10 hours...

...is all the time I had to ride today, HAD to be home by 4:00! Kanza is 2 weeks from today & we were looking to get something big in , "bordering" on historic. I had my cue sheet & my "all day" money, lets do this...

6:00 am-ish roll out from D St., sorry for the crappy picture but that's all I got. That's a piece of my T.I. number still stuck to my helmet...
The pace down the Jamaica was surprisingly high with Butchie & m-dub pounding at the front. I have been stressing about my time limit & was pleased the group was rockin' it from the gun. As the Jamaica neared 38th we jumped on gravel. I forgot to mention that we had been promised really high winds out of the South today & the warmest temps of the year, humid as hell also. Wind was already blowing in the upper teens with gusts in the mid 20's & it only got worse. The group blew up once we left the safety of the Jamaica & Cornbread, Craigio, & myself settled in to a methodical rotation to cheat the wind. We rolled the first section of dirt we found but felt like we got lucky & only mudded up slightly, we passed on the next 2 miles & detoured...
As we paused to consider our next move A-ron & Shawn rolled up with Scott B. not far behind. This would be the last we saw of these guys, including Craigio, as they opted to head for Adams instead of beat there heads into the wind. Thanks for the help Schmidt-dog! Made those miles into the wind almost tolerable...
So hears the scenario...C-bread & myself have approximately 40 more miles to go, straight into the wind, to reach our destination. So what did we do? We just ground it freakin' out that's what!
Mile 55 pit stop was the town of Wymore, this town has definitely seen better days. I'll leave it at that. We actually stopped here again on the way back up but went to the other store in town. These folks were in the store on the way down, mud racer or something...
If you live in the Midwest, or at least around here you go to a lot of Casey's on rides. I hate Casey's...
We pushed on South as the wind ramped up to all its fury as the air temps climbed. Steady in the low 30's with gusts into the upper 40's (I looked on www.spc.noaa.gov). It was no joke, the wind was fierce. So we eventually reached the Kansas border, I would soon find out climbs like these have a nickname. Our route had been essentially flat up until this point, it was like this climb was making us pay for entering KS, it wasn't necessarily long just a slap in the face with the wind torturing us...
So if the climb was the border here's State Line Rd., the real border? No idea. Dude, better check your chamois for tics...
The route I had picked looked like it had a sweet twisty approach to our destination, it did but we turned left here by mistake only to realize our error & turn around quickly to find the correct path...
Correcting our wrong direction on State Line Rd., we only detoured a 1/4 mile...
Took time to represent on KS gravel...
Yep were in KS, flint in this hillside & we would see a lot more along the road a bit later...
So C-bread quoted Woodman who calls a climb right before your destination a "dicker", enough said. This was our second "dicker" if you count the border climb...
Our destination, Oketo, KS. 73 miles into the wind & amazingly we managed a 15.1 avg, stoked about that...
The turn, 11th Rd. You know a tailwind normally is a welcome event, but as we turned with the wind at our backs we realized how hot it really was. Core temps quickly started to climb & I realized it was going to be a tough one with quite a bit of miles ahead of us. The maintainer was scraping this road a few miles ahead of us, not sure if it made it better or worse...
Explored some MMR double.

Apparently they don't want you to use Big Indian Creek resevoir...

Like I said we looped back to Wymore, refueled & carried on. I took this picture because I saw a lot of this. The main reason he was this close was because I had the route, not that he couldn't get back to Lincoln, but we had a route man...
Finally we hit a point where I yelled to him, "11 mile straight shot into Cortland". C-bread lit the afterburner & I didn't see him until right before Cortland. If you look real close you might be able to pick him out up the road, way up the road...
I'm going to leave out a lot of the ugly part, but bottom line was that the day was taking its toll & I reached deep into the discomfort locker to get back to Lincoln. C-bread, kicked ass all day. Excellent riding man, great day on the bike. Historic for sure. 144 miles - 17 avg...bam!

