Maah Daah Hey, Maah Daah Ho, Hey...Ho... Hey..Ho

 We drove from Minneapolis to Bennett camp in one day.  Weather and trail was perfect but it was getting late so we just rode a few hundred yards down the trail towards the Maah Daah Hey.  We got the bikes ready which included me thinking I could put Stans in my tires without deflating them all the way.  I now know what a latex shower feels like.

Over that night and for most of every day it rained with not a chance of the Bentonite hell mud on the trail drying out.   If we would have been on the trail we would have been stuck out on the trail.  It would have been very hard to go off trail to get to a road.  

For three days we would see the sky open briefly raising hope before it closed with rain and no chance of drying out.  

This was a lesson in frustration and disappointment with a high need for a good attitude and plan adaptation.  Howard, Heath and I made the best of it and had a great time exploring the north unit of the park and the surrounding area.  The endless oil boom activity out on and around highway 85 was pretty amazing.  

Cannonball concretions.  

We finally admitted defeat and drove to Moorhead.  We rode in the Tamarac National wildlife refuge which boarders an area Heath and I bike packed last year.   In that unnamed area we bike packed last year we rode out and had lunch on the North country trail which was fun but way over grown from lack of use.   

 We stayed at our cousin Chip's lake cabin on Cormorant lake.  He always has fun toys like night vision goggles, super fast jet ski's, guns, fast cars, bikes and giant kites for kite boarding.  I really liked getting to use the "launch control" on the 2013 Nissan GTR to see how fast I could go from zero to pretty darn high numbers.  

Surly Krampus

Surly has been sending out some hint about its next bike name.  Things like " we have created a monster, Santa's friend, German folklore."  Some pics suggest it may be a 650b or 29r bike with three inch tires?  The bike is still very much an unknown but I am willing to bet it will be called the Surly Krampus (Grampus).  I like it that the Krampus is in part known for carrying rusty chains.

Phil Wood with 64 spokes

Tour Divide Race

The 2012 2745 mile Tour Divide Race is happening.  Each year people race unsupported along the continental divide from Banff Canada to Mexico.   Most racers are now out of Canada and well into Montana.  I think it is fun to watch over the next 15-20 days.

The Route

The race started on 6-8-12.  Great story lines each year with some real struggle, suffering and success.  Many of the riders call in every few days and give a brief update of their struggles and success.  It can be found here.   All the riders use a Spot to track them on a good map.  You can follow that here.  Zoom in and out and go to the satellite view for a real sense of what they are riding.   Blue dots are the male racers, pink are the women racers, yellow are racers who started on a different date or are doing an individual time trial.  The green tent means they stopped for 4 or more hours.  The course can be done from north to south or south to north.  You will see a few people started at the Mexico boarder.  

A typical bike set up. This is a guy named Max Morris's bike.  Pic from here 

 Here is a link to the actual Tour Divide race site.  It is good for background info and some links.   

Vintage Fat Bike

 Six wheeler.  Likely turned like it was on actual rails.  

My friend Martin sent me some pics on facebook from the mid nineties. 

Regarding the Ritchey Martin wrote to me "You can see the welds on these rims. They would cut off one side of a couple rims and weld them together. Very custom for the time. This bike won the 200 mile race that year. John Stamstead is his name. When John showed up with this bike that year, no one had seen tires that fat. Those rims were prototypes of a bike builder in Anchorage. The tires were a sand tire John had found. They would glue the tire to the rim to avoid them slipping on the rim and busting the stem. With the low air pressure they liked to float on the snow."

I also notice the early use of frame bag, seat bag and handle bar set up. In the other pics the "anything cage" type set up is interesting.  You can see how they are very similar to the new version below.

The weekend report

Getting near the end of one of my bottles of chain lube.  I bought this a long time ago.  Didn't realize it was this long ago but I do remember thinking $9 for a bottle of lube was extreme and that, "this stuff better last me."


Found a really pretty wild caught salmon fillet at a local store last week and made Gravlax this weekend.  This is so good and simple I don't know why I don't do it more often.  Lots of ways to do it but basically rub two fillets with a salt and sugar mix.  Make a sandwich with the fillet's with a big bunch of dill as the filling of the pretend sandwich. Wrap it up with some plastic wrap and put it in the fridge with a little weight on it for a few days.  Here I have it sliced thin on bagels with cream cheese, onion, capers, a little olive oil and pepper.



Not sure why my ride screen shots are not showing up better.  Loaded up the moonlander an all my bags to simulate rides on the Maah Daah Hey next week.  Learning a lot about my gear and food options.  Today I rode in  the sun, heat and wind.  Thinking I need sun glasses and a long sleeve shirt to keep the sun off.  Pretty exposed on the trail.



Did I mention the gravlax was good.  Traditionally it was made by burying it in the sand just above the high tide line giving it its name grave (grav) salmon (lox).

Monkey wood

Sometimes when I am bored while waiting for the wife to shop I see things on the floor from planet of the apes.

Under the category of projects that will only happen in my mind I think it would be fun to keep taking pics of faces like this and incorporate them into an art project 

The elevation of your perspective at the same moment in time

Nice ride

Rode the Moonlander loaded with some weight for a likely trip to the Maah Daah Hey trail later this month.
















