Rolling the Minnesota River Trail for 40 Years / Dog Sitting / Street Hockey with my Grandsons

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Full moon over the prairie, This is an awesome time of the year to be out on the trails riding the fat tire mountain bike. Riding the River Trail along the Minnesota River.

Night riding is my choice... good lights are the key to rolling along.

A bit of tire testing on the fat bikes. 3 inches of fresh snow, getting there early so we are on new snow.

Mixed in a bit of dog sitting for 6 days, Good time out in the fresh snow.

Throw back to the ole street hockey days with the Grandkids... The oldest grandson turns 16 years old this month... man, they are growing up.  

The most recent snow and getting out on more fresh snow. The timing is important to getting the best fat tire bike trail riding. The go to trail, The River Trail is my favorite in the winter. Most of the river was flowing , but on the sharp bend the ice was jammed up and it is a good place to take a break. 

One of the cool things about the river bottoms is the size of the trees and imagining how long they have been standing...at times during flooding, the whole trail can be under water and the trees have been there through it all.

 Check this out... a few memory pictures from the floods in the same area. This is an ever evolving eco system, been riding mountain bikes down here for 34 years. Before that i was riding enduro motorcycles. It has been my favorite haunts for 4 decades...Wow!

I took a break and sat in the trees for about 45 minutes and was treated to this site, Mama doe and her triplets... Pretty cool.

Ride on!!

Kicking the New Year 2017 off on the Fat Bikes / Norpine Fat Bike Classic / Lutsen Minnesota

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A January trip up to Cuyuna for some Fat Tire Biking. The map above is just a section of the entire area.

The trails wind around and alongside the old mining lakes in the Crosby, Minnesota area. I have ridden the trails in the Summer and Fall. The Winter is a great time to be in the woods.

Trails were in very good condition with a fresh coating of snow to cover most of the icy surface. The whole state of Minnesota received rain just after Christmas, then a cold snap moved in from the north and froze all the trails with a coating of pure ice. All our fat bikes are outfitted with 45NTH studded tires, even with that setup it was a bit sketchy for a week or so. The snow gave us a good surface this trip, yet One still needed to be alert for the patches of ice.

Good view of one of the mine lakes.

Feeling the trail...

Some sweet switchbacks gave me a good view from above.

Timed it right for several hours of exploring and checking out the different loops on the bikes as the sun set in the west. This was one of the full day adventures that started about 9:00am and arriving home at 11:30pm. We drove 360 miles round trip, rode for 3 hours. Drove further up the icy backroads to a burger joint in Cross Lake. Then to top it off, we made the drive to the family cabin. We hiked around the cabin and checked out the frozen lake. Then drove the 180 miles home.

This turned out to be a full on adventure day.

Great Lakes Fat Bike Race Series / Lutsen MN

The map is the Fat Tire Bike race course up at Lutsen, Minnesota.

Riders will be riding 24 miles of cross-country ski trails this day. This was full on winter, fresh groomed snow with overnight temps at -12 degrees racing. It was an early -5 degree, 8:00am start. That meant I set the alarm for 4:00am, got up and let Jeff sleep till 4:30. We were staying in a condo that was a stones throw from Lake Superior... yeah the big Great Lake. Awesome!  

Two of the Midwest Mountain Bike Legends...Geno Oberpriller and Jeff Hall.

I met Geno back in about 1986. Jeff was 10 years old. I was doing the racing back then...

About 4 miles into the race with Jeff riding solid in the 1st chase group. A very loaded field in the front of the race. The trail was in very good condition. It was cold smoke snow this day at -5...

Jeff's son, my Grandson Owen and I chased the racers with the truck as they raced in the woods we were able to intercept them several times.

Owen is on the side of the course to hand up a water bottle. This was as Jeff was heading back to the finish, about 6 miles left. Still riding solid, didn't have the jump in his legs to win this day. Jeff was in 5th at this point and this is how he would finish the race, 5th place.

Owen was there to give his Dad a tap on his head to greet him at the finish. Tough conditions for all the racers with the temps. The good part was a great job of groomed trails.

After race time, the 3 Hall guys scrambling around on the rocks along the shore of Lake Superior. 3 generations of Halls having a good time at Lutsen. I am a lucky Man to have these adventures.

Above, Jeff and yours truly...below Owen and me hanging. Still about -4 degrees.

The image of Owen on the ice rocks along the shore of "Gitche Gumee" is priceless...

Adventure on!