Probably last ride before I race on Sunday. It was cool 63 but humid when I left. I was going to do the Plymouth- Cedar Lake loop but decided to add in the Greenway. I cut over on the LRT trail. I was amazed at the amount of people living in tents along the Greenway. I wonder how many of them were living in the encampment before it was closed down.
It was overcast and unexciting.
13 miles.
I was able to bike commute again today. It was a cool morning, in the upper 40’s! I didn’t want to overdress, but definitely didn’t want to get cold. I ended up wearing a t-shirt under a vest with arm sleeves and riding gloves and shorts. The tips of my fingers got a little chilly, but otherwise it was the perfect kit for the day. I took a different route than normal too, I just went straight up Upton all the way to Victory Memorial. It wasn’t as scenic as the parkway, but cut off about a half mile and didn’t really add any time. There was a train blocking Humboldt, but not Fremont so that worked out ok.
The ride home was in the mid-70’s so just warm enough to work up a sweat in my t-shirt and shorts. I rode home on the parkway. Nothing exciting.
Total for the day is around 10.5
The weekend in Cuyuna continues! The plan for today was to ride the entire system that was Easy or Intermediate. I did complete this task, though I maybe should have spent a little more time making a plan. What I did was basically ride out far and then come back, it would have made more sense to do a loop at the Mahnomen Unit first and then out to Sagamore. Starting at Red Rider I headed West, riding the trails when I could. The westward heading section in Portsmouth is currently closed due to construction, so I took the paved trail until I connected to the two-way trails that lead towards the campground and the rest of the units. Then I took Galloping Goose and the Demo trail west. At the western edge I then had to take a combination of paved trails and road to get to the Sagamore Unit.
I’ve never ridden here before and wouldn’t recommend it. All of the trails were grass and only the Discombobulator would be worth riding again. The trails had been mowed somewhat recently, but trees were down on a couple of the trails. The main section here was an out and back trail with lots of side trails off it. It looks like they could make a loop, but run into private land on the western edge of the lake. There are some cool views of Sagamore lake and even the surrounding hills. I kept flushing out the same deer as I rode the discombobulator which really gets you lost in a directional sense. Having followed the road into this unit, I found a double track ATV trail that cut off some of the road riding on my way back. I did ride all the trails in the unit, hoping to find something awesome. I’ve heard that these trails are better in the winter and that they are always groomed quicker than the other units. I might keep that in mind for a return visit.
Sagamore Lake
Another view of Sagamore
Some old mining infrastructure?
After traversing the roads and pavement to get back to red dirt I took a break and ate some food before hitting the hardest section of trails. I decided to hit all the side trails and worry about the rest of Galloping Goose later. I basically hit them as I came to them and decided that I’d stop at the top of each set of hills and relax for a minute. This meant lots of climbing and some cool descending. It is easy to see why Mahnonmen is the favorite section with something for everyone! The crew was out setting up for tomorrow’s race and some of the markings were already down. I was doing pretty well until I hit the Crusher which is at the end of this section. Basically the Crusher, crushed me. It is fairly steep climbing and because I missed a turn, I had to do it twice! I also did Roly Poly twice which is a little nerve racking as it is a rolling descent on the edge of the mountain! Despite eating more food, I was feeling it. I had also finished my two water bottles and I think it was deceptively warm since I was in the woods I didn’t feel it. I finished this section by climbing to the top of Miner’s Mountain before refilling on water at the Rally Center. When I headed out in the morning and all the way around Sagamore it had been pretty empty and quiet. By the time I got to the Rally Center it was crazy busy with lots of families, teams, and just people!
View from Hopper Hill
From Miner’s Mountain
After refreshing myself a little I went back and rode the entire Galloping Goose loop. Sidewinder has been closed and this is the easy loop that connects a lot of the other harder trails. There are a few trails that I didn’t ride because they are Expert. I should probably try them sometime when I’m fresh to see what they are like. I was feeling the sugar swings off the food that I was eating as I would feel low, eat something and then be okay again pretty quickly. I think for this long of a ride, I needed more real food and less gels and bars. Having ridden all these trails I kept heading east and rode Switchback back to Dragline. Since the North Drag Line and Man High trails were closed I didn’t ride the short connector to the campground. Drag Line is pretty easy and connects back to Yawkey.
Closure sign
Manual Lake from Haul Road – if you look you can see Red Rider.
I had thought about not doing Yawkey since I had just rode it yesterday, but decided I really couldn’t say I rode the whole system if I didn’t ride it all in the same ride. So I did. I was running out of water again and was feeling pretty beat, but I did ride Yawkey again. I actually rode Bob Sled even though it is marked as an Advanced trail. Riding Yawkey wasn’t as easy this time, but I did manage to finish it!
My total ride was 45.45 miles in 6:11 moving time.
I was toast! It felt so good to jump in the lake and cool off after returning to Red Rider. I spoke for a while with a family from Roseville that was up for the race and their daughter is racing really well.
