a midway bikelog

With the Almanzo 100 coming up, my friend Jim proposed we hit the training ramp-up with a ride around Lake Pepin. It’s not enough that the trip around the lake is some 80 miles, but as the Almanzo is primarily a gravel race, we of course needed to work in some of the target terrain, so his final route ended up closer to 107 miles. Six of we hardy souls met in partly-flooded Bay Point Park in Red Wing at 9am.

Of course, Jim has already done a couple of (very near) centuries this year, and while i haven’t been a total slug, i haven’t ridden quite that much. Common sense Strict adherence to the 10% rule Time constraints helped dictate a gentler ride for me, and i chose to follow the group only as far as Stockholm (about 1/4 of the loop) and then return. Happily for me, this included a good portion of the gravel and hills for the day, and while i had 64 miles all in (while they ended with 102), an even 40 of those miles were the backwoods route we took to Stockholm. After a lovely sit-down lunch, the remaining group continued clockwise around the lake while i turned back along the direct route, into the headwind.

It was just the thing on a lovely spring day: beautiful dirt roads, hard climbs, fast descents, and excellent company. We laughed, we sweated, we cursed, and in an unprecedented move reflective of the task ahead, we even skipped the pie.