September Hundy in the Books

Once again I waited until the end of the month to ride my gravel hundy. I purposely chose to ride alone so I could ride my own pace. My alarm was set for 5am, but after I woke at 4am, I figured that I might as well start. I strapped on my good lights and was on the bike at 4:40. My original plan was to ride a 30 mile loop to the west and meet a group of friends for singletrack near 7am. I completely misjudged.

My route went north then west to Dallas Center, then south to Adel. It was very dark and foggy so I was conscious of being safe. However, I still had two stealth farm dogs try to run me down - Scared the crap out of me both times. South out of Adel on Old Portland Road (btw a bridge is out - so I added 5miles for a detour into DeSoto). Then east until I found the Great Western Trail. Off the trail several times to find gravel side roads and I ultimately made it to Casey's on Bell Ave. for breakfast.

It was now 9am, I was feeling good and I had 55miles in. After eating I worked my way to the center trails. Headed to Denmans and rode it reverse, then forward. Then onto Hillside and Roller Coaster. Finally back to Denmans for a reverse and forward trip again. I didn't ever find the guys, but saw a few that I knew out there (Justin and Sarah, Mrs. Squirrel).

By this time, I had around 80-83 miles and needed to make it to my daughters soccer game out in Waukee. I went through Raccoon River Park, onto Grand and out Booneville road. It was nice to be able to string more gravel together that direction. Finally south of Booneville, then west to VanMeter then north to the Waukee soccer fields.

I finished with around 105 miles in around 9hours of ride time. I didn't feel too bad and this route was actually really nice. By eliminating Old Portland Road and riding the route via VanMeter, it would lose a few miles. However, you would gain it back as I had received a ride home from the soccer game (no need to get more miles, right?).

So this makes 9 gravel hundies in consecutive months. 3 more to go to complete the year.

Tunnel Run - over the top?

Is it me or is this over the top? A tunnel run video for a high school team? I'm sure that the have a student dept create it but come on......no wonder college athletes feel coddled. It starts at high school.

Don't know what a tunnel run video is? It is the video that is played to get the crowd physced for the entrance (from the tunnel) of the football team. Of course, the Griz have the best :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YlCEEP1NgQ

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Warrior Pride

Friday night and the girls invited friends to go to the Waukee Warriors game. They are all dressed up in their purple and gold, and are ready to get crazy.
LET ME HEAR YOUR WARRIOR SPIRIT!! (and the crowd says.....)

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Birthday Bike Ride

Saturday was my 43rd birthday. So after the household chores were done, the girls and I loaded the bikes and went to ride in Denman's woods. Holly had to tough it out at home with work (she's been working 7 days a week lately).

The bike ride with Hannah and Madison was great. They are really becoming adjusted to the bikes. Each time they ride the trails, they learn something and always seem to have fun. The highlight of the day was when we tried to do our good deed for the day. Some idiot had his 4x4 Jeep on the old J11 trail and was ready to drive into the creek. I tried to tell him to stop and get out of the woods (in a city park no less), but he thought he knew better and drove into the creek. He promptly sunk in past his hubs and was stuck. I called the cops and hoped they would find and ticket him. After our ride was done, I sprinted back to find that he had a buddy trying to get him out. Now it appeared that both might be stuck. I recalled the police and waited 30mins for them to show up. I finally gave up on the waiting. However, the girls were proud of us for at least trying to do a good deed. At least they seemed to learn a good lesson regarding respect for the environment. More pics on Flickr, including a few of the idiots.
Hannah in white, Maddie in yellow. Weaving through the trees.
They even made the majority of the tight trees. Hannah skipped a few, but probably rode 90% of them.
Here is Hannah carving around a corner.
Maddie making the turn and smiling for the camera.

BTW - my birthday present (the new bike) continues to ride fantastic.

I had hoped to ride my September gravel century on Sunday, but was way too tired from this past week. I took a Tylenol PM and feel asleep by 10pm. Waking at 8:30 seemed to do the trick :)

Summer Picture Catchup - V4

The local girls had a lemonade stand at the end of August.
We took a family picture at a friends wedding. Matt and Brandi got married at the Living History Farm.
The Anderson girls are on the podium once again.
The bus stop on the 1st day of school. Lots of friends in our neighborhood.
We went for a mountain bike ride with mom and dad two weeks ago.

Not too bad, a whole summer in 20 pictures and 4 posts :) A lot more pictures are in our Flickr account (link to the right). Hopefully they will get organized in the next week. We finally paid for the service and can advance beyond the basic freebies.

Summer Picture Catchup - V3

The girls started to shave their legs. This was the 1st time.
Now all nice and smooth.
Daddy after the 7 Oaks bike race. He did well, but felt bad afterwards.
The Iowa State Fair!!!!
The girls at the company concert. Wynonna was the last minute fill in for Leanne Rimes.

Summer Picture Catchup - V2

Gram and Papa drove to Missoula to visit us. Dinner at the Depot Deck-yummo!
The girls are checking out their future college choice (note that it is not plural)
The Butler clan out for the last group dinner before we had to leave. Grandpa is hidden to the right of the picture.
We hit Mount Rushmore on the way home
This was the forest fire that ignited above the UM campus.

Summer Picture Catchup - V1

Maddie building her birdhouse.
Sisters in downtown Des Moines, during the Art Festival.
Summer vacation, can you guess where?
A great lunch spot in the park.
Panning for gold at grandpa B's house with the cousins and Uncle Ron.

Hannan building her birdhouse.

Chequamegon Short & Fat

The picture is from my starting position for the Cheqamegon Short & Fat. I figured that I was mid-pack of the 800 starters. I knew that my work was cut out for me if I wanted to hit my goal of finishing in the top 100.

The first mile or so was paved and slightly downhill. It took me a good 40 seconds just to cross the start line, but then I opened up the legs and the lungs. I probably pissed a few people off as I was yelling "on your right" over and over. I was flying past people and briefly saw a top speed of 27mph. I kept it pinned and passed alot of the people through the uphills to mile 3. I had to back it off to recover for a bit and then started picking people off for the rest of the race. In the last mile I saw 5 people in front of me and told myself that I had to pass all of them to get inside 100. I made the last pass on the top of the last hill and flew to the finish.

I was pleasantly surprised to finish 61st overall and 9th in class. Fun times.
More to come later.

The more: This was a fun trip to reconnect with some old bike buddies from my days of living in the Mpls area. I drove up on Friday morning and did a pre-ride of the course. I was a little concerned about getting a good starting position as I knew that last years winners had an average of 16mph or slightly higher. I rode at 80% and had an avg of 12.5. The guys showed up around dinner time and we BS'd late into the night. The morning came quick and we slowly got our stuff together (why do I always wait until the last minute?).

After driving to the finish area, we rode the 3miles to the start line. It was a short but good warm-up. I secured a decent start spot in the first 1/3 of the start chute and went to find a port-0-potty. When I returned, everyone had moved forward (but kindly left my bike alone). Net result was me started in mid-pack. I won't bore you with more race details, but I felt good and raced smart. Woulda, coulda, shoulda if I had a better starting position (not for the win, but top 30?).

Mark, Darcy, Shawn and I stayed up until 2am that night reliving old times. Had a good breakfast in the morning and drove the 7hour return. I would have liked to ridden more, but it rained most of Saturday and into Sunday. I'll definately return for this race again and hopefully to get the family onto the trails and into the cabins/woods.

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