Abercrombie Metric

A couple months ago I posted my goals for the summer. One of them was to ride to Fort Abercrombie, ND. The Fort was the first american military establishments in North Dakota, built in 1858. Since it is positioned 30 miles south of me, I figured it was the perfect destination for a metric century, because with a couple extra miles thrown in, the loop could be at least 62 miles, or 100km.

I had planned this ride through Google Earth, thinking that it would be a straight shot along the shoulder of the 75, then a quick jaunt over the river, and then to the Fort.

I mentioned this ride to my friend Dennis who said he'd be up for it, so we made plans for last Saturday. He brought along his friend Doug and we hit the road.

Road. Plain. Straight. Road.



The weather was nice, low 80s and a light breeze. Not too shabby on the page, but that wind became a bastard on the ride home. Certainly not the worst the upper midwest has to offer, but it certainly wasn't welcomed after mile 40 or so. My trusty Cross Check had held up well, and was way overloaded for the trip. Since Dennis was riding his Long Haul Trucker, I figured it wouldn't be fair to travel light. I had both racks on, fenders, handlebar bag, saddle bag, and a top tube bag. 3 bottles of water, enough snacks for a group, first aid kit, etc. Way too much. But it was good training, as the MS150* is fast approaching. I left the fat tires on too, as I wanted to give them a good workout. They did not disappoint, the Schwalbe Marathon Cross tires are incredibly versatile, just like the Cross Check. A match made in Heaven.



A little over halfway there and the peanut butter and honey sandwich I had packed no longer sounded appealing. Dennis mentioned that there was a cafe in Abercrombie where we could have lunch. Once we made it to our destination, we made a quick lap through town (which is maybe 1/4 long!) and the only place that appeared to have food was this bar. Chicken strips and fries, a Breckinridge Lucky U IPA, and I was refueled and ready for the ride home.



The wind fought us most of the way, gusting up to 15mph or so. Our return trip was at a significantly slower pace.



As we neared civilization again, Doug was getting ansy. Since he was on a light, unloaded road bike, he took off and let Dennis and I chug along on our slow, loaded Surly bikes. Within a mile, Doug was no longer in sight. We kept riding, as we could now see street signs that were reducing in number and home was near. About two miles from home, Doug comes back with his jersey pockets stuffed with 32oz Gatorade bottles. Such a welcomed surprise, and Dennis and I were both down to less than 2oz of water left. Chugged half of the bottle of Lemon Lime goodness and we headed home. Great day for a ride with friends, and even better that we were able to check off a summer goal of riding a metric century. We clocked out at 63.5 miles.

*I will be riding in my first MS150 Charity ride at the end of this month. I'm still quite a few bucks short of my goal. If you'd like to chip in for charity and provide a tax deductible donation, I, and the 400,000 Americans suffering from Multiple Sclerosis would certainly appreciate it. Click on "Donate to Jason" just above the thermometer graphic on this page. Thank you!

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/NTHBikeEvents?px=9822240&pg=personal&fr_id=16552

My First Wheelbuild

For years I have been mesmerized by the bicycle wheel. Those thin wires holding up all that weight. With myself being on of those "let's take it apart and see how it works" types, I have been tempted to build up my own wheelset.

Now the stock wheelset on my Surly Cross Check is fine. It's heavy, strong, and still perfectly true after lots of abuse. But it's plain. Boring. Stock. So I turned to ebay for some cheap hubs. After some google searches, I found that a lot of people are happy with Novatec hubs from Taiwan. Since the price for the pair after shipping was less than a quality front hub, I figured I'd give it a shot. Red of course. Bling!

The rims are the trusty Salsa Delgado Cross. Heavy and strong, and cheap! These have a solid reputation as a great commuter rim. Since I have a slight affinity for the Salsa brand, these were a no-brainer.

The spokes on the other hand were a different story. I knew I wanted Sapim brand spokes, but couldn't find a decent source online. Well I could, but shipping was ridiculous! Inspired by facebook and blog posts, I turned to Ben at Milltown Cycles in Faribault, MN. Ben was extremely helpful and suggested the Sapim Force spokes. Triple butted for strength, but not much heavier than a standard double butted spoke (6.6grams each for a 296mm spoke). Ben ordered some spokes for me and had them to my door quickly, for a very reasonable price.

