Going to do a bit of catch up here on the blog this digital fish wrap I call a blog. Bare with me, as I am condensing three days worth of crap into one big blog post that no one will should read. I will type some shit, I will post some pics, I will care little about either (and neither will you).
Tuesday brought a hazy and warm summer evening. I had an un-blogworthy 16 mile singletrack mountain bike ride in my legs and a belly full of baked chicken thighs and spicy tomato pasta, but the evening was too nice to waste sitting around the house. So once Wifey was home from work I made the decision to head out and do some fishing for a couple of hours.
After Saturday’s shoe incident, in which I drove twenty-five minutes north to MMCC for a ride only to realize I forgot my shoes, I headed back on Sunday for another attempt.
It’s been a while since I last rode snowless singletrack; I reckon about six months. Most of the delay was due to me being lazy and not having my mountain bike(s) up and ready to go when the Michigan winter finally broke. The rest was due to the fact that I got a new cross bike (Boone!) and have been stacking up hours and miles riding dirt, gravel and paved roads so as to give my fitness a much needed kick in the lard ass and lose a few pounds.
I realized today that I haven’t ridden a mountain bike on singletrack (dirt) in roughly six months. I rode some snow packed fat bike trails on the Farley this winter, but I haven’t been on dry, woodsy singletrack in six freaking months! That’s sort of unacceptable… except when it is.
Thursday has quickly become my day to head northward and ride the trails at Hanson (not to be confused with Hanson). It has also become my day to ride with my friend Napper. He co-owns the shop I frequent, and I have no f*cking job, so his work schedule is flexible and mine is non-existent. Thus our partnership in this Thursday (thankfully non-sexual) affair.
The trail reports coming from the strong armed, jackbooted thugs at Hanson Hills (that’s a joke, they’re completely nice from what I’ve experienced) via Stalkbook and from folks who rode the trail recently (I cannot confirm their niceness or jackbootedness) claimed that the fat bike trail there was in killer shape: firm, packed and fast. So my friend Napper and I headed north early Thursday morning in his Tundra-Ram-Osaurus truck type, four wheel drive thing in the hopes of riding said firm, packed and fast trails.
Then it snowed.
Make no mistake about it, I hate winter. I hate the grey skies, the ice, slush, snow and cold, damn I hate the cold! And don’t even get me started on the ball suck holidays like Christmas and New Years that are thrown into the winter mix; I hate it all. BUT, winter is indeed here and the snow that has been coming down the past couple of days was a sure indication of that. When I woke up this morning and saw that snow that was covering the roads and ground I thought today just might be perfect for getting out on the dirt roads for a ride. I was only half right, which is only slightly better than being half wrong.
With winter here– whether I want to admit it or not–the time has come to plan some shenanigans for the next couple of months to half year that makes up a Michigan winter. I have said goodbye forever to cross-country skiing (not that I ever did it that much) and will be spending as much time as I can (baring crashing and jacking myself up) riding my fat bike or at very least snowshoeing (under the pretence of making singletrack rideable).
I will also be trying to get between one and twenty fat bike races in, and as you can see below, greater Michiganderburgh is ripe with possibilities, with races going down from Fun Promotions, the Great Lakes Fat Bike Series, the Northern Michigan Short’s Brewing Fat Bikes Series and the Winter Rush series from late December through March.