After drinking and eating I decided to drive into town. I needed to charge my phone and did that at Red Raven bike shop while enjoying a cool beer. I had hope to do a bike demo they were having, but missed it. I then stopped at Victuals that had recently opened and enjoyed some lactose free ice cream. All of their ice creams are full dairy but lactose free! Victual is a cute little high-end gift shop with ice cream, cheese, and other food items. I headed back to camp for dinner and more relaxing by the fire.
I’m back at work and the family left for a long weekend to visit family. So for the regular weekend time I decided to get away to Cuyuna! I stayed at Red Rider Resort which just opened this season. It is fun to check out the new places as they open around town and it was a race weekend so there wasn’t much open anyways. Red Rider is Ride In/Out of the back side of the Yawkey Unit so pretty much on the far eastern edge of the bike trails. It is a pretty short ride about 1/2 mile to get onto the Man Cage Trail.
I had planned on riding as soon as I got into town, but it rained a couple of times on my way in and I wasn’t sure. I ended up waiting a little bit before heading out, giving it a few hours to dry as they recommend. The trails were mostly good when I rode. I wanted to do the whole Yawkey Unit and I accomplished that tonight with the exception of the one Extremely Difficult section.
Yawkey is relatively far away from the Rally Center, so I think it is easy to forget about, but has some cool sections. Bob Sled is definitely a favorite – its got a good climb but some fun flow sections on the way back down. Taking the cut off is pretty efficient, the longer version is cool and pretty rocky and is worth riding too. Man Cage, Tugger, and Trout are good trails to warm up on and get the legs moving. Manual Road is a tough climb up, but is some good riding on top. Some of the Advanced trails aren’t actually too bad here either. Skip is fun, especially the loop at the top of the hill which you can re-do without having to climb too much. I need to keep working on skill improvements, like right hand uphill turns! And relaxing on some of the descents! Grizzly felt harder but had some tight uphill sections. Yawkey is a fun place to ride, no doubt! After the ride, I relaxed had some dinner and enjoyed being in the woods.
Manual Mine Lake, looking at Red Rider Resort
Sunset on Manual Mine Lake, from Red Rider Resort
Today was the last day of the kids taking summer programming where I could do whatever I wanted. So of course, I went for a long bike ride. I was hoping the school they were at this week would get me close enough to try for a ride to Stillwater, but it wasn’t even really close and required way to much city riding. Instead I went for a route that I had done part of before. I rode North on the East side of the river crossing at 694 and then following the Mississippi River Trail to the Coon Rapids Dam. Part of it were industrial, some scenic suburbs, and some was just normal. The Coon Rapids Dam parking lot on the West side is getting redone so I had to be careful not to get lost for a second!
Then onto the Rush Creek trail heading West. This is an interesting trail because it goes through several different types of ecosystem. It had prairies, hardwood forest, and pine forests along its somewhat winding route. Paved and well-marked this is a nice flat ride. I think the only hill was crossing over US 169 – which is where I turned around. So close to Elm Creek but yet so far! I had to back track a little bit (I had planned for that) to the Douglas Road trail.
This paved trail ran parallel to Douglas Road and was a nice alternative to street riding, but in many ways was just a glorified sidewalk. No real signage at all. I couldn’t remember for sure which street I needed to turn right on, so I stopped at 85th Street to look at my phone and that was the road I needed. This was the only section of road riding on this part (the only other section was in Northeast and could probably been avoided by crossing the river). From 85th Street I turned onto Xerxes which was a paved trail that turned into a bike lane. Xerxes crosses the Shingle Creek Parkway which I took and headed East following the signs around Palmer Lake. You could tell that the water had recently been over some parts of the trail and there was a huge section of outfield at the ballparks that probably hadn’t been mowed all summer due to standing water. I’ve ridden here before and had to go through standing water. I was glad that wasn’t the case today. The Palmer Lake loop is a nice little loop, but Shingle Creek Parkway turns off of it and heads more south.
Shortly after leaving Palmer Lake, I did have to ride through some flooded trails. It was about the same depth and width as the Luce Line flooding is. My feet got wet! I was able to go around another section of flooding that was under a bridge (didn’t seem like a good risk). After that it was through Brooklyn Center and into Minneapolis. I crossed the tracks and took Webber Parkway into North Mississippi Regional Park and came back out on Washington Ave or 2nd Ave which I guess is more street riding, but it has bike lanes. These bike lanes are nice, but the area is still very industrial with lots of semis and such.
I caught back up with the river road trails and got to Plymouth Ave and still had time so I kept riding and ended up crossing at the Stone Arch bridge. Rode through a little bit of construction and ended up getting to the school with a couple of minutes to spare!
Total riding was 36.81 miles in 2:42.
I got a bunch of segment PR’s but I don’t really ride that way much so I’m not sure that they mean a whole lot! It was a great day to ride and a fun route.