…Michigan Photos.
I’m still trying to figure out how to get the video of the Michigan Tech trail posted, but here’s a screen shot:
I also got my Ore to Shore trophy in the mail yesterday:
In other news, I’ve got a tough workout on the schedule for tomorrow. I’ve been mostly resting (and racing) lately, so it’s a welcome challenge. Time to fight with the powermeter.
Sorry for the lack of updates, but the last few days have been somewhat mundane. Not a lot of action, but some pretty nice photos…
From the Downtown Marquette shoreline-
Those were actually from the day before Ore to Shore. The Sunday after the race, we checked out some of the South Marquette trail system, which included some great scenery and some dilapidated downhill runs on the local ski hill.
Later on that day, we made the drive down to Midland. We’ve ridden local trails the past couple of days. This area is really, really flat, and the trails are really, really twisty. A lot of people say that the Stanky Creek trails are the narrowest, twistiest they’ve ever ridden. The trails in Midland make Stank look like a hotdog down a hallway. No photos of those, so here’s a Tridge instead.
We’re finally getting back on the road back to Memphis tomorrow, where I’ll re-pack my bags and head down to Dahlonega, GA for Fool’s Gold. The Wizard says to do the 50 miler, which, honestly, after all of the racing & traveling I’ve done lately, is a nice thing to hear. For now, I’m just really, really ready to be home. Even if it is just for one night.
We left Copper Harbor on Thursday to head to Marquette. Along the way, we stopped at Michigan Tech (Ryan’s Alma Mater) to check out the trails. For those of you that aren’t “in the know” about Michigan Tech (fear not- I’m not sure if I’d even heard of it until I met Ryan), its specialty is engineering.
So, what do you get when you mix engineering and trail building?
Ramp-to-drop (I rode it! Ryan got video, but I still have to figure out how to get it on here)
The long log ride (also rode that one a couple of times)
Then there were some that we just kind of looked at in awe…
The Sine Wave:
And, my personal favorite- The Dorkscrew:
After the section of trail with all of the cool stuff, there was another loop called the Hairy Toad loop. While it didn’t feature anything man-made, it was my absolute most favorite type of trail- rocky, rooty, and twisty. I call it ADD trail. I rode all of it except for a sizable rock garden that was wet and slimy. It looked like a swellbow waiting to happen.
On the way out, we found the pump track, which rode as if it had also been engineered over a few pints of beer. The berms on the downhill turns were the most perfectly angled piles of dirt you could possibly imagine. Scary fast, and really awesome.
I need to build some baby stuff in my back yard to keep practicing my skinny-stuff riding skills. As it stands, I’m too much of a chicken.
Wednesday morning when we woke up, we weren’t sure if our ride would be rained out or not. We figured we’d get out and ride as much of the IMBA’s “Epic” loop that we could before it moved in.
What a great trail! It heads straight out from the middle of the town of Copper Harbor and winds around the ridges behind it. They generally aren’t too technical until you get to the ones labeled as “black diamond” trails. The Red trail baits you in to hauling ass before suddenly dumping you down a rocky, off-camber steep thing with a tree growing in the middle. We quickly figured out to expect anything around each corner…
It wasn’t JUST a bridge, it was a nearly vertical drop followed by a bridge (photo really doesn’t do it justice)…
They really love the plank bridges out here. So do I…
We ended up cutting our ride a little short in order to preserve our legs for the Ore to Shore race this weekend. After a little lunch and rest, we decided to drive around and visit the Delaware Mine (AKA the “safety last” tour). Mines are pretty cool…
Sort of, at least.
Yesterday when we got settled in at Copper Harbor, we decided to head out on some of the easier trails in the local trail system. However, I got sidetracked in thinking that maybe we could find the end of the Keweenaw out in Lake Superior. We passed a sign for the beginning of US Highway 41, but the road turned to gravel and kept going into the forest. Of course, I wanted to see where it went and what was at the end of it. It HAD to have an end, right?
Fast forward to half an hour and 600 feet of climbing later. We hadn’t found anything other than some nice forest roads. We figured we should turn back so we could get back to town before dark, so Ryan came up with a loop back based on his Garmin’s map. Though we ended up on at least one pretty sketchy section of “road,” we ended up having a great ride, and made it back in time to get to the last restaurant open before the town rolled up their sidewalks from the evening.
Photos…
Oh yeah, and, as you can see, I’m experimenting a bit with self-portrait type photos. Our motel also provides its guests with afro picks.
Despite the rain, our second day of riding was better than expected. Just to get a change of scenery, we decided to drive to the Kettle Moraine area for our road ride. Ryan knew a loop from the Tour of America’s Dairyland race, so we parked in the town of Greenbush and headed out on the roads in Kettle Moriane State Park.
Along the way, we passed the entrance to the trails. Hmmm… it rained last night… well, no harm in just looking, right?
Turns out, the ground in that area is incredibly hard packed sandy/rocky mix. It had drained like nobodys business! We ended up riding the various loops for nearly an hour. They were awesome trails- at first you’re like, “hey, this is easy, flowy stuff…” but then you hit a patch of little wet rocks pocked across the trail, and you start sliding somewhat unpredictably. At first I was taking it kinda slow- the rocks were about golfball to softball in size, so you’d roll into a patch of them, and if you were going straight, the loss of control felt a little like riding sand (ok, really lumpy sand). After getting used to them, though, it was a blast.