Hard to see the map but I go south to Shakopee west to Chaska then back to the start in Chanhassen.  The river is the Minnesota.

 Those trumpeter swans are really big.   Six little babies.  

                                     
At about mile seven the trail got more and more flooded.  I rode with the BB and hubs underwater like an idiot for about 4 seconds before my brain realized that this was not going to end.  I carried the bike for the next two hundred yards or so in up to waist deep water.  If I carried it with the bottom third of the wheels in the water it totally floated and I just needed to lift a tiny bit to keep the BB out of the water.  Now I don't know if I need to pull apart and repack the hubs and BB.  Hate to be in the middle of the Maah Daah Hey trail and find out that I should have done it.

Eduard Khill

The internet recently lost a great Meme.  RIP Eduard Khill  (Trololo man)

His influence on Family guy (and Hitler go to about :56 for family guy if you don't find hitler as funny as I do.)

His influence on a cat

These are all high quality pics so click them to get a full size image.

Fun ride on my own today and first test of the Moonlander on this type of trail.    It was a hot one out there today and I was a bit tired from an hour twenty road/trail ride with Heath last night.  As a result I didn't push too hard and felt pretty spent from early on.  I just let my cardiotrainer app run so stats include a few stops.

I am now really seeing this bike as a true fat bike/flotation bike and my Pugsley as what a mountain bike should be.  Regular mountain bikes now seem like those freakishly skinny tired bmx bikes little kids ride.

The good:

• Climbs great.  Feels very efficient like the Pugsley. 
• After an initial mental adjustment it handles plenty fast on tight twitchy down hills. 
• Rolls fast and did not feel sluggish, heavy or like it was robbing energy in any way.
• Has sparkly paint.   

The Bad:

• No Husker Du tires.  Those things made my Pugsley ride way better and I notice the big fat Larry tires not hooking up nearly as well.  Much less confidence inspiring.  
• Unexpectedly I did worse at the obstacles like rock fields and balance bridge things than I did on the Pugsley.   I think this is likely related to being tired and not having the air pressure tweaked yet.  
• Those big tires are more sensitive to the wrong air pressure.  I started with 14 rear 11 front and let it out to about 10 each by the end and could have gone lower.   The too high air pressure contributed to less control, sore wrists and a weird bouncing off of rocks rather than crawling over them experience.  
• Bottom Bracket started making a noise which tells me the shop of origin did not put in the "A washer" when putting it together.  

What to change:

• Me more fit and hot temp acclimated.  
• Surly needs to make a Big Fat Husker Du.  I tried the normal ones on my clown shoe rim.  It rode OK but would only work in a pinch I think.  Made the BB too low also.  
• I need to get better at tweaking the air pressure with this bike.  A few psi either way can make a fat bike ride great or horrible and the big fat tires amplify this need.  
• I need to switch out the swept back bars for my old Azonic Double walls.  
• I need to go out with both the Moonlander and Pugsley on the same trail on the same day to get an even more objective view of what each can do.  I love the idea of making the Pugsley the summer bike and the Moonlander the winter and flotation bike but  tend to think I will only want the Moonlander when I get the problems figured out.  

Maya on the Moon

NASA

 Took the Moonlander to a large area that has had a bunch of earth movers working it into a future neighborhood.  It kind of looked like the surface of the Moon.

I have no idea why Maya was making these cute faces from wonderment, to concern to terror.  Perhaps it is the lack of gravity or oxygen here on the Moon.  

Fear not Maya I have a Moonlander to ride over this barren surface.  Well yea Maya you will have to walk.  But I with my Moonlander will be floating over this rough surface in efficient comfort, safety and style.   Maya's inferior bipedal locomotion proved no match on this lunar landscape.  She was quickly dropped.  

Tandem Cargo Bike Conversion

 Had this idea today.  Knew the internet would not let me down on it being already done.  Thanks to this guy Andy for making it happen.   

The only problem I can really see with the system is that it allows way too much stuff to be carried.   On the other hand it is already set up to carry the weight of another person so the bike can handle whatever you  have the legs to pedal.    

Last Ride I Reken

 Took the Reken out for what may be a last ride this evening.  With any luck I will be selling it in the near future.  Explored a Minnesota Nature area in South Chan just north of Shakopee and the Minnesota river.  Basically near the point the LRT south trail ends at the MN river.   The area was developed some time in the past and had some remains of a dam below that I suppose had this whole wetland area turned into a lake long ago.  I also found a lot of granite remains some polished as if grave stones were made here.   If you look closely someone has dropped one of the granite pieces down into the dam and broke it.  I love stumbling upon areas like this while out doing daily tasks.  Having a bike in the car helps make these unexpected rides possible.

Last shot is the back yard farm.  It always seems to hold still for pics which is part of why I film it so often.

Morel Mushroom Time

Next door neighbor came over last night with a gift of the nicest morel mushroom I have seen.  I have been in the woods near the house looking for morels two times this year near his find and come back empty handed each time.  I think he found the right time.  I will be back tonight to find more.   I hope an additional spot I tried to spread spores last year was fruitful.  I mean fungal.  

Morel's are hollow inside.    

These released a lot of moisture. 

Just some butter, salt, pepper and garlic

A cream sauce over noodles would be perfect.  I had rice available and did not want to wait. 

 Fantastic.