On The Saddle Again

Finally got back on the bike today. I was going to get on the dreaded rack...er, I mean the trainer, but then I read this from Charlie and decided to get outside:

Then as if providentially sent, I knew the source of my tears! I was crying tears of unrestrained sympathy for my training mates for they have resorted to spending hours upon hours of mundane drudgery on their fancy-pants trainers whist glued to their television sets watching those shockingly-spoiled-saggy-panted sissyboarders do their little pony tricks for the masses...My dear training mates had been taken in, like so many others, by the manufactured hysteria surrounding these somewhat acrobatic juvenile delinquents!

It was the right decision.

Big D and I tried the other day only to be stopped by the ice. We ended up trying the snowmobile trails which weren't great and ultimately ended up with a plateful of eggs in front of us.

Ice

Snowmobile Trail

In other news, Meredith and I had built a snow fort when the snow was soft and wet earlier in the winter. It is now rockhard. We spent some of Sunday scooping it out. It has three rooms, a slide, and a tunnel. It is the best fort that I have ever been a part of.

The Slide

The Tunnel

JRA (again, finally),

Scott S.

Happy Birthday Jen

We















































You,

And















































you had a great day!!

Love,
Scott, Meredith, and Maggie.

Maggie's First Feeding

Disclaimer: likely only interesting to close relatives(I'm looking at you Grandma's and Grandpa's).

Before:




After:

Fun day with the Aunt and Uncle

The girl's Aunt and Uncle came up for the afternoon. They live in the Cities and Big M was stoked when she heard they were coming. Her Aunt A. is a favorite in her life (sorry Uncle T.; she loves you too). Anyway, we had a fun day sledding, visiting, eating, and playing Rockband. Sorry, no pictures of Rockband, I promised Wife I wouldn't post those.

Me, Big M, Uncle T., and Aunt A.

Little M is there somewhere

Valentine's day program

Meredith's preschool had a program today:

First Ski

We went to Andes last Saturday. M had her first ski lesson. Much to the relief of her parents, she liked it. After that her and her Mom went on the tubing hill while her Dad did some skiing. Makes me think of, and wish for, a trip to the mountains. Soon.

We're still here

I knew I hadn't posted anything in awhile, but I didn't think it was since last June.

Lots of changes around here that most of you are aware of. These include

1. Little M born 9/9/09. Now we have big M and little M; the M and M sisters.
2. A new address. We moved in July across town. Same size house, just fits us better and a quieter neighborhood.
3. I guess that's about it.
4. It seemed like more, but we are busy none-the-less.
5. I know, because my biking habit has taken a hit.
6. I know, because I haven't been on my skis yet.
7. I know, because of #6, I'm thinking of skipping the Birkie this year.
8. Wow, what a digression. Sorry.

Anyway, I'm going to try to post here more regularly again. Now it might be more about the kids, rather than all my biking adventures. Although they will be featured prominently too.

Here are some pics of the girls. They get along great. Big M loves being a big sister.

The Happy Family

The Proud Big Sister

First day of Preschool

Little M and Big M

Halloween Trunk or Treat at church
(TinkerBell, a Ladybug, and Bob the Builder)

The Single Life

For some reason I haven't quite figured out, I decided to remove about 70 years of cycling innovation from my bike (except the hydraulic disc brakes). The gears came off and I've gotten the taste of the single life. It's hard to explain why I did it, why I like it, or why I'm thinking of a dedicated singlespeed bike.

It has taken a lot of the thinking out of biking. Either you pedal or you walk. If the road starts to go up, you pedal harder or you push. Somebody more clever than me described riding a singlespeed as "99% rider, 1% bike and 100% more fun". I never "got it" until I tried it. I'm looking forward to trying it on dedicated singletrack trails.

Anyway, here is how it went (the abbreviated version):

First, start with adequate beverages...

and hydrate.

Have the tools ready

Don't forget the drill (long story)

Thank the gears that have served you well,

and bid them farewell.

Take that off,

and put this on.

Sit back and enjoy your handiwork

First ride report coming up.

JRA

Scott S.

Moving

Labor Day weekend '08 at Carlos State Park

We're moving. We've been looking to move to another place for awhile now. We had been looking at a lake place, but it turned out to be cost-prohibitive. We then told ourselves that we wouldn't look for another place until at least the end of summer. Of course, we kept looking and found a nice place in a great neighborhood that just happens to be close to my frequent biking partner, Big D.

We decided to go for it. We made an offer, put our house on the market and unbelievably, it sold in 6 days. We are moving from our place on July 3rd and move into the new place on the 10th.

Only 6 days!

What's that you ask? There is a week between the two dates? I can't believe we overlooked that. Oh wait, isn't that what the two "professionals" that were hired to get this thing put together would handle? I guess not. What it means is that we are staying in a local hotel (on the realtor's tab) for 5 nights between closing dates. M will love it since it has a pool and our friends are helping a ton by having us over for dinner a couple of nights to get us out of the hotel. Rant over, lessons learned and once we're into our new house, all will be good.

We are busy packing and so the riding has been limited. Fortunately, I was able to get out today for some gravel. New gravel was ridden and some new possibilities for our tentative Fall gravel race/ride Big D and I are thinking of organizing. Details to follow.

Part of the race/ride route

JRA

Scott S.

PS: I've decided to start including random photos on this blog. Why? Because I want to, that's why and often I have pics that don't fit with the post otherwise but I want to share them. Here's one that would have fit yesterday's post better:

The swimmers in the family

Swimming Lessons

M had her first taste of swimming lessons the last two weeks.

