Carver County Fair

 Took the girls to my favorite fair today as we do every year.

 Small grounds, not over crowded, lots of animals equals fun each year.

 I posted the pics below with a Q quote in mind.  Years ago at the Chanhassen 4th of July kids parade a fire truck went slowly by and everyone took a pic of it.  He pointed out how dumb this was as everyone would be getting home later wondering why they now have a pic of a fire truck.

 Now what am I going to do with these pic's of birds at the fair?

 Glad I have a blog to dump them onto.

Gobble 

Majestic in death

http://instagr.am/p/OIn0X5tE61/

Fat Bike Whale Rider

This is a repost from 2009.  Not sure of the actual origin.
 If I am every dead on a beach and it seems like it would be funny to ride your bike over me please by all means go a head and do it. 

Minnesota River with Ella

 

We rode a little over 7 miles from Chaska to Shakopee and back on Sunday.  

 Weather was great.

 Unlike her sad eyes in this pic would suggest, Ella rode like a champ and the ride was easy except when the barrier above took her out.   

 This was our turnaround spot.  To see the pics on the way back just scroll back up through the post ignoring the crash.  

I turned my Moonlander into a Pugsley

Salamandre Cycles

Salamandre Cycles

The French take on Fat bikes

Recent Unrelated Events

 Mazy was born July 25 2011.  Unlike this poor baby mouse Mazy has made it to one.   She has also destroyed a few other things in her first year but over all she has been a great addition to the family.   When she is naughty I have to keep reminding myself that she wants to understand what I am saying and be a good little dog but that she often needs more than just one really loud reminder.  

 We went to the Minnesota Zoo and saw the dinosaurs, this friend of Maya's and some real animals too.   I love that grizzly bear exhibit.  Three big bears right in front of use wrestling and playing in the water.  

For this pic I was going to make some joke about Heath joining the YMCA but the reality is that unlike Glenn M. Hughes here I was too chicken to ride that giant bike.  

Nexus 7

I recently got my first tablet computer and am playing around with just when and where I would use it.  This week I found that I can watch most any Olympic sport live on my Nexus 7.  The men's road race and archery were great.

In the bathroom

 In bed

While getting dressed.

While making am beverages.

And breakfast.

Out on the deck for breakfast I didn't miss any racing.

Or when doing laundry.

 It was a good distraction during unpleasant tasks.

This is legal right?

Not going to miss the finish just because of some long grass.

OK I didn't actually work out.

Or use any tools.  But I could have without missing a mile of the race.

Ella's play mobile house is a little small but they have a huge TV to watch the race.

Bikepacking

Eric of Revelate Designs (and maker of my frame bags) posted a trip report I very much enjoyed reading.  Click this. 

 

A few years ago he and his girl friend rode in Bolivia at very high altitude around the Illimani mountain area. 

 

 They rented the bikes and put his tires, pedals and bags on.  

 I am struck by how brave they are to just jump into the challenge without having it all figured out. 

 

I need to do some of this.  (On my kindergarten scale of course.) 

Back to the United States. 

Below is a portion of the climb up Bear Tooth Pass in Montana.  This is paved. 

 While climbing Bear Tooth on road bike you have a lot of time to look around.  When you look across the valley you see a very interesting dirt version of what you are climbing.  It is Montana forest route 421.  I think John Q. drove up this once.  True?  I unfortunately couldn't find a good pic of it for the blog.  This is my most likely version of Eric's Bolivia type route. 

Surly Krampus with Knard 29/3inch tires

Just announced today.  Pics from MTBR posters mostly.

Three more things

I got my Google/Asus Nexus 7 Tablet in the mail yesterday.  

It runs the new Jellybean software and is only $200/250 for one of the best tablets out there.  Cheap enough to experiment with to see if I would use a tablet.  If not it will be a great kid movie, game, keep them busy on trips device.   I am really enjoying the "Google Now" voice thing that is like siri.  

I recently found a really big hidden sandy beach while exploring my area on google earth.  I  went out and found it by bike on Tuesday.  You need to ride about a half mile on a trail that is off of the paved trail to get to it.  It is hard to see but the sand is super pure, small grain and soft.  The beach extends for at least 100 yards behind my bike.  In the pic below it is at mile 9.   Here is a link to a google map of the beach.  

I finalized my road bike route to share with any takers.  It has climbs, a great twisty fast decent, some brutal gravel road climbs (road bike tested), lakes and rivers and nature all throughout and is almost completely off of roads.   This Saturday?

Nice ride

It has only taken me about ten years to do it but I am finally getting around to developing some road bike routes in my area and am really loving the nature,roads and climbs.   I think it would be fun to do Saturday am rides that alternate between each of our home areas.   It seems like we have each been tweaking some pretty nice routes.  The host would be guide on their route and maybe feed and beer people after.   Could be any day really.   Thoughts?
Edit:  I used google drive which is like dropbox to get a better version of the screenshot.  Odd that google makes it so easy to blog from the phone but not quality pics without using something like drive in between.  New Pic

Old pic 

Three things that made me smile

 Mazy and Ella's old sleeping bag.

 We now have a giant Fleet Farm in the area.  Two hours of joy with the girls at the Man Mall.  Yes they did wear their new life jackets the entire time.  Hats had to stay.

I like the pond.  It's really nothing special and is man made but I still like it.  I like the giant cat tails, the otter like thing that lives in it, the family of ducks and other birds and the odd frog like sounds that come out of it.