This post is a bit after-the-fact, but thought I'd put it up anyhow. Sometime last month I took a day trip down to the Nerstand Bigwoods State Park area in southeastern MN to ride some gravel. While I don't have a bike that is super efficient at throwing down big gravel routes quickly, both of my Surly's do just fine at traveling rough roads at a non-racers pace, which suites me well. On this ride I chose the Karate Monkey with Kenda small block 8's. Plenty of meat to roll very comfortably, and I wasn't worried about setting any speed records.
I didn't really have a route plan, and just wandered wherever the gravel went. I like to explore with not much of an agenda. I had heard talk of the small stretch of "Farmer Trail", and rode that. It was nice, but short does describe it. My favorite roads go on and on. I'd like to put together a gravel tour somewhere where one can travel a good distance on the stuff and get out into seriously rural places. I think the Dakotas are good land for this. I just flew over the Badlands National Park area in SD a couple days ago, and saw so many options for "out-there" riding. MN and WI do have their share of good local gravel though, and it's awesome to have it accessible from my home if I just get out of the Cities.
A bit of grating getting done...
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