Last weekend, I finished the Tuscobia Winter Ultramarathon along the Tuscobia State Trail in northwestern Wisconsin – my fifth winter ultramarathon. I placed 12th out of 29 finishers (25 men and 4 women) in a time of 23:38. I had a great, brutal, wonderful time riding my bike in the woods. I’d been looking forward to Tuscobia … Continue reading Tuscobiawesome
I love New Year’s Day. It’s probably my second-favorite holiday, after Thanksgiving. Like Thanksgiving, NYD is centrally about getting together with people you like. Christmas is also about “family and friends,” but for me, its religious overtones detract from its other pleasures, and then there’s the massive weight of gifts – getting and giving, but also the gross, … Continue reading Twenty Sixteen Resolutions
On Sunday – 99 days before the race date – the organizers of the Arrowhead 135 released the roster of racers for the 2016 race, to be held on January 25-27. Roster day is my fourth most-favorite day in the annual Arrowhead cycle: 5. Submitting my application each year. 4. Seeing the next race roster. 3. Seeing all … Continue reading Arrowhead Roster Day!
Saturday, I rode in my favorite gravel race: the Inspiration 100, run on the great roads through the beautiful lake country outside Alexandria, Minnesota. I know and like the race directors (and keep buying bikes from ’em!), which is a bonus, and they keep letting me in the race, so I keep doing it. I approached this … Continue reading Not All Gravel Is Created Equal
Going out with my fried Galen to the Maah Daah Hey 100 in the Badlands near Medora, North Dakota, I figured I’d be in for a tough race. I expected the weather to be hot and the singletrack trail to be as challenging as the trails at the Chequamegon 100 in June, and I also knew … Continue reading Maah Daah Halfway
One thing I do remember about the horrible, wonderful, no-good, so-great Cheq 100 last weekend was a lot of thinking about where the race fell in my personal top-ten list of hard races. This is narcissistic, I know, but dammit, I love them all. While very eager to do races in the future that will get onto … Continue reading My Ten Hardest Races (so far)
One of the great things about the fatbike community is how back-of-the-pack guys like me can talk to and learn from racers who are way up front – people like Tracey Petervary, an accomplished long-distance cyclist, a really cool person, and a pretty dominant champion. T-Race has enjoyed particularly remarkable success in fatbike racing, which … Continue reading Interview with Tracey Petervary, Fatbike Monster
Standing with the Buffalo on the start line of the Arrowhead 135 on Monday morning in International Falls, I was bubbling with excitement – eager to get going. I had not been on my bike for more than about 20 minutes since the end of the Fat Pursuit, exactly 14 days before. Everything had gone … Continue reading Arrowheadcase
Composing my blog post before last year’s Arrowhead 135, I had to sit far away from my motel-room window, which was entirely iced over in that year’s epic cold. This year, we are prepping for the race in a too-hot room at the Falls Motel in International Falls, where tomorrow’s temperatures are forecasted to range … Continue reading Arrowhead Stoke
Wisconsin Mark and I stopped for the night after leaving Idaho in the lovely little Wyoming town of Buffalo, where we stayed in the “Cowboy Corral” rooms at the historic Occidental Hotel, went out for a delicious dinner at the Bozeman Trail Steakhouse (bison burger for me, with a 24oz beer and two orders of … Continue reading Buffalo, Why-Oh
Halfway through November, and a week or so into an early winter, I’ve settled on five goals for my winter riding. In descending order: 1. Finish the 200k course of Jay P’s Fat Pursuit in Idaho on January 10 within the time limit – about 36 hours. Last year I made it through 100 miles … Continue reading Winter Riding Goals
Though I’ve been living on the plains for ten years now, I still think of the woods as Nature. Like my affinity for winter and snow, my love for the woods is rooted in the experience of growing up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Some of my earliest memories are of walking with my dad and … Continue reading Into the Woods
I love how this picture of the Beast includes so much great bike-life history. I drilled out the rims with instructions from Scott and Derek, the organizers of the Inspiration 100 gravel race up near Alexandria. Derek gave me one of the fork-mounted Anything Cages as a good-luck gift before the Arrowhead 135. The other, … Continue reading The Beast, Capsule of Memories
Last weekend’s Backyard Fat Pursuit bike race in Idaho was far harder, more fun, and more amazing than I expected. The race ended for me at five on Sunday afternoon, when the race director intercepted me on the course and asked me to stop, as I was hours off any decent pace. I am still … Continue reading Fire at the Fat Pursuit
In about seven hours, I’ll roll out of this bed at Pond’s Lodge in Island Park, Idaho, to start what promises to be a long, hard, exhilarating day of racing bikes in a new ultradistance fatbike race, Jay P’s Fat Pursuit. The event has two distances, a 60 kilometer short course (about 37 miles) and … Continue reading Following the Fat Pursuit
