Category Archives: Mountain Bike

06292018 – Mountain Bike

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We are camping with friends in Cuyuna Country State Recreation area, which means that we’ll be getting some great mountain biking in! Since we needed two cars, I was able to leave before the family and get some riding in.

We were there two years ago and that was my introduction to mountain biking.  I didn’t ride a lot of trails that weekend, but this weekend I hope to get quite a bit in.  Today was a good start for that. They have recently opened a bunch of new trails and basically you ride out on some “easy” trails before having options on they way back to the trailhead of staying on the easy or progressing to the harder stuff.  For the most part the harder stuff has a lot of climbing or some steep switchbacks – there are a few more technical side trails or sections that you can bypass as needed.

For the first ride I rode out on Easy Street and then took Mucker Mountain,  Sand Hog Mountain, Hopper Hill, Low Grade, Trammer, Roly Poly, Miners Mountain, Crusher, some Sidewinder, back to the Rally Center and then Switchback (plus the new return trail) to the road and back.   That ended up being almost 13.5 miles.

After lunch at Red Raven (which had an excellent Reuben), I went and setup our campsite.  I was the first one of our group so I had my choice.  Once everything was setup, I realized I had time to do another ride.  So I hopped back on the bike and left from the campground and rode the Drag Line and Haul Road.  It was in the 90’s so it was hard to stay up on hydration.  There are some cool Yurts off Haul Road that had nice cool water! Haul Road and Drag Line make a nice easy loop so that’s what I did.  I decided not to hit Man High or Man Cage yet! When I got back to the campground some friends were there and taking a cool-off dip in the lake so I joined them!  My second ride was about 7 miles.

06232018 – Bike

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I started out on my mountain bike and hit the Classic Theo loop, before I got a flat tire.  Ugh.. in the same spot (at the bottom of the stem). NBD, I had a spare so I changed the tube and guess what… I had a presta hand pump and not a shrader one.  Ugh.  A few rider had passed while I was working on it and they checked on me, but I thought I was good. Not another walk out of the trails. This is the third tube that’s popped there,  Before inserting the new one scraped out the hole with my multi-tool but I didn’t actually see anything that might be causing the problem.  I didn’t see any other riders. So I rode 2.2 miles and hike a biked about a mile!

When I got home everyone was still sleeping so I decided to switch bikes and went for a quick ride on my Motobecane. I’ve taken it a few times on the mountain bike trails between Glenwood and 55 so I did that again.  It still has CX tires on it so it handles the dirt just fine and that section is mostly just riding up the hill and flowing down with a few pump track parts.  Perfect for my bike! I rode around Cedar Lake and to the Mississippi River before heading home.  Total miles for this ride were 10.5 in 48:58.

06162018 – Bike

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With thunder in the background and south of me I hit some trails before the next round came to get us. The new Loppet trail is unofficially open so I decided to try it out. 

It’s pretty nice, nothing really technical but some tight uphill turns and some flowy downhill sections that will be fun to keep riding! I finished the loop and hit the  classic Theo section.

 In the woods it was perfect weather and pretty much completely dry. Then I went and hit the next two sections north of Glenwood. It was starting to rain a little bit and some parts of the trail not in the tree cover were wet so I opted not to hit the flow section south of Glenwood. Just as I was finishing the trails and popped back out onto Wirth Parkway my front tire popped and I had to hike a bike the half mile home.

Fortunately I made it home before the deluge began! One benefit of walking was that I saw this young deer eating berries next to the Plymouth bridge! 

05052018 – Bike

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Finally some of the Mountain Bike trails at Wirth are open. 3 of the 5 sections are dry and disable! The Brownie Lake section is pretty much an Expert loop so I didn’t bother with it. It’s hard to believe that I went over my handlebars on my first outing!

It kind of happened in slow motion right before the open space in the quaking bog area. It was a slight downhill flow section and I was using my brakes (both front and back) and I think I went over a little bump or something and I got some air. When I came down the front wheel caught and with the brake on I just went over. I got a scrape on my leg. And had to twist the handlebar back straight! I did break my camera post, but the camera wasn’t attached, so that’s good! No one saw it, so I straightened it all out and got back on to continue the ride! 

I finished the Quaking Bog or Southwest Wirth Loop without any other incidents! I’m not super confident in some of the faster flow sections, but this is the first ride. Then I hit the Glenwood Loop. This is a short and sweet loop with nothing too fancy only a little flow. I’ve easily ridden it on my cyclocross bike a few times. 

I made it home before the storm. Oh and I’ve been sick the last few days. Mostly sinus crap. I figured that biking would be easier than running on my body. Hopefully it will go away soon! 


02042018 – Mountain Biking

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Winter Fat Bike Trail riding is tough! I rode the Back 40 trails at Theodore Wirth. The trails were pretty well packed at this point. It is a different animal than regular trail riding, with the cold being a big part of it.

It was hard to figure out how much to wear and I think I ended up wearing too much (3 thermal top layers with a fleece vest) and I was sweaty by the end. But my face was really cold riding over to the trails and my toes (in hiking boots) got really cold too. My hands stayed warm in my SealSkin mittens I was wearing some liners but they didn’t work well with the mittens so I took them off and my hands were still a little sweaty.

Overall the trails were great! A few short sections were rutted. And one difference is that the trails can be pretty narrow with where the snow has been packed. This made it a little harder, at least for me.

I wouldn’t mind actually owning a fat bike and getting into shape and riding more often. I’m thankful I got to borrow a nice Trek Farley to test it out!

4.4 miles in about an hour. I did get one segment PR, which is a little odd, but I think it was on a section I normally have to stop and carry over an obstscle, but the snow buried the obstacle! My time was almost 15 seconds faster than my fastest!