Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Albion Hills Fat Bike Festival.
Bash and I tried the rental fat bikes for a bit of tootling around. The real fat bikes ride the breakable crust off-trail that stymied my 'bent, but the trails were mostly hardpacked.

I switched to my 'bent. I hadn't wanted to ask if I could do the race as I had no idea how I'd compare to the fat bikes, or whether I'd be allowed. The RD let me chase after the mid-pack riders on the 20K race once the hardcore riders had done lap 1 and the pack spread out. I was surprised to be passing them fairly easily on the doubletrack. I managed to hold my own on the singletrack sections, but on 2 corners I had to take a wider line and got stuck in soft snow, so I had to get off and push for a few seconds. One guy passed me there, and another passed me in a softer section, but on the whole I'd say I would have had no problem doing the 20k race in these conditions. Things may have been different if I hit a traffic jam at the first single track, but it seems the fat bike riders are content to chug along sanely and I'd be fine.

Next I got to demo an all-carbon fatty, which was very nice. It cruised the trails very easily. I got it bogged down off-trail, but when I got off I was up to my knees in crusty swamp, so that's fair enough.

Fun day out! Didn't really keep track of the time.

Rehab, light workout 1, lumberjack.

Ride around Palgrave E and W with Adventuredog. Pretty tough ride at first, but the doubletrack frozen snowshoe tracks were not bad at all on the plus tires. Some spots were a grind, others felt like hard dirt. A few glare ice bits.

Another sloshy run in. At least the big boy likes it.
Sloppy on the way home too but there's still snow.

Link workout and some lumberjack- cut a bit short as we had a power outage from 1AM to 10AM.

Crunchy run on the frozen, rain-soaked snow.

Slog home in soft snow at night with AD. Beat the rain though.

Just enough fresh pow for a decent ski to work this morning, then quite a good ski just as the snow turned to ice pellets but before the rain and wind on the way home. The big guy was running well.

Conditions turned evil shortly after I got home.

Sunset ski at Scenic Caves. Brilliant blue sky after waiting out some heavy snowsqualls that left the trees encased in snow. Spectacular!

C • Scenic Caves 3

4-dog hike/run with Storm, Browner and Bash. The big guy had me running back and forth between the off-leash dogs and the humans. All the dogs were excellent, except when AD and Scout took off for a brief Venison Quest.
Browner got to try the big guy on his skijoring setup in the last km or so, when he had settled in.