Cabin Fixie Riding

40+ miles of fixed gear riding on the back roads near our cabin rewarded me with a well deserved Rye bread and cheese sandwich, a fancy dancy root beer AND a nap in the hammock.

Cabin Fixie Riding

The area around our family cabin, as I have said before is lakes and forest, but if you get about 8 miles south...it is rolling farm land. I decided to go for a ride on the fixed gear through the farmland. It was a nice 29 miler, fighting the wind most of the time...and the rolling hills, they can sometimes quite steep and long. I really like riding the fixie. It is F U N A unique old barn
I went by a lot of cattle...just snapped a pic of these.

Family Cabin Tandem Ride

We are spending a couple days at our family cabin. It is much fun staying there, as there is just about any type of recreation a person chooses to do. My favorite is the bicycling that is around that area. This is a very small township, population wise. Most of the roads meander through lakes and also through large tracts of county forest land. We put in 19.5 miles on the tandem Saturday afternoon. We met our first car a 6.4 miles...not many people around. It always slows down around the fall and fall is closer than we realize. IMO, The summer is flying by.

Stop and Say Hi to Bill

The River Trail Picnic Basket

Lanesboro, MN

As I had mentioned earlier, this stop was our favorite of the camping trip we recently made in southern MN. We stopped there for a sandwich and coffee...but received much more. The gentleman that owns and operates this is a delight to talk to. He retired from a well known large business and decided to buy this store to be close to the bicycling world, as he has done a lot of bicycling in the past and still bicycles. He is active in the advocacy of bicycling and in the trail side of it also. From what we gathered from talking to him, he does not own this business for any money that might come from it, but rather, for his long love of bicycling. IMO...he is doing it right. So if you ever get in or close to Lanesboro MN, by all means, stop and say Hi to Bill...you will not regret it.

Root River Camping

As we were eating breakfast, we noticed these Turkey Vultures sitting in some trees nearby. They were fascinating to watch.

Two of my favorite's...Golf and Bicycling

There are a lot of rocks on these trails. They say there are some rattle snakes in the bluff country. I was hoping to see a least one...but no luck.

Trees hanging on for dear life

An over the shoulder shot

At the last town we went through on this trip, we stopped and bought pie...coconut creme pie.

Janice riding across the last bridge.

We had nice weather on this trip, nice trails, no bicycle trouble, and good time overall. One of the things Janice and I both noticed on this trip was the friendliness of the people we encountered.

Root River Camping

After setting camp, Janice and I headed to Harmony MN, close to the Iowa border, for supper. When one rides from Preston to Harmony, expect to encounter some hills. Janice did very well.

They have attempted to recreate native prairie in some spots

Harmony MN figurines

Some of the business' have parking for the Amish

Whitetail fawn

Root River Camping

We hit the trail around 6:00 AM the second morning which had fog that didn't clear off until around 8:30. Hills near Whalan, MN


One of many shelters

Morning snack in Whalan

We had morning coffee and a snack across the road from the American Legion Hall in Lanesboro. Four older gentlemen came out while we were there. It was a scene right out of Grumpy Old Men. As three walked out one said "That f%$#*& thinks he knows everything" and another piped up "He don't know shit." They were each bee lining for their pickups. The door to the hall opens and a guy sticks his head out and yells "Bill, you forgot your juice" in which a "WHAT???" comes back. "You didn't finish your juice!!" I don't want it comes back. He sticks his head back in the door and yells "He says you can have it." I know it doesn't sound funny here, but believe me, it was.

This is the place we had the coffee and this gentleman was a delight to talk with. He was one of the highlights of the trip. I will do a post about him later. He is doing it right. If anybody ever gets to Lanesboro, we recommend stopping here for ice cream, coffee's or a sandwich in which comes the best part, conversation. The name of the place is "River Trail Picnic Basket"

Nice farm for sale

Another shelter

This is where lunch was had...would recommend this also.

Set up camp at Preston.

Root River Camping

We had driven over to Dubuque, Iowa for a brief visit with Janice's sister Colleen, her daughter and her daughters boy friend. We had a nice visit and then headed north to the southern Minnesota town of Houston. Houston is one of the trail heads for a network of paved trails. We decided to head out on a bicycle camping trip. It was evening before we left, so the first day we only made about 20 miles before we set up camp for the night.

Many of the towns have their town name on the side of a nearby hill...just in case one might forget where he or she is???
Some nice trails.

We crossed a lot of bridges on this trip

This was our first stop of the evening at Rushford

Some hills in the area

Riding the Semi Skinny

After the ride at Madison, we headed to The Kettle Moraine State Forest area to ride the John Muir mountain bike trails. This is a very popular mountain bike destination near La Grange WI. When we got there... CLOSED to BIKING because of the recent rainfall. Janice's mothers family is from around Lake Geneva, which was just a few miles away, so we spent the night around that area. We called the trail headquarters the following day to find they were opening the trails at noon...we were there...and a good thing because of another deluge as we were leaving. There were a few of these mud spots. That mud is slippery.
The trails were color coded and very well marked. I rode the Blue, which was the outer loop, and I never once had a question of where I was.

The trails here are very well used, with some nice berm'ed corners.

And...a nice jump

There were three options here...very nice

Some of the steeper sections had these mats laid down. It was my first experience with the mats, and found out quickly, that they are slippery. If you start to crank on them hard, the tire WILL slide out.

There are also a lot of rest areas.

And did I say, well marked.

These trails are the most used mountain bike trails I have ever been on. We arrived when they opened the trails to find a few cars in the lot. When we left, a storm was just starting to hit, and there were still 27 cars in the lot then.

Bikin the City

Janice and I are on vacation this week, so we headed south to do some biking, thus the absence on the computer. I have always wanted to ride the trails I see when we go through a large city. It seems like the trails are every where in these cities. We were near Madison, so I tried the trails there.

When we arrived there, it was raining along with lightning and thunder. I waited it out for a while, as it looked like it was clearing. I finally suited up and headed out on the Capital City Trail. It soon was back to storming. The rain was not too bad, but the lightning had my attention. At about halfway into the ride it started to break up and by the time I got back to the truck, it was hot and muggy.

I rode the Capital Trail, connected up with the Wingra Creek Trail and then rode side streets until I hit up with the Southwest Bike path back to the truck. The Capital City trail was very poorly marked. I was off path and semi-lost more than once. So, it amounted to a hick from sticks cut loose on the city trails for about 3 hours. It was much different than I am used to riding...but still fun...and I still want to ride some of the trails in the Twin City area.

Capital City Trail

Camp Randall stadium

Picnic

The place where Janice works held a company picnic Wednesday evening in which we attended. I may not have gotten a ride in, but it was much fun going to the picnic...tables...note plural...of good food, beverages and good people to talk to...and away from work. I think it is great that they put that on for the employees and their families...a lot of little kids is one of the things I noticed. My place of employment must have an average age of twice of what theirs is. We are old. It was just an observation. Gooooood time.

Handy Work

I am in the process of going in and out of the closet...well it's not a closet yet. We are building a new closet in our daughter's room, as we took most of the closet space she had for our wood stove chimney. It is not even like work when she is helping me, more like fun. What I consider good father daughter entertainment. It's bicycle related...can spot some of them

And.....
My daughter was asked by her teacher what her father does, and she replied, "Whatever my Mom tells him to.".