Upgrades and Good Times.

I built my fat bike with a Salsa steel fork and it worked great, but I had a 907 aluminum fork that I picked up for a project that is not going to happen for a while and I thought that I should put the fork to good use.  So swapped out the Salsa for the 907.  Not a huge ride difference between the two but it is a bit lighter and it looks great on the bike.

While I was in the mood to do some upgrades I mounted my Hydroflask and Topeak Java Cage on the bike.  The 907 has a smaller triangle so I had to make a bracket to offset the bottle cage holes by 3.5"  I think that it turned out pretty well and it seems to work great.

We have gotten outside for some fun rides even with the colder temps.  Troy, Todd, Mike and myself took a ride around the Bald Eagle and Otter lakes on some great hidden single track.  I turned out to be a great day for a ride.

I received a pair of Bar Mitts for Christmas, they are awesome, nice and warm in really cold temps.

While we were on the ride a local reporter stopped Todd and I and snapped a picture for the paper, it ended up on the front page!  I think that this is the first time I have ever been in the paper!

Kyleen got some new pair of Volkl Kenjas  over Christmas and she was very excited to get out on them so, we joined up with Troy and Kerry and headed down to Welsh Village for a ski day.  It was a great day the weather was warm and the snow was great!  I have never skied at Welsh so this was a new experience for me. I only took a couple of pictures, we were having too much fun skiing!

Her new boards are so much wider than mine.

Troy and Kerry are ahead of us a couple of chairs.

We had so much fun at Welsh that the next weekend we headed up to Spirit Mountain.  I really like Spirit, the runs are a bit longer than some of the other local ski hills.  There are also some great views of Duluth Harbor.  We lucked out on another great day of skiing!

Mexico and Early Winter Fun

I realized the other day that I haven't post anything in a while.  It’s been very busy fall and start of winter for us.  We headed down to Mexico for a much needed break, we did nothing but relax.  We been going to the Barcelo Maya Palace for the last 4 years, but this was our first trip alone.  It was a great get away.  Think that our next trip will be to a new location, we love this place, but it would be nice to see something new.

The view from our room on to the pool.

The wonderful beach.

For Thanksgiving we headed to Kyleen's family and the following Sunday we head to mine.  My family has had a tradition of shooting before dinner, I'm sure that's a normal tradition right??  It worked out great that both of us hit the clay in the pictures below!

Then we came back to winter.  It seems like this year we just jumped right in!  Work has been busy for both of us but we have been able to get out for some fun.  Kyleen and I met up with Kat and Paul for some XC skiing at Wild River State Park.  It is a great place to ski and the trails were perfect.  We got in about 8 or 9 miles of great skiing, the trails were awesome.

Troy and I decided to head over to St. Croix Falls for a pre-ride of the Solstice Chase fat bike course.  It was about -8 degrees for the whole ride.  I did not take any pictures on the course but it was beautiful.  We did snap a picture at the end.

We headed to the cabin Thursday after Christmas for some snowmobiling, snowshoeing and relaxing.  It was a great time.  There is a ton of snow up there, riding was good and we’re hoping to get up there again soon.

After a great ride and a nice snowshoe around the lake it was time for a good beer!  It was a great sunset as well!

Fall Rides and a New Toy

The fall weather has had its share of rain and cold, but I have been able to get out for some great fall rides.  I've been trying to get out during the week, but work has been very busy lately.  I was able to get over to Elm Creek for an after work ride.  It was cold and there was not much traffic on the trail.  There was good amount of deer activity, it is always fun see stuff out on a ride.

They both just sat there while I took out my phone to snap a picture.  I was about 20 feet from the bigger one.  Can you see the smaller one?

We did take advantage of a nice Sunday afternoon a week or so ago and we headed down to Lebanon Hills.  We have not ridden there in a long time, man has that trail changed.  I rode the Tallboy, it felt different compared to the fat bike, I took me bit to get used to it.

On Sunday I made it over to the Woolly Trails in St. Croix Falls, WI for a couple of laps.  I always forget how much climbing there is, it was a bit of a challenge on the fat bike.  It was cloudy but it was a great day for a ride.

Where did the trail go?

We pulled the trigger on a new to us camping rig.  We have been thinking of getting a travel trailer for a few years, but after we used my parent’s trailer for the Heck of the North we decided to get one of our own.  So after some looking we found one that we really liked and we took it home Halloween.  It is a smaller trailer but for the 2 of us it will be great!  We are really looking forward to using it!

Cuyuna Weekend

This past weekend we headed to the cabin for some riding at Cuyuna.  Fall is a great time to ride up there, when the leaves are at peak color it is beautiful.  We had hopes of riding Saturday but we woke up to rain and the forecast was not looking good for the whole day.  So we decided to head into Brainerd to look at some travel trailers.  We have been thinking of getting one and the rainy day was a good excuse to spend some time looking.