The warm-up

She loved it. She is very much like her Mother, and so not like her Father when it comes to swimming and enjoying the water. Wife was born and raised in Rock County MN, a county with no natural lakes. From this she loves the water and swimming, was a lifeguard at the local pool, and taught swimming lessons. I was born and raised in Becker County, MN a county with several hundred lakes (135 square miles of water, 9.32% of the total). From this, I learned to swim but more on the order of survival and not enjoyment, would rather look at the water than be in it, and I drive the boat rather than be pulled by it.

Meredith is sitting here on my lap and wants to tell you what she liked about swimming lessons:

• Noodle choochoo train with the other kids
• The girl teachers and the other kids
• Playing at swimming lessons
• Dancing
• Bake a pizza in the water, and the cupcake and a cookie in the water
• Blowing bubbles
• Sweeping and ice cream scooping

Some of the above things I have no idea what they are, but she was excited to tell me about them.

The "girl teachers and the other kids"

She ended up passing the class and already is talking about next time she will get to go swimming. It will be soon with our uncoming 5 day stay in a local hotel. That story will be told later.

I'm glad she likes swimming so much and needless to say her Mom is very proud.

Graduation night

JRA

Scott S.

Upcoming Attractions

Cheq Fat Tire 9/07

Yes, I'm still here.

It's been a busy month and I've had great intention to get some blog posts up but haven't taken the time. So here's the deal; over the next several days I'll post up some of these posts I've had in mind the last several weeks. I figure by announcing them, then I'll have to since all six of you readers would be disappointed if I didn't...I think.

Anyway, here's some of the upcoming posts:

M's swimming lessons
We're moving
The Big Conversion
The first ride as a Convert
A state park visit

Till then.

JRA

Scott S.

Just a Ride

Sunny day

I was able to get out the other day. The first ride since Almanzo. It felt good to be back on the bike. Big D was sick, so it was a solo ride and perfect weather. Enjoy the pics.

Fun ahead

Spring-time in Minnesota

Hub view

Have a safe Memorial Day.

JRA

Scott S.

A Tale of Two Races (the second race)

A portion of the 103 miles of gravel

We knew that the race up till this point had been easy, relatively speaking. Sure there were some hills, but the wind helped with those. What we were waiting for was the turn back to Rochester. We got a little taste of the wind between St. Charles and Chatfield and on to Spring Valley, but the valleys and hills were the highlight of that stretch. There is some beautiful country in Southeast Minnesota and we saw it from a bike seat. There is no better way to see it.

One of the countless hills

I could go on and on about the hills. We went from grinding up them in the lowest gear at 5-7 mph to white-knuckling it down at 30+ mph. We of course liked the downs but as the race went on, rather than purely enjoying the downhills, there was a voice in the back of your mind reminding you of the next grinding uphill.

There was a time cutoff in Spring Valley, 63 miles into the race. We had to be there by 2pm. We showed up at 2:10. We were hoping as we came into town that Chris would change that given the wind and the fact that there were still several riders behind us. Fortunately, that was the case. The new cut-off time when we rolled in was 2:30. We made it.

We checked in, got the second set of tulip cards and headed for the gravel rider's favorite restaurant: the gas station. The Kwik Trip in Spring Valley did brisk business that day as I'm sure just about every racer stopped there. After refilling water bottles and the Camelbak, enjoying some chocolate milk and a ham and cheese sandwich, we were on our way once again.

Rest stop

Anybody who rides longer distance knows that it can take many miles to get the legs again after stopping. Unfortunately, we wouldn't have a chance to ease our legs into it after our stop. We were now facing the full teeth of the wind out of town with no end in sight. It was incessant. I thought I was going to blow-up. The legs didn't have it anymore. It reminded me of the last few miles of the Fat Tire 40, except we had 40 miles still to go. Big D was riding strong and I was trying to get any draft off of him I could. The wind was too strong and we were going slow enough that it was hard to find the sweet-spot. That is to say nothing about the fact he was just about riding me off his wheel.

Notice the flag and trees

After a couple of miles, I needed to stop. I felt bad about that as Big D was riding well, but he was kind enough to comply with my wish. I needed my iPod. I needed something to drown out the howl in my ears from the wind. I needed something to take my mind off of 40 miles of wind and hills. I needed something so I could go inside myself. I needed some music.

Bruce Springsteen, Wilco, The Gaslight Anthem, Kings of Leon, Dire Straits, Steve Earle, Coldplay. I'd like to thank all of them for the last 40 miles.

The next 25 miles are a blur of gravel, wind, hills, music. We kept eating, drinking and pedaling. We met and rode with a woman from Rochester. We would ride together for a short time, she would stop to walk a bit, and then would pass us again when we would stop. We leap-frogged each other until the finish. Mentally, for me, it was helpful to see another suffering as much as us. That doesn't sound very nice, and I wish she wasn't suffering, but it was nice to know we weren't alone out there.

Down the hill, across the bridge, and back up the hill

As we neared Rochester, our spirits rose, knowing we would finish this thing. There was even a short section with the wind; it was like Christmas morning. One last push into the wind on gravel and then pavement to the finish line, including a paved downhill at 35 mph. Hearing the cowbell and cheers after 11 hours on the bike was perfect. Shaking the hand of the organizer, Chris, after finishing was pure class on his part. Never at a race had I had that kind of appreciation for finishing 62nd out of 66. Again, pure class and it shows his love of cycling and in particular, the Almanzo.

A couple of beers (thanks Summit), a water bottle for finishing, a congratulations and thanks to pedalgrl, and a final thanks to Chris and we were off. It was a fun day in the end. I learned a bit more about how far I could push myself, both physically and more importantly, mentally. On the ride home, Big D and I were already talking about next year's race as well as other gravel adventures ahead.

JRA

Scott S.