2 hours, so she might have had to bail out if it was running long.

First of all, the trails at Copper Harbor are an excellent mix of flowy, rocky, and down right frightening.  Most of the trail is fairly moderate, but the red trail is particularly tricky at time and includes two notable bridges (well marked).  We opted out from riding them not wanting to get hurt coming into the race weekend (Ore to Shore this weekend).  We made one wrong turn and cut off some of it near the end, at ended up back in town under 2 hours.

Wanting a little more riding and with the rain seeming more imminent, I decided to climb Brockway Mountain.  I have been up there in the car many times, but I never noticed how steep it was in parts.  Most of the climb is 5-8% when going up, but there are a few sections at 15% with an early 21% pitch right out of the first switchback.  The climb is broken up by a few reprives where the road heads back down before heading back up again.  This meant that on the return trip, it wasn’t a freeride…it requires a bit of pedaling to get back over these reversals.

Since we were done riding for the day, we decided to play tourist some.  We toured the nearby Delaware Mine which is quite a bit more interesting as a self guided tour (and longer) than went I went the last time probably over 20 years ago.  We drove around, bought some jam at the Jam Pot (monks selling jam and bakery near Eagle River), and looked around the houses they fixed up in the ghost town of Central Mine.   After dinner of some lake whitefish and trout, we rode out to a trail head and walked out to the lake front.  The overcast sky made it pretty cold and not so scenic, so we headed in before the sun went down.

The plan for tomorrow is get up and head down to Houghton to ride the Tech trails some and then head to Marquette where my mom lives.  The Ore to Shore race is on Saturday.

Started the day off yesterday driving the 700+ miles from Memphis to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin to visit my brother’s house.  This is the first leg of the trip that will take us around to the U.P. of Michigan and back through downstate (my hometown of Midland).

When we arrive, my brother and wife were having a barbecue / party with friends over.  Good start for the trip.  We woke up this morning a little late to a bit of rain..  It passed and we waited a while for the trails to dry before heading out.  Our ride took us to a confusing and short trail system called Kiekhaefer.  The trails loop back on to themselves and sudden go from MTB Ok to No MTB without warning.  Some of the trail was wide open mowed field, some tight singletrack, and some grassy trail.  After giving up on those trails, we hit the road for some windy riding out in the open rolling farmland.

Once we got back, we ate and then started fishing on the channel behind his house.  Mostly we caught small bluegills or bass, but we caught some other ones as well.  The biggest one I got was pretty much right away and it seemed to go downhill for me after that.  Andrea and Kris (my brother) did better later on.

After concluding my business in Huai’an, I came back to Shanghai.  I was left with a free day and a half in Shanghai.  The photos include the Jingan Temple (Buddhist), the Shanghai Expo (only got through Singapore, India, and Estonia.  It was very hot and very crowded when I went…so after 4 hours I left), and some scenes near People’s Park.   It was a good trip, but it is always good to be back home.

I have just spent my second night in Huai’an, Jiangsu, China.  The hotel I am staying is nice, but it seems over done for the amount of people that stay here.  My room is similar in size a 1 BR downtown apartment I had in Chattanooga.  Unfortunately, the hotel is out from everything surrounded by a few ministerial type buildings, some sort of slummy type houses, a few under construction high rises, and a large park.  Anyway, I have been pretty busy, but here are some photos I took from a walk in the park and out the wind of the car driving around town.  This town is rapidly changing and they replacing old style housing with high-rise apartments.  I can even notice a change in only 3-4 months (my last visit).

Been pretty busy since returning from Colorado..  Got in some good rides and some days didn’t have time to ride.  On Wednesday, the Marx-Bensdorf team showed up in force for the Metro Moto training crit in Collierville.  With 3 new Cat 3 members (2 of which were racing), we had 10 (I think) in the field of about 20.  With half the field, I liked the scenario better than the first training crit (2 of us versus 5-6 Memphis Velo).  The format was also different, race 30 minutes then miss-and-out (dropping 2 at-a-time until down to 6, then 1-at-a-time).

We were active on the front with people heading up the road, dropping back to chase pairs, etc.  In the end we took 5 of the top 6 placings.  I was around 10th based on my elimination (survived 5-6 sprints until I “missed” and was “out”).

I have poached some the better shots Dale Sanford (sitting out due to an upcoming Ironman tri…).  These have been through the Facebook photo destroyer, so keep that in mind.

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With that I am headed for a forced break off the bike.  I am headed to China tomorrow for a week (work trip).  Despite the millions of bicycles, both personal safety and lack of time will keep me off the bike for the duration (maybe ride exercise bike at the hotel?).  When I get back, I will make one more push with Ore to Shore (8/14), Meridian-Cuba (8/21-8/22), and maybe River Gorge (8/28-8/29) on the menu.