The weather on Sunday was great; we woke up to full sun and highs in the 50’s, perfect for fall riding.  Trail conditions were great!   I’m always surprised with how well Cuyuna can handle the wet weather, there were very few puddles on the trails.

Kyleen taking a break!

The view from the Hopper Hill overlook

Just before the fun downhill on Easy Street

I decided to take my fat bike up for the weekend.  It was a lot of fun to ride, I was really surprised how well it climbed and handled the rougher stuff.  I really liked how the bike made me feel the trail and the tires gave me just enough suspension to soften the ride.  I’m starting to really enjoy the fat bike ride.

The Fatty in it's natural environment 

Monday on the way home we stopped a rode the Yawkey side.  We only got a couple of laps around Bobsled and the rain started, so we headed back to the car before we got too wet.  It was a great weekend despite the rain.

This summer we bought a Yakima Hold Up 2 rack, it has been a great for us.  I was hoping that the fat bike would fit on it with out too much trouble, as you can see it works great.  I did have to let some air out of the front tire but it squeezed in just fine.  I have 4" On-One Floaters on the bike.  I did have to use a longer strap on the rear tire, the Yakima strap is too short.

All loaded up with some new red dirt on the tires

2013 Heck of the North

Since I was unable to ride Almanzo this year the Heck was my first 100 miler for the year.  I had heard that this ride was not a “normal” gravel grinder, the use of the snowmobile trails made it interesting.

Kyleen and I made it up to Two Harbors Friday around 5:30, we were using my parents travel trailer for the weekend, with the raining the forecast I was happy to have the trailer.

The rig for the weekend

Bright and early Saturday morning we got up and got going.  I was checking over things and I noticed that my front tire was flat, I had somehow cut my side wall, this was not how I want the morning to go!  Troy and I worked on the tire and I was back in business. 

Troy, Brett and I just before we lined up to start

We headed off to get checked in and to do a few last minute things.  The forecast called for rain and wind all day, but much to our liking it was not raining yet, at least we would get some dry miles in.  At about 8:30 we lined up and after a few words the field was off.  We headed off down a double track trail that was littered with rocks.  I have never seen so many flats in the starting miles of a race. At about mile 17 we turned off the dry gravel road and started down the snowmobile trail.  It was kind of fun to pass a bunch of people on the trail, I was riding my Tallboy with 2.1 inch tires, that was a good choice for this ride, the people with cyclocross bikes where having a hard time in the bog.  After a steep hill we were back on a dry trail for a bit then on to the road.  Things were going well for me, nothing exciting happened until the rain came at about mile 45 or so.  The next 4 or 5 hours I would be riding the rain.

Riders making their way up the hill out of the bog

I made my way to the halfway check point and at some food and drank a red bull.  Before the check point was tired, hungry and ready to call it.  I did know that I would feel better after I ate something, so I know that I was not really going to quit.  When I was leaving the check point I saw Kyleen sitting there in the truck, it was great to see her.  That always lifts my spirits during these races.   I rode for about 10 miles and I needed some more food, so I stopped and ate some more.

At about mile 80 I noticed a few cars parked on the side of there were I need to make the turn towards the finish.  There were a bunch of people hanging out with a fire, food, coke and beer.  This was also a little pick me up, I slammed a coke and headed off.  The wind was finally at my back and I was making some good time up until mile 90, when we turned back on to the snowmobile trail and it was muddy!  The last 15 miles felt like they took forever.   When I made it to the road I saw Kyleen standing waiting for me, it was nice to be done!  I finished the 104 miles in 10:05, which for a muddy rainy ride was not too bad for me.

Glad to be done, but I was feeling good.

My poor drivetrain!

All cleaned and ready to roll.

Rolling Darryl's on a diet

When I built up my fat bike, I had the intention of saving some money and drilling out the rims myself.  I had some spare time so I decided to take on the project.

I started by marking the rim for the holes and then drilling 1/16” and 1/8” pilot holes in each location.   I made a fixture to hold the wheel while drilling, it made holding the wheel easier.

Once all of the pilot holes were drilled I started with the 1 3/8” holes, I was committed to this once I drilled the first hole.  Some people relocate the valve stem hole to the seam weld on the rim and then they drill out the old location to the larger size, I did not do this.  I marked the valve stem hole and weld to make sure that I would not drill.  I also used some electrical tape to protect the edge of the rim from the metal shavings. Each wheel took about an hour to drill.  

Once all the holes were drilled I deburred them and installed the Surly rim strips.  I think that the blue strips are a nice touch.  The deburring process takes a while, but you really need to make sure there are no sharp edges.

In total the drilling removed 230 grams or ½ pound off of each wheel.  I had a pile of aluminum when I was done.

The bike feels a bit snappier and it looks cool too!  My bike is down to 31 lbs, which is not to bad.  My biggest advice to anyone that is going to do this to take your time, it took me about 4 hours over a couple of days.