Memorial Weekend

It's finally summer!  Well, sorta.   Mostly it's just wet and a bit chilly.  Nonetheless, Memorial Day has come and gone, which means it's summer as far as I'm concerned.   Despite the rain, I managed to get in two rides (mostly) dry, and had some fun camping with some of the OBC crowd.   And, since I decided that my blog has too many words, and not enough pictures, I took a few to show folks how things went.

Bikes, Bikes and Brews
The Faribault Flyers invited us up to help them celebrate their first Bikes, Bikes, and Brew festival.   The gist of it was that a bunch of cyclists, motorcyclists and hobby brewers would show up and have a good time.   As I'm totally behind having a good time, I was in.   Saturday dawned a bit dreary and damp looking, but the rain was holding off for a while, at least.  Since we had a really solid south wind, I tagged along with a couple guys and rode up to Faribault (with absolutely NO intention of riding back).   I posted a 19 mph average for the trip, which I will continue to try and pretend is a speed that I can hold without the help of a strong weather front.  

Once there, we gathered with the Faribault and Northfield bike clubs and milled about blocking a city street for about a half hour.  Introductions were made, groups were sorts and we took off.   The A group was doing 50 miles at ridiculous speeds, so I wisely rode with the B group, who were doing a much more reasonable 35 miles.  

Getting ready to roll

The ride started with the wind at our backs, which led me to lead out a pretty fast pace.  Probably a bit too fast, but it's hard to go slow when you have fresh legs and a tail wind!   The wind got its payback, of course, as we had to turn back into it to get back.   We stopped at a lovely cafe in Waterville that had fantastic scones and very tasty tea and then took the Sakatah Trail back to town.   The rain started just as we rolled into town, so pretty good timing.  

Brats and root beer in the shelter of the Crafty Maven, whose owner kindly offered us a place to  sit and eat out of the rain.

Random observation from the ride:  I think I honest to goodness bonked for the first time on that ride.  I was 40 miles in on < 200 calories and even after eating I never did get my energy back.   In fact, I got so tired I actually started to nod off while riding back along the trail.   Good thing I have many years of practice driving half awake!

Leinenkugel's Chippewa Valley Century Ride
Saturday evening a group of us drove up to Chippewa Falls to camp the night before the Chippewa Valley Century.   I wasn't planning to ride the century, but I had vaguely committed to the 75 mile route.  The only problem with my plan was that my knee was once again giving me issues and actually was bad enough that I was having trouble climbing stairs earlier in the day.   Nevertheless, I was pretty sure that ibuprofen and stupidity would get me through.  

Later, we discovered that shoes will melt.

Camping was great fun.  I had found Eagle Ridge Campground from the ride's website, and the owner/manager was super friendly and helpful, even though we were staying only one night on a holiday weekend.   It was a bit chilly, but not too bad, and the weather even cleared enough for the full moon to shine.  

Bikes in the moonlight (courtesy of Dave Chabot)

Naturally, we stayed up much too late, laughing and telling stories around the campfire.   As we tucked in for the night I knew 6:00 was going to come very early.  

The day of the ride was surprisingly nice, though quite windy.   We got started a bit late, but frankly, I don't think anyone in our group was complaining too loudly. My knee was not in good shape, with a sort of tearing sharp pain shooting through it anytime we started to climb a hill.    I told Ann to ride on without me, and I was already starting to wonder how I was going to manage the whole 75 miles.    As chance would have it, unfortunately, Ann also was having issues.   When we got to the first rest stop we had to choose to continue on the 50/75/100 mile route, or turn and follow the 35 mile route.   After much soul searching and evaluation of our bodies, we decided that the shorter route was the safest choice.  

Honestly, it was a beautiful route, and with the pain I was in, I was glad to be able to enjoy a least a bit of it. I maybe could have done one of the longer routes, but I'm not certain I would be walking now if I had.   Once we were back at the starting point we got brats (amazing, btw) and hung out until the rest of the crew got back.  I tried to hike around a bit, but I couldn't climb anything so I was limited to flat paths.  

They had a petting zoo.   

So, in the end, a pretty fun weekend, even with some unfortunate events.    I'm still waiting on my knee to recover, and have taken the week off.   I went to the shop and got my fit adjusted, so hopefully that will help.    In the meantime, I'm going to focus on running and swimming for the next week or so and hope that the lakes warm up before the 9th!