Back to the 10 hour time limit, my wife's out of town & I had to leave the dogs home by themselves. There supper time is 4:00, had to respect that, yeah? These two knuckleheads were fine. Let them out when I got home & they chased a squirrel up a tree and hung out underneath before they even went to the bathroom...
This is what shelled looks like...
Back end of the "all day" pile...
You know they were crit racing in Lincoln today & a small part of me wishes I had been participating. More races tomorrow but I would be useless...

Mission accomplished today, exactly what we/I needed. Long hard day in the saddle. Hot, humid, windy...nasty.

DK is going to be a throw down. Some old big guns & some new big guns, can't wait...

Later,

TK

random...

Last Thursday (pre-Almanzo) I ran into A-ron on the Jamaica , we hooked up & did "my" Yankee Hill loop. Had this picture in the vault & just wanted to share...

Fast forward to last night's WNG. Kiddooo paying the price a 1/4 mile of white rock can demand...pinchie. A-ron, the dark knight (not pictured), & myself discuss life, love, & tires. C-bread gives Kiddooo the assist. Kind of a new route for me, Bennet Rd. to the East, 176th South to Hickman Rd., Hickman & eventually back in on the Jamaica...
A-ron's 12-hour momento...
Unrelated...I re-upped at my local beanery yesterday. 20lbs of green, 4 varieties. FTO offerings from Bolivia, Ethiopia, Columbia, & Sulawesi. I sampled a cup of the Ethiopian Sidamo & it had an unbelievable fragrance of red wine. Hopefully I can achieve that characteristic in my home roasting lab...
SATURDAY - GO BIG! Meet spot yet to be determined but were going to roll out by 6:00am. Wind is looking straight South & pretty strong blowing in temps in the upper 80's. I'm thinking KS & back??? Only bummer for me is I have a curfew back in Lincoln so I can only ride for 10 hours:)

Later,

TK

I tip my hat...

...to event promoter Chris Skogen & his cast of merry helpers, they were awesome hosts. A well-oiled machine is an expression that comes to mind. From my perspective the Alamnzo 100 has raised the bar pretty damn high. Chris went waaaay out of his way to make this a top-notch gravel event, a free gravel event at that (that is if you leave out hotels, gas, food, & a quick drive to SE Minnesota).

the mint julip arrives in MN...

A question we raised on the trip as we passed through Iowa & then Minnesota...why are there 100's & 100's of windmills in the those 2 states & two in Nebraska? I'm not kidding, 100's upon 100's. Maybe there's some out in the panhandle but what gives?
Race started & finished in Spring Valley, MN which was the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder. For those who are familiar with these individuals you will understand why the race is named the Almanzo. I grew up watching Little House so its all very familiar. We detoured up to Rochester for packet pick up but weren't quite prepared for the personalized TLC we were about to encounter.

The race packet featured your name in an embossed envelope.

the back...
the front...
the first set of cue sheets...
a sweet patch...
The packet also included an Almanzo postcard, a sponsor's list, & a personal hand written note from Chris thanking you for your attendance (should have gotten a picture of it).

