Bike Nerdery

Camp Site at Carver Park Reserve

One of my goals for this year is a night of bike camping. I had originally planned to do this is April, but that did not work out. And the start of May brought terrible weather. The weather sprites smiled on me this weekend however, so I decided that it was now or never.

Saturday morning I packed up and headed towards Carver Park Reserve, the closest camping ground I knew of. I biked through this park last year, so I already knew the way. And since it is only about 30-miles by bike, I figured that I could get there without a problem.

The first 18 miles or so were a breeze, surprisingly. My camping gear added 30-ish pounds to my already hefty bike frame, so I thought the going would be slow. And while I wasn’t going my normal speed, I was still moving at a respectable pace.  “Hah hah,” I thought, “this is easy!”

That is what we ‘authors’ call foreshadowing.

After 18 miles, the going got tougher. The pace slowed, the gears got lower, the breaks more frequent. But Carver kept getting closer, which is what counts. About 3 hours after leaving home, I had a camp site and was ready to go.

Go where, exactly? Well, nowhere. I didn’t feel like riding any more, so I hung out in my tent and read a Evelyn Waugh book. Nothing says ‘camping’ like a social comedy about the British upper classes. I got a fire started, made dinner, fought off some mosquitos and ticks and called it a night.

Largely because I lacked a pillow, the night was not peaceful. That’s something I’ll have to take care of before the next trip.* Bright and early, and slightly rested, I packed up and headed out, taking a different route home.

Unlike the ride out, the ride home was almost never comfortable. I started off sore and never quite got into the rhythm. Add in the ten extra miles I had to ride to get home, and it was a long day. I don’t know what my average speed was, but I know that it was not fast.

Now what? Well, I want to do some multi-day tours later this year. But I obviously need more practice and training. It’s hard to ‘train’ for a tour, since you can only get the full experience by carrying all of your gear for miles and miles. And it’s a hassle loading and unloading the bike all the time. I dunno, maybe I’ll put barbells in my panniers and head out for some rides.

The route

• Other things to remember for next time:
  
  
  
  • Headlamp
  
  
  • Bug repellant
  
  
  • Butter or other oil for cooking
  
  

Preston to Harmony

On the Root River trail map there are two sections of the trail that are marked “Relatively steep hills”.

Relative to what? It does not say.

Regardless, we rode both of those relatively hilly sections. One is between Preston and Harmony, and it is indeed pretty hilly. A few of the hills are steep, but what wore me out was the rolling terrain. Up, down, low gear, high gear, fast, slow. This site says the hills reach an 8% grade, but I don’t remember anything that steep.

But over the 12-mile ride, your elevation doesn’t change all that much. About 400 feet. It feels like more.

But even with the hills the ride is beautiful. You start along side the river, then you climb along the bluffs until you reach the town of Harmony – home to the county’s only movie theater. And if you want to ride 5 miles farther, you’ll be in Iowa. We didn’t do that.

We did have breakfast at the Harmony House Cafe, which was about what you’d expect. Only with more oil in the hashbrowns.

Riding back was awesome. Those steep hills were now almost entirely in our favor. We got pretty close to 30mph.

Preston to Fountain

From Preston it’s about 5 miles to the intersection with the Root River Trail proper. Once on the trail, it’s a little over 6 miles to the trail’s western terminus in Fountain. This last 6 miles is all uphill. Sometimes it’s a shallow grade, sometimes it’s a steeper grade. It’s never really steep, but it’s always uphill.

Again, the elevation change is not great, roughly 400 feet over 6 miles. That’s an average of 1.3%, which sounds pretty pathetic now that I’ve done the math. There’s some advice for you, never do the math.

After the rolling terrain between Preston and Harmony this non-stop climb was pretty hard on me. We took a lot of breaks. I think if I rode this stretch fresh, it wouldn’t seem so bad.

In Fountain we ate at Los Gables, which is as ridiculous and great as we’d hoped. The torta in particular was quite tasty.

Houston to Peterson

Houston is the eastern trailhead of the Root River trail. It’s home to the second “relatively steep hill,” this one so notorious that you can even get a t-shirt that says “I climbed the hill!” It needs a better nickname, but since it’s pretty much the only hill on the trail, I guess The Hill will do.

