SNOW.

Last winter was disappointing in respect to snowfall.  Nobody minds if we miss out on the -20 temps, but we like to have some snow if it's going to be cold at all.  Especially since fatbikes are so on the rise here.  I bought my Mukluk 2 last year, and didn't get to ride much on snow.  I still had a great time however, and I've been looking forward to this winter ever since.  

Last Sunday brought us our first big snowfall in the Twin Cities.  Some surrounding areas apparently got a foot and a half.  We didn't see that much, but got our fair share.  We went from brown to thoroughly white and fluffy.  I was finishing a trip for work in the morning, and thankfully we were able to land in the heavy snow and low visibility, since I wanted to be done with work and ride my Mukluk!  :)  Jonathan was up for it too, so we met at the MN river bottoms like usual and took off.  

In many places it was quite ridable with a little grunt work, and in some places it was as much fresh powder as even a fatbike will plow through.  (I've heard that with higher temps and many people out riding/snowshoeing the bottoms have become pretty nice to ride since, but haven't been back down yet.)   Packed snow and fresh powder are two different animals.  

We had a great time seeing what the Mukluks/ourselves could take, and simply being out in nature when it's dumping snow.  We like our four different seasons.  Hopefully this winter will bring lots of snow like Sunday did.  Have fun out there!

Mukluk'n Duluth's Beaches...

The day before Halloween I took the Mukluk up to Duluth to get a change of scenery.  I had been in ground school most of the month, and was about to live in a Memphis hotel room for too much of November for work, and I wanted to get some air.  Northern lake air.  

Duluth has a beach front extending from Canal Park that goes on for 6 miles, so it makes for a very nice fat bike out and back.  I've been told it's better to ride when things freeze over, but I enjoyed this day as well despite the sand being in it's loose non-winter state.  

The wind was up pretty big, as you'll see from the waves in the following pictures.  Made things a bit chilly, but that's Duluth and I don't mind a bit.  Fat biking the beach was the warm outdoor option apparently, as people were surfing in dry suits.  Duluth matches the tenacity of other outdoor minded towns in that people don't stay inside for a silly thing like cold.  They ask what fun they can have in it.  Yup.  

I was also trying out a new piece of gear, imagine that.  I love my Revelate Designs frame bag on my Mukluk, and I've recently added a handlebar sling (which I didn't use for this ride), and a Viscacha expandable seat pack (that's the new piece).  I had way more than enough storage for my little day tour, but wanted to try out the gear.  I had with me lots of water, lunch, a stove, coffee press and cup, lights in case I stayed out late, a wind fleece jacket for stationary times, and the normal cycling tools and spare fat tube.  Probably some other bits in there too but I forget.  

The sand went from hard pack to super loose, and the Mukluk floated most of it with ease.  There were a couple sections that no bike would stay up in, but that's what feet are for.  I played more with tire pressure on this ride than I have in most of the first year of owning a fat bike, and found that in the loosest stuff I could ride, 7psi is my winning pressure, or right around where my sidewalls start to lose form with my rider and gear weight.  

I rode the whole beach out and back, with a bit of exploration of some woods near the end.  

I'll be returning in different seasons, particularly winter to ride the dunes in frozen form.   

Mukluk with waves and cold weather surfer in the background (look close)...

Miles and miles of great sand and debris for rolling big tires over...

Winning pressure of the day...

Out near Sky Harbor airport...

If you know Sky Harbor at all, you can barely make out runway 32's approach end...

Duluth is for fat bikers...

The Headless Fat Biker of Lake Superior...Happy Halloween!

I'll be back in the cold...

Antlers and Fat bike car rack adaptors...

Alright, two random things to post.  First- anyone who's done any amount of cycling has picked something up in their tire that delays their ride a bit.  Could be a nail, glass, tacks thrown on to your Tour de France stage, or in the case of a MN fat bike ride- an entire deer antler!  No joke, a friend of mine was taking a test ride on my Mukluk, and while rolling through the MN River Bottoms flood plain area, came to a very quick stop after having an antler wrap itself around my Larry 3.8, and jamming in the Enabler fork.  It's got clearance for most things, but apparently not animal parts.  