After our 3rd night camping near Frisco, CO, we broke camp and headed west down I-70 to Fruita, CO this morning.  The drive along I-70 is quite impressive.  From impressive valley walls to a deep canyon walls (Colorado River) to the open terraced cliffs (looks like the Grand Canyon) it was an interesting 200 miles.

(I wanted to put these up as a gallery, so due to limitations in WordPress, I will make this a short post… )

After another short week of work, I flew out to Denver on Thursday afternoon where Andrea picked me (she is on a longer road trip this month).  I was pretty tired from meeting out with some friends on Wednesday night and getting up early (as normal).  I also think my racing schedule was catching up with me right at the perfect time since I am not planning on racing anytime soon.  By the time I got to Denver, Andrea was running behind and I had to kill 2 hours at the airport.  Unfortunately, I started feeling worse and worse, probably a combination of tiredness, maybe something I ate, and I am sure the elevation change.

When she picked me up, we headed straight through Denver and out to Frisco, Colorado.  It was getting dark and I was not really in the mood to camp, so we got a room at the Snowshoe Inn there.  Pretty basic, but it worked.  We had a quick dinner and afterwards all I wanted to do is lay down.  I fell out right after we got back.  The good news is that woke up feeling much, much better.

We headed down the street to the Log Cabin for some excellent breakfast.  After reorganizing our gear some, we headed out to find a place to camp.  The national forest campground next to Frisco was fairly full.  The nicer part was absolutely full and the next part looked like a boat launch parking lot.  We ended up going to the next one down the road.  We were settling into one part when I noticed that they had no water.  The sites were $21/night with electricity (which we don’t really need).  The other part of the campground also didn’t have water, but since it was more basic (no electricity), it was $16/night.  So we set up her small one man tent (for storage) and planned to sleep in her Element.   By then, we needed to get going, so we headed to Breckenridge for our ride.

We started off trying to find a good bike shop.  She saw two guys headed down the street looking like they knew what there were talking about and asked for a shop recommendation.  Andrea wanted to top off the Stan’s in a few of her wheels.  We headed down to the shop Elevation for this.  It was going to take him an hour or so, so had some time to kill.

We started to think about how much of a pain it would be to move out all the stuff out of the Element every night, so we decided to buy a larger tent.  We were pretty close to an outdoors store (Mountain Outfitters).  We went there and found what we were looking for right away.  The shop employee was super cool and we setup up the tent in the shop to have a look at it.  We bought it.

After dropping off the tent, we were hungry, so we hit a Japanese restaurant.  By then, her bikes were ready so we went to get them and got ready for our ride.  Our plan was to ride the short cut lap of about 15 miles from town (just like her race would start).  The first part of the ride is asphalt (3 miles or so) and a few more miles of gravel.  Most of the time it was just heading up at various pitches from 2% to 10%+.  The single track picks up after that….  here are two photos that pretty much sum up most of the trail, pine forest and old mines.

After our ride, we came back and set up our new tent…

All in all, it was a good day.  We will tackle some other riding tomorrow, some it on miles of paved bike path since Andrea doesn’t want to ride too hard the day before her race.  I still need to figure out where I will ride when she is racing… Probably will use the bike paths to get to some single track away from the race course.  On Monday, we will head to Fruita (at least that is our plan) and ride out there for 2 days before she has to take me back to Denver for my flight back to Memphis.

This is out of sequence, but on the way to the race, Andrea decided to take I-40 from Memphis to TN50 through Centerville to get over to Fayetteville.  All was well and good until the road was closed.  TDOT put up detour signs that were taking us way north with no updates.  Our GPS, was constantly telling us to turn right, so we did….  We diverted down a road called Hassell Creek Road.   The following gallery are a couple photos that I took as we picked our way down this small back road that clearly had extensive storm damage and flooding.  These photos are about 10% of what we saw.

Once again I am headed out to China for a few days.  The trip will be short and sweet, not much time to look around.  Part of it is that I don’t want too long of an interuption of training at this time of the year, the other part is that my first race is next weekend (Rouge Roubaix).  I am coming back on Wednesday after spending only two full days (three nights) in country.  Unfortunately, I am missing our training race tomorrow which should be starting around the time I am flying up to Detroit (first leg of the trip).

I think I am in pretty good shape despite how hard my solo ride today ended up.  It wasn’t terribly long at 62 miles, but it was windy and I was alone out there.  Before I did my ride, I took Andrea’s Bulldog CX tires off my Dura Ace wheelset and put my Bontrager Hard Case tires on.  Those are going to be my wheels for Rouge.  My bike, at this point, will be my Felt.  Andrea’s team Trek Madone came in on Thursday, mine should be soon, but I might not be ready to race it in the few days that I have before Rouge.

Well, I suppose I should pack some clothes.  Andrea is out to race Spa City 6 hour.  It is an NRC mountain event in (relatively) nearby Hot Springs, Arkansas.

After doing a bit of WordPress research (my least favorite activity), I found this solution…  Gallery for win!