And, indeed, climbing The Hill was the only time all weekend that I used my smallest chainring. Getting exact elevations on The Hill is tricky – maybe about 100 feet of climbing in about 2000 feet of riding? A grade between 4 and 5 percent, let’s say. Enough to make you take notice, but not long enough to do any serious damage. And riding down the opposite side is awesome.

When we climbed The Hill on our way home, it seemed significantly less tough than we remembered. Hills, like fish, grow in the telling.

The rest of this route varies between pretty and ugly. Riding close to the river is fantastic and beautiful. Riding next to the highway, as you do between Rushford and Peterson is dull and unattractive.

The day we rode it was incredibly windy, when we left the cover of the trees and had to ride on open terrain, it was terrible. So don’t ride on a day with 30mph wind gusts, that’s my advice. Unless that’s the only day you can ride, then you should.

In Rushford we ate at The Creamery which is a great place to stop for sweet treats and an ok place to stop for lunch.

In Houston we got breakfast at Cross Roads Cafe, which was tasty (and not oily), but not speedy. I’d normally take tasty over speedy, but the non-speediness of Cross Roads was a bit excessive.

After our ride we stopped at Barista for hot drinks. This place seemed awesome, and neither of our drinks were poisoned, so it gets two thumbs up!

In July I started a semi-regular lunch ride that I imaginatively called the “Ten-Mile Lunch”. I’ll give you one guess how long the ride is.

Starting at my house, I hop on the Greenway in Brackett Park. I ride the Greenway west to Hennepin Ave, stop for a brief rest and then ride home. The goal is to do the ride as quickly as possible, thus it is the only ride where I track my time.

In July, my rides were around 45 minutes. So far, August’s rides have been around 44:30. Today my time was 42:04, so I guess I’m doing something right.

In June I settled on a entertaining way to plan my longer rides — I would pick a compass direction and head out, no firm route or destination in mind.

In June, I went west (St. Bonifacus), north (Coon Rapids) and east (Maplewood). I was all ready for my ride south, but then other things got in the way. After three weeks without a long ride, I finally got my chance to head south last weekend.

After heading across the highway 55 bridge, I worked my way farther south along Pilot Knob Road (a name that always elicits a chuckle) and Johnny Cake Ridge Road (another odd one) until I ended up at the Minnesota Zoo. Other than a brief visit almost ten years ago, I’d never seen the zoo, so I decided to park the bike and spend the day checking out the animals. A couple of interested friends who have a zoo membership drove down and joined me.

3ish hours later, we’d seen almost everything the zoo had to offer and it was time to head home; the ride back was mostly downhill, with a few small climbs thrown in, just to keep me working. Pleasant enough, even if the southern suburbs aren’t exactly scenic.

Perhaps it was due to my not riding much for almost a month, but this 33 mile ride was pretty exhausting. Eagan and Apple Valley have some hills, but nothing major. So I can’t blame it on the terrain.

I guess I just have to ride more. Next destination: West!

Last weekend my friend D and I completed the 20^th annual Tour Of Lakes, a ride organized by the Paul Bunyan Cyclists, a cycling club based in the Brainerd area.

I’d never participated in a ride like this before, and I’d never been to Brainerd, so I had no idea what to expect. Would it be hilly or flat? Would the riders be genial or would they be a bunch of speed-obsessed racers? Even the route was a mystery — I’d emailed the organizers about it only to be told that I’d find out on the day of the ride.

Heading into the weekend the only things I knew were that I could complete a 65-mile ride, and that I could do so in the time allotted to us by the ride organizers, who strongly suggested that everyone finish their ride by 3pm.

And both of those assumptions were nearly proved wrong.

We got into Brainerd the night before the ride and set out to see the town and find some dinner. First, it turns out we weren’t even in Brainerd, but neighboring Baxter. Second, it is currently impossible to reach Brainerd’s downtown, as the entire road has been removed for reconstruction.

We spotted a non-desrcript cafe with a few promising neon beer signs — Rogue Brewery and Fat Tire. Surely this place had to be good.

We’d stumbled across what must be the most hippie/hipster restaurant in Brainerd, the E Squared Cafe. Perfect! We tanked up on beer and vegetarian entrees, eavesdropping on the bizarre discussions of local politics taking place one table over.

The next morning we tried to hit the road as early as possible. In order to finish by the 3pm deadline, I wanted us to start the ride by 7am. That would give us 8 hours — allowing us a leisurely pace of under 10 mph.