Caused some abrupt decelerating...:)

Second- I'm sure most of you fat-bikers out there have come up with solutions as to how to transport your bike, but I'm gonna add my method to the lists in case you're still searching.  I've subscribed to the "build your own spacer kit" plan that is found on many forum threads and other's blogs.  The general problem (simplified) is that a fat bike fork is 135mm wide, and a standard fork mount on everybody's car racks is 100mm wide.  You can make a "spacer plug" for each side of your fork mount that will extend it's total width to accommodate a fat bike fork.  It's quite simple.  Just find an old front quick release axle that you can cut in half (I went to a used bike parts store in Uptown MPLS).  It needs to be a front axle, because otherwise it won't slide into your rack's quick release core.  (Some say this can create a problem with the finished product, as your fork will be mounting to a 9mm "front" axle rather than a 10mm "rear" axle.  I would say this depends on the dropouts on your fork.  I didn't have any negative effects from this, my Enabler has plenty of room in the dropout area, and if you're worried, I suppose you could wrap 1mm worth of tape around the axle where your fork will contact it.  But anyway, back to basic instructions.   Collect 17.5mm worth of nuts you can put on each half.  This is the difference of 35mm between a regular and fat fork, remember.  Make sure the outer plug adaptor nut is grooved just like the one on your bike's hub that is in connection with your fork while mounted.   Tighten them all together with either cone or c wrenches, as appropriate to the size of the nut used, so that they leave the same clearance at the end for you fork as the hub on your bike (I think it's about 3.5-4mm from memory, but I'd measure first).  There you have it- just remove your rack's fork mount quick release, slide your homemade plug adaptors in each side, and simply use the quick release from your bike's front hub to attach your fork to your rack.  I think I paid $6 for the whole mess, and that's only because I had to buy an entire used front hub to get the axle.  If you found just the axle at a used parts place, I bet you could do this for around a buck.  That's considerable cheaper than the industry's commercial adaptors that go for $60-90.  Oh, and for the rear wheel, I just use a basic nylon strap.  It fits well on my Yakima Sprocket Rocket, which is pretty wide as it is.  If you have a narrower rack tray you may need to continue with your creativity in making something that fits into the tray and will accommodate your big honking tire.  I believe in you.  

Your new "plug spacer adaptor things"...

Grooved outer nut that will contact fork (just like your hub)...

Shown with the Yakima Sprocket Rocket...

Simple strap for the rear wheel...

Shown with a generic fork mount on my home welded truck bed rack...

Mini-rok...

I've been eyeing the many gravel grinders that my area of the country puts on for a while now, but I usually don't get the chance to participate due to working weekends.  However, many of these events post GPS data covering the routes they follow, sharing some of the best gravel in the state (that riders have discovered and shared so far).  Southeast MN's bluff country, and the Arrowhead region are the areas I get the most excited to ride/explore.  The southeast is full of a mixture of lazy rivers flowing between bluffs, and country farm scenes, and the Arrowhead is just plain North-woods goodness, and gets you decidedly out of town.   

In the beginning of October, my friend Jonathan and I took an afternoon to ride a section of the Ragnarok 105.  We picked the southern section that followed along the Zumbro River.  It was a pretty drab, blustery day, but we had a good time.  

The event rides themselves usually see a mixture of bikes, from carbon cross racers, to Fargo/Karate Monkey types, to an occasional rider punishing themselves rolling a fat bike.  I'd sure like to try the light and fast cross version if I get the chance, but for now I roll on my heavy-ish Surly KM.  Jonathan was kind enough to leave his Kona Jake at home and ride his mountain bike to even the field.  

Through the day we rolled through riverside bluffs, open rolling farmland, and small country towns, all the while on gravel "highways", byways, and the best- the occasional minimum maintenance road.  

I can't even remember how many miles we got in, but that's often a sign you're paying more attention to having fun, so that's fine.  I would like to complete a full "dirty" (off pavement) century via one of these routes sometime.  Just need to put in on the calendar I suppose.  They would make a great overnight tour as well.   

Looking back on fall...

I don't usually post pictures involving my career of flying (too many of my coworkers are already geeking out in that arena :)  ), but I do have to post a few shots of a private flight I was able to take with my wife and her parents this past fall.  We flew a fall colors tour up the North Shore of Lake Superior here in MN in one of the aircraft from my father in law's flying club, Flywell.  

It was an opportunity to see most of our favorite North Shore sites from a different perspective, and at what I thought to be as maybe a few short days past peak colors (the next day heavy winds would come up and take down most leaves).  Unfortunately, some sites where covered in lake effect fog, so we missed a couple places such as the Split Rock area, and Palisade Head/Tettegouche, but the sites further up the shore opened up.  Things are a bit flatter looking from altitude, but still pretty.  Below are a few shots of some of the areas we spend time in while playing on the ground...

Temperance River/Carleton Peak Area...

Moose Mountain/Lutsen Area...

Grand Marais...

Devils Track River Gorge...

Bean and Bear Lake...

Flywell's Archer, taken at Sky Harbor Airport, Duluth...

Not seeing the SW sites just made us decide that we're going to do the trip again next year!