Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

Happy New Year you all! Yes, it's 2020 and I haven't posted anything on this blog for, oh, a couple of years. Oh well. Here I am now writing a quick update because I got out and rode my fat bike in the snow today. I didn't make it a mile and I went slower than molasses in January (how appropriate for the first day of January!) but I am still happy about the fact that I got out on my bike. Why? Well, let me tell you. I haven't been on any of my bikes since summer so getting out today for even a super short and slow ride feels like a huge accomplishment. Correction - it is a huge accomplishment. There have been things, physical things like tennis elbow and weird tailbone muscular pain and a less-than-fun surgery  that I'm still recovering from this past year and then some other stuff that have made bicycling next to impossible. But today, on the first day of a new year, I decided to get out on my fat bike and give it a go in the fresh snow. Rocket the dog loves t...

Meet my new bike! "Kermit" is an Advocate Lorax that found his way to my house in late February. Why the new bike? Well, my Vaya, Zippy, has been a good bike for me yet I was still tweaking some fit issues and with it's extra small frame I was running out of options for adding height to my handlebars etc. Also, due to the 26" tires,  I discovered my options were limited for getting better tires for riding gravel. So, even though I loved little Zippy and he served me well, I started considering a new bike. I talked to my favorite bike guru from Angry Catfish Bicycles , James, about what to get and quickly decided a new Vaya one size bigger than Zippy would do the trick. Sadly, my size was sold out at Angry Catfish and at Salsa Cycles. So James and I talked options. And I rode a couple of bikes and they were okay. Then I rode a demo model of the Advocate Lorax and knew within, oh, the first 20 feet of my ride that the Lorax was the bike for me. It's hard to s...

We've had amazingly warm temperatures here in Minnesota as of late. It was 60 some degrees last weekend so I simply had to get out and ride some gravel on my Vaya on Sunday. Owen joined me on his Mukluk. We didn't go far (about 5.5 miles) and we didn't go fast (about 8.5 mph) but we went and that's what matters. Riding on a sunny Sunday I've been thinking about my bike goals for 2017. I have decided that I'd like to bike 50 miles on my 50th Birthday but I guess I haven't 100% committed to that goal as of yet. I need to decide soon as March 25th is just over a month away! Other than that, I have plans to join two friends from high school and Owen and ride from north of Minneapolis to Canada in three days with an average of 85 miles a day. We've got that on the schedule for late July. The road ahead Not sure what other bicycling goals I will set for 2017. Whatever they are, I will be logging my milage on a cool little chart I made i...

This time last year I was gearing up for my first ever century ride . I was feeling pretty fit and had done a ton of biking throughout the season including the super awesome and challenging Box of Frogs ride and a bikepacking adventure . This year I got off to a great start with some winter riding and another round of 30 Days of Biking in April. I was working on a milage challenge and had several organized rides on my calendar. Then my Dad, who had already been dealing with issues from Parkinson's and Lewy Body Dementia, took a bad turn and life changed in more ways than I could have ever imagined. Even before Dad passed away in early July, I realized that bike riding would not be a priority and that I needed to focus on my family instead. So, save for a few rides and a three session mountain biking class in late July/early August, I really didn't ride bike all summer long. Well, life is setting down somewhat and I'm happy to say I've managed to get out on my bike ...

It's been ages since I've blogged about bicycling or anything else. That's mostly due to the fact that I haven't been riding my bikes much and also because my father was very sick and then passed away in early July. That said, I didn't quit blogging entirely in this time. My husband, Owen, took off in early June to ride the Tour Divide from Canada to Mexico and while he was away I posted blog entries for him at his blog Owens Epic Rides. Some of blog posts were Owen's words alone but much of the time I added content of my own as well. To start reading about Owen's Tour Divide ride, click on Arrived in Banff and start reading! Move forward through the posts by clicking on "Next -->" in the upper right hand corner of each blog post. If you are a bikepacking enthusiast, you will likely want to read the post detailing Owen's gear list. Read it at Packing for the Tour Divide . For a sneak peek at the riding conditions on the Tour Divi...

It's April 1st which means it's Day 1 of the next round of 30 Days of Biking! Today's ride was on the Cannon Valley Trail. Had to go around a tree that fell on the trail. I signed up to do the challenge again, of course, because I've been doing in April ever since 2010. Wow! Now that I think of it it appears I'm either dedicated or a bit crazy - perhaps I'm a bit of both. Don't know what 30 Days of Biking is? Well, it's a challenge where people pledge to ride their bikes every day during the month of April. As of this moment, 7,658 people from all over the world are officially on the roster stating they have pledged to do the challenge. People don't have to ride any certain number of miles. There are no prizes or people policing you to make sure you ride. You just commit to riding every day and do your best to complete the challenge. After completing the challenge six years in a row I certainly know I can ride my bike every day for 30 days...

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! Click  HERE for my blog write up on the Box of Frogs  Adventure 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 ...