We eventually left the trails and finished our loop back to the car. Back at the house, Ryan and I ate and decided to go out fishing on Lake Winnebago with his brother. We caught up a mess of Perch, and had a good fish bake/fry that night. Somehow, some of my roasted green beans found their waay in to the Fry Daddy…
I feel like my blog has been unusually quiet lately. Maybe it’s just because I’m not reporting my daily adventures whilst on the road in beautiful New Mexico and Colorado. I know (hope?) you guys liked reading that, and, while it did do wonders for my daily site traffic, I have to say, it was occasionally a chore.
Want more?
I’m heading out tomorrow morning with Ryan to make our yearly summer trip to Wisconsin and Michigan to visit his family (you can see his mom’s hiking/traveling stories at http://isleroyalegirl.blogspot.com/. While I can’t promise that this trip will be anywhere remotely as interesting as my former adventure, it will include some camping, MTB racing (Ore to Shore), and maybe a trip to a cheese factory and/or a copper mine… something touristy like that.
In the meantime, if you want something intersting, check out Bad Idea Racing for some “hey, y’all, watch this” type action. Or, take a bath in cheese curls. The choice is yours.
I love riding singlespeed. The races I want to go to generally don’t have women’s singlespeed categories, though. I don’t blame them- there are relatively few women who race (compared to men), so asking them to break the women’s race down further to include a SS category is kinda tough.
Namrita at 55nine had told me that if 3 women would be willing to race SS at Fool’s Gold that she’d make it a separate category. Awesome!!! Oh, wait- that means I need to find two other women who will race SS.
Anyone? Anyone?
I posted the same question over in the Endurance forum on MTBR, and that’s kinda the response I’ve gotten so far.
So- ladies… Why don’t you want to race singlespeed? It’s fun. There’s less stuff to break and less shifting to worry about. If something is too steep to ride, you just walk. No big deal. Try it. Race it. Get obsessed like I have. Let me know if you’re interested in Fool’s Gold & we’ll talk to Namrita.
Edit- as an aside, if you ladies were to race it SS, what gear would you use? I was thinking 32×20, but I’ve got options…
Tuesday morning was my last training ride before going in to “rest” mode. I decided since the section of Leadville course that Art wanted to ride was rolling or flat that I’d take the geared bike out so I wouldn’t have to spin at 12mph for miles on end (is that weird? I take the geared bike out when there’s less climbing?)
We rode the section from the Pipeline Aid station to Twin Lakes and back. This time, I took my camera- some of the photos below are of Art creating his own personal course markings, some scenery, and a random Amanda Carey sighting:
I started Monday morning with a rib-sticking breakfast cooked by Wild Bill and his wife, Cathy. Soon after, I was changed and out on the bike with Art and a couple of other Leadville 100 hopefuls. We rode the first 26 miles or so of the race course, which was interesting since I was on my singlespeed, and they were on geared bikes trying to take it easy. I ended up riding up the climbs ahead of them and just waiting at the top.
I’m mad at myself for not bringing a camera. There were some beautiful views out there. I had to chuckle a little bit- Art said that the first climb is the steepest other than the initial section of powerline on the “back” direction of the course. I rode most of it until the pitch near the top. While I was pushing my bike, I watched the grade, which was usually around 17-23%. Compared to what I’ve been “hiking” on the Breck course, this was a kitten.
The next climb was great- it wasn’t very steep, and there was an occasional tailwind that was strong enough to feel like a push up the hill. On the way down “powerline,” I spotted Amanda Carey (who wrote the best race report for Marathon Natz that I’ve seen so far), who was on her way up. I can see how that climb would be painful… it was a little bit more like the Breck climbs as far as length of the insane steep part, and the terrain was a little rocky.
It was a nice ride- we ended up with just over 30 miles and about 3000ft of climbing.
Once I was back, I cleaned up and watched a replay of Sunday’s Tour stage. Too bad about Lance crashing and losing all that time- it’d be more fun to see Alberto beat him fair & square instead. After that, I sat around on the porch talking to the hikers that were staying in the hostel. One girl had been at the Breck hostel the first night I was there, so it was fun to exchange stories about what we’d done since the last time we’d met. She’s on her first thru-hike, and it’s great to hear about her learning experiences along the way.
After a while, a few of us decided to go to the local Mexican place for dinner- Keith (given the trail name “Sir Mix-a-Lot” when he hiked a good portion of the AT eating nothing but trail mix) on the left, and John (no trail name) on the right:
Keith is from Pennsylvania. He graduated high school, worked full time for a while to save money, then decided he wanted to hike the Appalachian trail to West Virginia. He got bored, though, and hitched/hopped a bus out West to hike and just explore random places. Pretty awesome for 19 years old.
John is a Colorado Trail thru-hiker. He’s going slowly and enjoying every minute. After his rest days here in Leadville, he’s going to go on an epic hike to summit fourteen 14ers (peaks over 14k feet), and invited me to join him for one. It sounds crazy enough that I just might do it.
The last couple of days, I’ve realized that the best part of this trip isn’t the racing, the scenery, or exploring new places- It’s the people that I’ve met along the way. The scouts in Whiteman Vega, the locals in Breck, Dejay & friends, the hikers, Wild Bill, Art… everyone. We tell our stories, and everyone inspires everyone else in some way. It’s something I didn’t expect to get out of this trip, and it’s beautiful.