After registration and preparation, we got on the road closer to 7:30. Still plenty of time. And when we reached the first rest stop, after about 10 miles, we were way ahead of schedule. The ride had been flat, fast and relaxing. We were holding a comfortable pace of 15 mph. Hell, at this rate we’d be done by noon!

Here we're at the midpoint of the long loop.

The Paul Bunyan Cyclists had promised good food at the rest stops, and they certainly delivered. Our first stop featured breakfast burritos, a huge array of fruits and boxes of pastries. We lingered just long enough to sample the variety then headed back out.

This is when we found out that the first 10 miles were a ruse. The route would not be all flat and relaxing. It would be hilly and challenging. On a beautiful, narrow road we began to encounter the rolling hills that we’d be riding most of the rest of the day. I called these the “Roller Coaster” hills, because I could frequently get enough momentum on the descent to allow me to coast up to the top of the next hill. Hooray for all my extra mass!

On this road we were passed by a small group of folks, one of whom gave me some polite ribbing about all the bags on my bike. In addition to my normal saddle bag and handlebar bag I was also carrying a single Ortlieb pannier as a backup, should the predicted rain come pouring down.

I said something about wanting to carry everything I needed, to which the guy responded that I was “a Boy Scout.” Then one of the other riders said “He’s like a dinosaur!” A dinosaur? I’m still not sure if that was meant as a compliment or not. Whatever.

We rolled onwards and the hills got bigger. No more coasting to the top. When the long route split off from the shorter 35-mile route the hills increased in size. Our second rest stop was at Kelly’s bar, where the volunteers were serving up sloppy joes and veggie chili. These did not appeal to me or D, so after a short break we prepared to head out.

Before we left a pair of women complimented our bikes. One of them was particularly in love with every aspect of our rides. The bags, the leather saddles, the fenders, etc. Yet her bike (an aluminum Trek road bike) lacked everything she loved about our bikes. It was odd. Like a kid that really likes reading but who spends all his time playing Xbox so as to fit in with his friends. Or maybe she just couldn’t afford another bike. I dunno.

Ridge Road

The northern loop of the long route was beautiful. We got off the county highway and rode on lakeside residential roads. For a while we were so secluded that I was sure we’d taken a wrong turn. A brief patch of loose gravel road reinforced the seclusion. Coming back from the northern tip of the ride the road straightened and flattened out, allowing me to cruise along at a quick 22 mph pace, exploring gears that I didn’t even know my bike had.

When we got back to Kelly’s the hills had taken their toll on us and we stopped for lunch. The chili still didn’t look good, so we went in the bar and rested with a beer and greasy bar food.

By this point we were about five hours into the ride and about two-thirds of the way through the route. A mere 20 miles to go, with three hours until the ride deadline. Simple, I thought.

But those hills, those damn hills. More and more frequently I found myself in my smallest gear, climbing a hill at 5 or 6 mph. And each big climb was followed by a water break. We worked our way to the third rest stop which promised pasta.

It was at the third stop that I noticed our time was getting short. We’d have to hold a good pace to make it to the end by 3. Just to add to the difficulty, the route was about 4 miles longer than advertised. 69 miles, not 65. We didn’t linger over our pasta.

About the only things I remember from this last stretch are grinding through a tough headwind and the arrival of the promised rain. I also remember how fabulous it was to turn out of the headwind and realize that we had a smooth, hill-less 3 miles between us and the finish.

With the rain strengthening, we crossed the finish line at 2:59. 1 minute ahead of the goal! Huddling under a tent we ate our celebratory root beer floats in our official Tour Of Lakes mugs and got our bikes ready for the drive home. In all the rush to get somewhere dry, we left our mugs behind. Oh well.

At 69.33 miles, the ride was slightly shorter than my ride around Lake Minnetonka. But it was so much more difficult. D called it a “Hilly Century”, as if 70 hilly miles is equivalent to 100 miles on flat ground. It’s an exaggeration, but there’s no doubt that I felt like I’d rode much farther than 70 miles.

Without the 3pm deadline, we could have spent some more time relaxing and recuperating at the rest stops. But, all in all, I’m glad we had the deadline to shoot for. It forced us to push ourselves a bit harder than we would have, turning our ride from a leisurely jaunt to a goal accomplished — complete with all the attendant pride and satisfaction.