While I waited for the hubs to arrive from Taiwan, I started doing a bunch of research on how to build wheels. Youtube videos, Sheldon Brown's website, etc. I found Mike T's website very informative as well. http://miketechinfo.com/new-tech-wheels-tires.htm

Once everything arrived, it was time to get down to business in the makeshift bike shop area of my garage.

I started with the front wheel since it's easier. Spokes are all the same length, no weird centering required. Perfect for a first attempt.

I started by loading the hub with spokes like so...
And then started lacing it up. Since Sheldon Brown's site and many others go over lacing patterns, I won't attempt to explain that here.

8 out of 32 spokes in their proper place:



16 out of 32 spokes in place:


And done:

I was amazed at how loose and bendy the spokes were before tensioning. Once it was done, it was time to put the wheel into the truing stand.


After a couple hours of twisting the spoke wrench, the wheel was well within my tolerance, approximately 0.5mm

For style points, I made sure the hub logo was visible through the valve hole. Not sure why this is a big deal, but the pros do it, so I'm gonna do it.

Lather, rinse, repeat for the rear wheel (which turned out to be EASIER than the front!), then mount up my tires, and it's photo time.

Bling! They turned out great and I'm very excited to get them mounted up!

I did a quick loop around the block and I think I'll be very happy with these wheels for quite some time. If not, I'll build more! It's fun, and easier than I thought.

Bismarck

When mentioning that I was going to Bismarck to a coworker, I made an obscure Biz Markie reference. My coworker said "who?" and I immediately felt old. If you're anywhere over 30, you should know that "oh baby you, you got what I need" song at least. Right?

Anyways, Bismarck is a cool town! It's not flat like the rest of North Dakota, and there's a lot of history in them there hills. Here's some pictures from my after class adventures.

My hotel was located fairly close to the Missouri River, so I took my trusty Cross Check with me to do some exploring. I found some singletrack, some paved multi-use path, some gravel doubletrack, and some historical crushed rock trails as well. I was able to go on back to back 20+ mile rides with barely 2 miles per day of actual road, something that is almost unheard of in nearly every other city I've ridden in. The crazy mix of trails, beaches, riverside paths, and hillside history wasn't boring in the least. Being able to see some artifacts from Lewis & Clark's adventures, old Native American villages, and old bridges was pretty cool. I was fortunate that the weather was amazing (first time riding in a t-shirt and shorts in nearly 7 months!) and I had plenty of time to go cruise around the city. The second day I took the fenders off since the puddles had cleared up, and I wasn't in the mood for the rattling sounds they make on gravel!

The big building in the first picture is the capitol building. It's the tallest building in the state too. Being a California boy, this capitol building is pathetic! I spent so many hours walking around the grounds of the capitol in Sacramento, that the capitol in Bismarck was very "meh". Still cool to see though, just to satisfy the nerdy explorer side of me at least.

Family Cycling

Spring has sprung! People everywhere. Riding Bikes. Jogging. Walking Dogs. Pushing Strollers. The reclusive natives that hid from winter are coming out to play. With that, so does my family. While I may have been the only crazy one to ride all through the winter (which apparently is the toughest in the nation according to weather.com!), we've all made it out to embrace spring. First up was making sure my oldest son's 24" Trek Mountain bike still fit, and with the seatpost all the way up, it does. This will be his last year on it before we go to 26" wheels. This was necessary to make room in the budget for the "missing" bike, my wife's.

We sold her walmart Schwinn before we moved here, and have been looking for a suitable replacement for a while now. With the iBert baby seat in mind, we had to find a bike with a long enough top tube to make the ibert comfortable to use. We looked at the local shops and nothing really "spoke" to her. But at the Community Bike Workshop, the lonely 74 Fuji Dynamic 10 Mixte did. We both liked this bike when we first saw it months ago, and it was still sitting there so we had to try it. The ibert fits perfectly, and the cost of the bike was 1/3 of what we would have spent at a "real" bike shop. Even with the upgrades planned it'll still be cheaper and it's the perfect bike for her.

