So I got a road bike in the winter and that was pretty much good times it sat on my trainer and i rode it in the winter life was good. I watched 3 seasons of Six Feet under sweetness. Then these Saturday/Sunday rides started and that’s when the learning curve kicked up. Being new to this road biking thing I had no idea what is pace line, what it means to ride close to someone or how to fit the bike ride. But I am a patient student. Sunday was a lesson in technique and power. The whole rotating pace line thing looks a lot easier on T.V. then in real life. It’s a lot of work and yes you get to ride really fast but you also get exposed really fast. I believe Mark ,Brian and munson were a bit generous on their encouragement. The reality of the situation was depicted by this picture ( this is a bit of tribute to mr. Brady Murphy who was stalking my house Saturday…. stalker) . I did learn quite a bit about this rotating business and what it means to go fast. I also learned that high wind maximized and your mistakes. Small mistakes with no wind look a lot bigger with 20 mph headwind. This was very taxing day on bike not in bad way but very tough, but after 74 miles or so it was good day. Heat wave is coming to TNR who knows maybe I’ll tune some faint on for that.
P.S. I also learned that cauliflower soup is better if you put heavy cream in the soup (well i can’t really make that claim as i didn’t have any cream at home)
You know someday I wish I was as TV personality on local news. That job is pretty cake except for weird hours. Take bring in example you can do following stories:
- Flooding (since we live next to big river)
- People excited about Spring
- Easter and Fish fries
Well I will be honest the river is pretty high it has been for about 2 weeks. This is actually probably one of the highest levels I have seen. Don’t believe me take a look. Oh I get to ride my Fat tires tonight, you should to it’s good for you .

Saturday I spend most of my day in Lincoln, well it was more like Lincoln vicinity of my road bike. Eric and I loaded up the car early in morning 5:30 am and headed out to PCL event. The weapons of choice for this event was my road bike as much as some people do not approve of it
. Good group of people was at the coffee shop getting caffeinated and talking. Rant about coffee shop. Long time ago that place was smoky dump with sweet coffee, smoke is gone coffee remains. I haven’t seen majority of the Lincoln guys since Swanson cx race so it was good to see their wind burned faces and hand out with some chill dudes. Eventually the group left and split right way as their was good amount of people who didn’t ride down the grassy knoll down to the airport road. It was at that time that Troy and couple of other guys including a nice fella on flying Dutchman decided to bridge to the group ahead of us. And bridge we did i believe we clipping pretty good for couple of miles and eventually caught the main pack. After catching a me breath i decided that main group was moving too slow. I wasn’t the only one at first big hill I made my way to the front of the group and along with Craig Schmidt we put a good gap. Rest of the ride to Seward was pretty standard. The rain pickup a bit and for about a minute I debated if Seward would be the turnaround point at that point I also saw Eric standing their with huge slash in his tire. That was first of 10000000 flats that he got that day. We continued to Seward one quick beef jerky and some horrible coffee and we were on our way north… Trip north can be summarized by one word wind. I joked that last time I was in Lincoln the wind was north and just like last time I was out with some people I didn’t know oh well. At some point Jeff Bonsall, Troy and Brian caught me right before the strange people turned east. Riding with those guys is pretty fun it would be even more fun if we were drinking beer, but then we wouldn’t be biking now would we?
Riding that wind by one self would be pretty sucky. So we rotated up front frequently until we got to highway 92. The cross wind was a nice break from the face beating I took last 2 hours it was welcomed. The speed picked up and the group splintered once again. Troy, Erick and I left Jeff and Brian behind. I could only hand with those two guys for couple of miles. Troy and Erick pulled away from me and then Eric got dropped as well and got another flat. I was out of materials so I left him for someone with multiple tubes.
Wahoo was reached it was agreed to have some Mexican food for lunch and use the tail wind to motor to Lincoln. While eating food Corey, Scott B. and Erick showed up to Mexican restaurant. It might of been the Mexican food or tail wind by we motored home really fast. Eric got another flat and we didn’t have any more tubes. He was going to attempt fetal position survival while I went and got the car. I’m not going say that I did or didn’t have beer when I got to D-st, but I did go and pickup Erik on way home. And then he got a flat again…. As mater of fact he’s sitting at home fixing it ( just kidding) all and all 108 miles in for the day
melting and freezing process has begun. Riding is getting somewhat sketchy early in morning and late evenings. Road is really the only surfaces which will make PCL event next weekend pretty interesting to say the least, it might be a soup fest in mid-morning. Sunset are getting good DST is right around the corner. More riding and hopefully rain will stay away but some rain would be good to wash the sand away.

For people who don’t ride year around gloves are not that big of deal. But if you do ride year around you soon will find out a great pile of gloves in your riding closet. Why do I mention it ? Today is March 1st i decided to switch my heary bulky winter gloves to my spring/fall gloves. yes it’s nice not to take your glove off to do things like turn on your blinkers. No much happening besides that. On weekend Mod, Ryan and Jeremy been dragging me around and well really dominating me like prince dominated charlie Murphy in BBall. besides trip to Chicago I spend a lot of time on bike in January/February with major objective of not bonking… mission accomplished minus one horrible day in December.
From st. croix scenic river way. it snowing and sun looks insignificant.