We arrived in Spring Valley early enough to check in & kit up. Headed East to find wind & mostly flat roads in impeccable condition. They had a bunch of rain earlier in the week but you really couldn't tell. Didn't really feel like I was outside of Nebraska as far as the scenery but I knew there were hills in these parts just didn't know where yet. We ended up with a pleasant 25 mile journey around the countryside before heading back to town for some chow.
Companions - Craigio & Cornbread...
I told you it was flat East of town...
Ahhh, now I feel like were in MN...
Saturday morning 9:00 am start, weather was unbelievably beautiful. MC Skogen just before the start...
C-bread & I lined up early & on the front, a small crowd gathers behind us...
Then this...400+ were registered, no idea how many started. My plan for the day was to stay at the front!
First 15 miles saw some hard accelerations & a fast tempo which cut the lead group down to about 25 riders. I snapped this picture of Geoff during a lull in the flurries...
and he returned the favor...
That serenity was short lived as we climbed & descended multiple hills, each crazy descent stretching out the group as we hit speeds routinely in the upper 30's & low 40's. The fastest I saw on my computer was 44. These weren't straight shot descents either but twisty downhills that required a keen focus at those speeds. My 1 x 10 set up (42 x 12-27) had me spinning madly as we reached the bottom of the descents. The deciding moment in the first 40 miles was a fast downhill followed by a hairpin that featured one of the longer climbs of the day. Everybody hit that corner in there biggest gear only to frantically start upshifting trying to get a smaller gear to start the next climb. This corner blew up the group with 4 people getting up the road (I think) & 7 of us chasing. C-bread had the misfortune of flatting at this critical junction & that was that. This was a 100 mile gravel sprint & we were gone, sucks man. He made the best of it, changed his flat & soldiered on solo to the finish.

So much happens in one of these events its impossible to tell the story & keep it relatively brief. I'll try. Our chase group of 7 rolled through the 40 mile point near the town of Preston & within the next 10 miles we had lost 2 of our group. Between miles 50 & the only checkpoint at mile 65, myself & another guy (don't know him but I'll look into that) were pretty much passengers on this 5 person train leading into the check point. Joe Meiser, Surly-guy, & Atlas guy were the driving forces of this group & powered the locomotive into the station, or something like that:)

My four companions quickly grabbed fresh bottles at the checkpoint & were off like a shot. I literally turned around & they were gone. I grabbed my bike, Skogen yelled something about team Nebraska, CX remount & I was off. Some of the biggest climbs of the day soon followed. I could already see someone coming unhitched from the group I was with just 10 minutes before. It was my fellow passenger on the before mentioned freight train that had rolled into the checkpoint. I passed him climbing the nastiest (personally) climb of the day on Maple Road. Nasty I tell you, nasty. About 5 miles later I caught up with a rider of who had been in the front group we had been chasing.

Exiting the only B Rd. of the day, moments earlier we had waded through a refreshingly cold stream crossing...
The B Rd. climb...
The last guy I had passed actually caught back up to me as I struggled with a debilitating right hamstring cramp. I didn't stop pedaling but I pedaled painful squares for about a 1/2 mile trying to work things out. It subsided, I had been having twinges since right before the checkpoint. BTW - when we rolled into the 65 mile checkpoint we had a 19.3 avg. We stayed together until the last 2 monster climbs of the day where I was able to establish a gap which stuck to the finish.

I had 5:31:53 on my computer & 101 miles. 8th place. Fastest gravel hundee I've done & I'm hoping I find someone who can get us an elevation gain stat because there were a freaking ton of hills.

Major award. They had a schwag table, grab any item. Computer's, light's, clothing, & so on...I went for the beans man!
G-man...
C-bread...
Schmidt-dog...
the sage imparts his wisdom...
downtown Spring Valley...
I'm kind of at a loss to describe this. 3 stooges golf outing tree sculpture's...
creepy curly...
Sunday morning allowed us one more ride in Minnesota. C-bread & I got out to explore just a bit more of MN gravel...
all good...
Thanks to all that made this happen. We'll be back...

Later,

TK

see ya on the other side...

almanzo 100 bound...

lake of the week ride...

So a Tuesday night area lake ride has become a tradition, well...two weeks in a row at least. I finally reassembled my T.I. bike & needed to get it out for a shakedown before the Almanzo trip this weekend. The equipment casualties from my T.I. experience were a seized ceramic BB bearing, a chain, der. pulleys, shift cables, & various spots of paint wear on the frame, bars, & stem. I guess it's not to surprising after a 177 mile mud/rain ride.

I can't keep a secret, it's Conestoga...
I'm looking for that hidden passage from here to SW98th into Denton, didn't find it yet...
Passed on this "secret" double track...
Pouring rain as I write this, WNG may be in jeopardy?

Later,

TK