So now that we're all bicycle equipped again we've been riding as a family. To breakfast. To lunch. To the store. To explore. I love it. My wife has completely fallen in love with riding again. The weight loss goals that my wife and I set are pretty aggressive, so riding as much as possible will certainly help us achieve our goals. Riding isn't all about the goals though, we're having fun. Discovering new routes and paths, seeing new things, and sharing the love of cycling as a family.

Trukin'

Finally fitted some 26x2.35 Schwalbe Big Apple tires to the Xtracycle. I've been fascinated by these tires for years now, and I finally caught them at a "too good to refuse" price, so I figured I should jump on the chance to finally get some. The roads here are pretty rough and I've had to true these wheels twice in the past 6 months. The high volume of the Big Apples made such a huge difference in ride comfort and quality, in fact much more of a difference than I was expecting. I'd say after today's 22 mile ride, I'm completely satisfied with these tires. They roll plenty fast, do great on gravel, and they are comfy! Sure they are heavy, but on a 45lb bike it doesn't really matter, and their weight wasn't really noticed.

With the impending flood, the "easy" route to Fargo wasn't available so I had to go way out of my way to get to that side of town, but it's a fun route. Gravel roads, county road shoulders, and wide paved paths were just some of the stuff I rode on today. I didn't even notice the long mileage as it was a nice day. I had to take off my coat, hat and liner gloves a few miles in. This is where its nice to use the Xtracycle as a weekend cruiser, it can hold all that stuff without worry.

After a cruise around Fargo I headed back east and met my wife and kids for lunch at Ruby Tuesday for a nice lunch of Blackened Tilapia and Diet Coke. Once done with our meal, I headed home only to have the sun retreat behind the clouds, warranting the need for my extra layers again. The temperature was in the high 30s and slightly windy, yet I saw dozens of pedestrians and one other cyclist today. Its nice to see others taking advantage of a perfectly good Saturday.

Back in Business

After being sick, and only getting one commuting day in last week, I was able to get out on a 10-12 mile (my bike odometer needs batteries) ride on the Xtracycle today. I went up to the FM Community Bike Workshop to volunteer for a little while, then look for a new donor frame for said Xtracycle. I've been thinking a bigger frame to get me a more upright riding position would help, without needing the giant stack of spacers and riser stem I have on there already. It looks silly, no matter how functional it is currently.

The weather was nice though, high 20s with lots of sunshine felt warm, and the streets were mostly clear. But the best part....I saw other people on bikes! Other people walking! Kids in strollers! It was the first sign I've seen that indeed, spring is here. It's time to work on setting more goals and solidifying plans for summer adventures. So far my rough list is as follows:

1) Get Xtracycle "dialed". New tires, new saddle, and find a way to get a more upright riding position.
2) Ride a Metric Century (100km or 62miles) to Fort Abercrombie Historical Site
3) Ride to Detroit Lakes for lunch at Zorbaz, then ride home. Full century, 100miles
4) Do a mini tour of the Paul Bunyan trail in Central Minnesota.
5) S24O (Sub-24 hour Overnighter) bikepacking trip in town with my sons.

Pretty easy list so far, I sure hope time and weather will cooperate to make them achievable.

Down for the count

I've been sick with a cold since Tuesday. I should have seen it coming since my oldest son has been sick. Sometime around noon on Tuesday it hit me all at once and I felt miserable. That's the crappy part about bike commuting, getting sick. For one, riding home from work when you're sick enough to leave work, isn't fun. It was wet, icy, and windy, and I was on the Xtracycle. It was slow going but I slogged through it with the goal of a hot shower and a warm bed. The next worst part is time off the bike. It's been 5 whole days without riding, and while I today I might actually feel up to riding...it's windy outside, and only the truly insane cyclists lust for wind riding :) The weather looks downright unfriendly for Monday and Tuesday, but hopefully there will be fresh snow to go ride around in when it's all said and done, and hopefully my family and I will all have recovered from this nasty cold by then.