January Training Camp

For the past 5 days I've had a nice steady block of bike riding with Steve. It's been really great. Each ride seemed to get better than the previous one. We also managed to add more dirt, snow, and gravel to each ride.

I think today's ride was my favorite. We had been riding our cyclocross bikes all week, but today we went with the single speed mountain bikes. We rode up north, mixing roads and gravel roads, and then took the five mile footpath that begins in Solon and goes west along the shores of Lake McBride. It was pretty snow covered and the visible and invisible ruts and sections of ice kept us on our toes. The going was a little slow, but it kept us really warm.

After kicking around the trail for awhile we jumped on some more gravel and rode over to one of the snowmobile trails. I had only been on this section two or three times before, but this time the trail was in the best condition that I had seen. Our freezing temps kept the ground solid and the small pockets of snow, both packed and drifted, kept things clean and very fun. I made it through all the partially frozen trickling streams, over all the potentially treacherous bridges, and up all but one of the short but super steep climbs. Near the top, just when I thought my rear wheel had regained some traction, I tipped over on my left side. Don't worry, I'm ok. And that was the only mishap of the ride.

On the ride back to town the temps started getting a little bit colder and we were riding into a headwind. We were getting rather hungry, as the gels, bars, and cookies we ate were not quite enough for this ride. But we made it home safe and sound. Not having any fenders on my singlespeed, I had some pretty wet feet and a mud speckled jersey, but Steve looked pretty clean.

Tomorrow we'll take a break from our rides. Steve is heading over to Des Moines for the Iowa Bicycle Coalition's fundraiser Bike Night. The brilliant bike blogger Tarik Saleh will be giving a presentation. Should be a great time.

I will be staying in I.C. though. After a pleasantly mild afternoon the temps are getting colder again and the skies should be dumping 4 to 6 inches of fluffy and skiable snow. So the rest of my mid-January training camp will be spent gliding instead of rolling.