in Group Rides, Bike Trips, and Events

Too many options. Time to stop thinking and ride

The Cyclocross speeds have been more than adiqutely comfortable for 100 mi + gravel rides, including some fairly rough sections. So for graded limestone rail-to-trails, they are overkill. But its the Cheese  Country trail that makes me fear they won't be enough!

People have done BALLS on cyclo tires and lived to tell about it, but you will prob be a little more comfortable on a wider tire.  Assuming I can get approval to do the ride, I will be using my 42 servants, mostly because I do not want to fuss with changing out my tires (well, and the fact I am using road rims). 

Bear and I are trying to figure out if we should get matching tutus or contrasting tutus.  Thoughts?

This:



Or:

Well, personally I'm a little intimidated by 150 miles of mostly off-pavement riding. Longest I've ever ridden in a day was a couple of double metrics, but those were all on my nice, efficient road bike. I've done 100 on the MTB a couple times, both times been pretty exhausted by the end. So I'd like to find the fastest rolling tires that would work.

And tutu's don't have the aerodynamic attributes I'm looking for. But maybe that's just me.

Anyone knows that the rage in tutu's is for complementary color coordination. Matching is so blase`.
And for heavens sake you don't want to clash.
Those three guys outfits make me throw up in my mouth a little :-*

Brrr. I keep reloading all my weather websites in the hopes that the forecast for tomorrow improves. I'm definitely going to add an additional bag to my bike just to carry rain gear.

Or perhaps its better weather for cyclocross?

I'm admitting before the start that I only plan on seeing a small fraction of the whole loop.

It will be an abbreviated day for me.

Doesn't that depend on where Nelson takes you?

Ride reports ?

The tandem crew was severely underdressed for the cold. We turned back at Belleville.

I heard Scotch won backwards BALLS. That guy is a machine.

About a dozen riders rolled out of my driveway at 6am and we picked up several more along the way, plus the tandem crew and a few others got a jump on the main pack, 15-20 in total.  It was indeed chilly in them morning, there was substantial frost all the way down the Badger State and many numb toes in the group.  The group all rode together up until the gravel began on the Badger State when everyone spread out.

The cheese country was in classic form, no one stretch of it was particularly nasty but it was loose and chunky nearly the whole way.  At the end one rider pointed out that the route would not be interesting at all if it weren't for the wildcard of the CCT, the sheer aggravation of that section is the centerpiece of the route. My group got rained on pretty solidly from Dodgeville to Barneveld but I think most riders dodged the shower that hit us and only saw sprinkles.  All in all it wasn't too bad though, we had a sporadic but extremely welcome tail wind all the way from Dodgeville to Madison which made the latter part of the day much more tolerable. 

Scotch is indeed an animal, he was the first to cross the line with a time of 10 hours 28 minutes, with two other guys finishing just a few minutes behind him, the last group finished up around 14:55. 

I spent most of the day with Frank, Tyler, and Keith for most of the day and was glad to have their company for some of the drudgery of the Cheese Country. I wasn't very happy with the name I came up with for this thing, the "Militant Badger", but Keith came up with "The Cheese Grinder" and sold me the rights to the name for a lifetime supply of free entries to the event.

It was a really good time and hopefully next year anyone who does BALLS can plan on bookending the season with The Cheese Grinder.

Here is my rather long-winded ride report:

http://frankonabike.blogspot.com/2013/10/militant-badger-ride-2013.html

I had a blast this year! I'll definitely be back next year. Any chance anyone would be interested in a similar Spring or summer 1-day event? I know BALLS is near and dear to many here, but it's hard for me to get 2 days blessing from my SO.

Alternatively, does anyone have any somewhat local gravel races they could recommend, I haven't had much luck finding races closer than 8-10 hours drive?

There is always at least one person that only does day 1 of BALLS (blackbike) so there is usually a car headed back to Madison Saturday night or Sunday morning.

BALLS really is only 1.5 days anyway...I'm usually home by noon on Sunday.

Dairy Roubaix is the only obe I know that's really close. Otherwise there is Almanzo, and Ragnarock in MN...definitely not 8-10 hours frome here. There is one around Ames, IA too that I'm forgetting the name of.

There is also the Gravel Metric less than 2 hours south in DeKalb, IL.

For a couple years friends and I have been doing what we call GGGRRR the Galena Gravel Grinder Rustic Road Ride down in Galena IL, either 60 or 100 miles depending on what we're up for. Its an excellent area for gravel riding. Anyway, last year I opened it up to see if anyone random folks wanted to join us. All my Madison riding buddies had plans that weekend (a 24hr road race in MN, Tour Divide, bla bla bla) just two guys from Chicago showed up to join us. All 6 of us had an awesome time anyway.

http://frankonabike.blogspot.com/2012/04/announcing-gggrrr.html

The route has I think 18 climbs with more than 200 ft of elevation gain, including several over 300 and 1 over 400 (and one decent over 450 ft of drop), so its a pretty big kicker. I think last time we cut it 15 miles short. It also has some nice stops along the way, a winery, downtown Galena, a rustic bar, etc.

http://www.mapmyride.com/us/bellevue-ia/gggrrr-2012-modified-route-185915380

This year we didn't put anything together since my wife was pregnant and I was very busy with work. We'll almost certainly do something similar next year (assuming we can figure out what to do with our then 11 month old child), if there's interest I'll throw it out to the general public.