I Love Northern MN

Last week ended not so good for me- TOO BUSY with work so I was excited to get away a little for the weekend to do some riding- mountain bike and four-wheelin. Saturday morning I got up early- 7:30 to me is early- and drove to Duluth to ride a full loop at Spirit Mountain with Barry Buhr. I've only ridden the Sport course on race weekends so I was pretty excited to do the full course that Comp/Expert ride- plus this course reminds me of riding out west- not so well groomed like the trails around the cities. We started at the bottom of the hill and rode up the Comp/Expert course trail to the top and started back down. That portion of the trail, including the climb, has some real gnarly rock sections with plenty of exposed roots on some steeper climbs- so so so fun! Really appreciated the full suspension and tubeless tires there. Well, then not too far down the trail from the top, still not sure what I hit but it burped a lot of air out of my rear tire. Usually when trail riding I carry my Camelback with a pump and a tube just-in-case. Of course not this time and the tire had lost too much pressure to finish the rest of the trail. I was in sort of a time crunch so we ended up riding down the ski runs to the car and had to leave from there.

Saturday afternoon and evening, I had an awesome time riding four wheelers in Wahkon, MN. It was cold and raining, but with the rain gear on, the bigger, deeper puddles were that much more fun to blast through just fast enough to get a good tidal wave and huge splashes all over! Polished off the weekend today with a nice order of 'Tacklebox Hashbrowns' and two of the biggest thickest pancakes I think I've ever had at a local 'Wahkon' Cafe overlooking Mille Lacs Lake- I loooooove flapjacks :)

Congratulations to TJ Woodruff on his top three finish at the Chequamegon 40 this weekend! Fellow Summit Racer Luke Baker also got a top three overall finish in the 16 mile race! I would have loved to be racing there, but I missed the entry deadline in the spring. Each year there are so many entry's that they use a lottery system to choose the entry list. This year 1,665 riders overall finished the 40-mile race. Next year I will enter and hope to be racing the 40.

Looking forward to some good training this week before the final MNSCS race this Saturday in St. Cloud at the Jail Trail called the Singletrack Escape. I really want to finish strong there as the previous two years one thing or another beyond my control plagued the race (bent derailleur hanger during the rain/mud soaked '06 race and in '07 the race was my first competition after completely breaking my fibula only 2 1/2 months earlier). Anyways, also thinking about maybe hitting up the cyclocross race on Sunday.