My Best Bike Moments of 2015

Inspired by Pedal Hub's recent podcast, "The roundtable reunites!" in which Patrick, Amber and Gene discuss their top 5 bike moments of 2015, I decided to reflect back on 2015 and write about my five best bike moments of the year.

Here are mine, in chronological order:

My Vaya - post ride and still full of mud
Box of Frogs was a 60 mile bike ride adventure on gravel, tar and through the mud that I did back on June 7th. I set out to do the ride on my own but was lucky enough to ride along with my friends Kate and Victoria. Finishing that ride taught me that I can do things that seem impossible - like trek through flooded bike trails and ride all day long. The ride was long, hot, muddy, windy, rainy and wonderful!




At the beginning of the Gandy Dancer Trail
My Bikepacking Adventure happened in early August and involved four days of biking in Wisconsin, most of it on the Gandy Dancer Bike Trail. Owen and I packed up our bike bags with a change of clothes, some toiletries and a few other essentials then rode from place to place and stayed in hotels (we'll add camping to our bikepacking trips in the future). We discovered we could manage with very little, rode almost 170 miles in four days and had a blast!
I blogged about the trip in great detail. Here are links to my blog entries:



Katy and I relaxing in hammocks on the most wonderful day
Coffee and Hammock Adventure happened in late September when my friend, Katy, and I headed out from Northfield on gravel roads to Caron Park. We'd had fun on a ride a couple weeks earlier when I we stopped during a ride to made coffee and planned to stop for coffee on this ride as well. So we found Caron Park then somewhat accidentally rode some of the mountain bike trail in order to find an ideal #coffeeoutside location. We made coffee then Katy said she had a surprise - she pulled two hammocks out of her backpack. So we tied our hammocks to trees and then drank coffee and relaxed away the afternoon in our hammocks then biked back home. That day goes down in history as one of the most perfect days of the year! Thanks again, Katy!

Close to the end of my first century ride
My First Century Ride in September was an awesome experience! I have long wanted to do a century ride but have thought riding 100 miles in one day out of my capabilities  I rode my Salsa Vaya with Owen, who rode his Salsa Mukluk and we ventured out on a route created by Owen that mostly went on paved bike trails but also included some gravel. We started riding at dawn in Wayzata on the Dakota Rail Trail then headed west to Hutchinson on the Luce Line Trail and finished in the dark in Wayzata again. Good thing we had bike lights! The ride was long but not as bad as I thought it would be. We didn't go fast and we stopped often to rest and for food. Some of my favorite moments from that ride are talking to people we met along the way. It was the best feeling to see my trip odometer turn over 100 miles. Yay!

Happy New Year!
New Years Eve Sechler Park Ride - To close out the year, Owen and I loaded up our fat bikes and headed to Sechler Park, one of the mountain bike trails in the Northfield area created by CROCT (Cannon River Offroad Cycling & Trails). The night was gorgeous and moon-lit and made for a fun albeit somewhat challenging short ride through the woods. Neither Owen nor I spend much time on mountain bike trails and the trails weren't very well packed so that's where the riding challenge came in for us. That and I decided to tackle some of the obstacles in the skills park area. I've never ridden obstacles before so was really excited that I successfully rode the teeter-totter twice! Along the ride, we bumped into local fatbike race legend and friend, Christopher Tassava. We stopped and chatted a bit before heading back home. Even though we weren't riding when the clock struck midnight, it was the New Year somewhere during our ride! All in all, the ride was a perfect way to wrap up 2015!



What were your favorite Bike Moments of 2015? Feel free to comment below.

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