Owen and I have done some  bike packing of the "credit card travel" variety  where we slept in hotels instead of camping. We like credit card travel but want to branch out and actually go bike packing for "real" where we carry tents and sleeping bags and all. But, since our camping experience are mostly limited to camping with our families when we were children, and our most recent tent camping experience was, let's just say, rather stressful, we know we have plenty to learn. We have many questions about bike packing from "What's a bivvy sack?" to "How do we carry all of our equipment on our bikes?" So we were super excited to learn that  Milltown Cycles  was offering a bike packing "how-to" event for beginners. The event sounded perfect for us so I signed Owen and I up right away. I also decided to bring our kids, Rose and Ryan, because they've been wanting to go camping for some time and actually have more recent campi...

On Saturday, I completed a goal I've had for quite some time - I completed a century ride on my Salsa Vaya! 100 miles - Done! I'm proud of what I did - I'm getting kinda teary-eyed thinking about that moment when I realized I rode my bike for 100 miles! You see, a century ride is something that I never though I could do when I started bicycling six years ago. It's not something I thought I could do earlier this summer, even. But rides like the Box of Frogs , Riotgrravel and my bike packing trip have made me feel stronger both physically and mentally. As the summer progressed, my century ride thinking morphed from " Hey, I think I can do a century " to " When I do a century I'll ride my Vaya " (it's my most comfortable bike) to " I'm going to do a century this fall ." I rode my bike to train but I think the most important thing I did to get ready for this century ride is this - I told myself I could do it and started to...

It's raining this afternoon so my mind is going back to last week when the weather was perfect and I went on a perfect bike ride adventure. Last Wednesday, my friend Katy and I headed out for a bike ride from Northfield to Caron Park. Caron Park is a county park located about 8 miles south of Northfield. The route to Caron started out with a killer hill (called Question Mark Hill by the locals) and there are a lot of other hilly portions on the route as well. We managed to ride them all, though, and found our way to Caron Park. Crushing gravel on the way to Caron Park Zippy, my Salsa Vaya leaning on the Caron park sign One of our plans for the ride was to have an adventure coffee like we did on our Coffee Outside Ride . I was out of fuel for my little Esbit pocket stove so Katy packed a one burner camping stove in a backpack so we could have coffee outside. First, though, we had to find an ideal location. Katy knew of a waterfall in the park so we set off on some s...

About a month ago when Owen and I were on our bike packing trip , I decided I'd like to do a century ride. I've long wanted to do a century ride but have been somewhat intimidated by, well, riding 100 miles all at once. On top of that, a lot of the organized century rides are pretty challenging. But Owen came up with a century ride idea that sounded good to me so I'm going to give it a go! Owen came up with a hundred mile route that is all on bike trails, most of them crushed limestone. I'll ride my comfortable Salsa Vaya and Owen will ride his Salsa Mukluk. Owen has done a half a dozen century rides before (he completed one yesterday as part of his ten ride personal road biking challenge ) but he's never ridden a century on a fat bike. So we'll both be doing something new - I'll do my first century and Owen will do his first fat bike century. The route will be fairly easy to ride and I plan to stop a lot along the way to rest and drink coffee (I do that...

Today I am thankful for gravel girlfriends and meandering bike rides. I met up with Katy and Joy this morning at about 9:00 for a gravel ride. Katy had not had coffee because her husband, who was camping with their two kids, had the French press. So our ride started with a short hop to downtown Northfield where we enjoyed a cup of coffee at Goodbye Blue Monday.  After coffee, we headed out on a Strava bike route that we had ridden before. Even though we had a set route, we were liberal with how we followed it and made a detour within the first few miles to take a picture of our bikes on Waterford Bridge. Waterford Bridge It's important to take pictures of your bike leaning up against things. It really is. Then we rode on and meandered around the country on a perfect Sunday morning. We rode with speed at times and at a slower pace at other times. We took pictures, especially of Joy and her new bike - Pixie Duster. Joy on her new bike, a Twin Six named "Pixie...

It's coming on two weeks since Owen and I went on our bike packing trip so I figured I'd better get back to writing about day 3 as I promised to do in my last post . We started Day 3 in Luck, Wisconsin with super weather once again. Owen and I keep thinking we'll get going early but it was about 9:00 a.m. by the time we had breakfast, packed up and were on the trail again. We headed south on the Gandy Dancer Trail for St. Croix Falls, an easy 15 mile ride and found our way through some city trails to downtown St. Croix Falls. Owen wanted to see the falls, so we took some pictures then found a little coffee shop, Coffee Time, and had lunch. They were busy and we had to wait awhile for our order, but the two women working there were so sweet and the food quite good so it was well worth the wait. St. Croix Falls We wanted to stop at Cyclova , a bike shop a couple of doors down from Coffee Time, but were bummed to discover that they were closed on Tuesdays. We looked i...