Wisconsin wrap-up

Long ice beard in Weyerhauser with Blue Hills I had just ridden through in the background. The beard is frozen breath, whereas the mustache is frozen snot (I had nasal congestion issues all week).
Kristine caught up to me near the very end of the ride and got this pic as we were pulling into Weyerhauser.

We’ve been back in Alabama for a couple weeks now, but I still have photos and videos from one last ride in Wisconsin. Perfect timing for me to finish up this post as we are under a winter storm warning today for a couple inches of snow and ice here in Birmingham. Back up in Wisconsin on January 2nd, my first ride of 2013, I left Kristine’s parents’ house in Shell Lake and rode about 65 mile southeast down to Weyerhauser, Wisconsin through the Blue Hills outside of Rice Lake. This was the coldest ride of the trip with an average temperature of 10 degF. I started pretty early in the day, and it snowed the whole time with most of the ride into a stiff headwind. The snow was just beautiful as it was falling, and especially up on top of Meteor Hill – the high point in the Blue Hills. See this video I took of the snow shortly before descending off of Meteor Hill.

Even though the temp had warmed up a bit by the top of Meteor Hill — maybe 12 degrees or so – this was still the coldest part of the trip because I stopped for a while at the top and took too long of a video (the one above) with my gloves off. Then once I started again, I was on really deep, rutted snow on a long gradual downhill. This meant that I spent a lot of time braking instead of pedaling and generating body heat. Plus, the area was really rural so it would not have been good to have any kind of accident so I was especially slow and careful, which meant my heartrate stayed around 100bpm for 9 miles on the long gradual descent. This meant I was VERY, VERY cold by the bottom. Fortunately, this dumped me out onto a good hilly Co Rd F right through the heart of the Blue Hills where I could warm back up again by going hard. All-in-all I think this was the best ride of the trip.

Here are some of the bikecam videos I got — ordered with my favorite ones first.

Frozen lake adventures and snow bike sledding

Yesterday was our last day at the cabin, so Kristine, Papa Dale, and the kids went for one last ski/skate on the lake. They were following a huge eagle around the lake, and I got pictures of his footprints later when I went out to check out the ice fishing with Kristine. I was planning on a good ride back home to Shell Lake, but first I wanted to do some more snow bike sled racing with the kids, and I also wanted to ride on the lake. Here’s a short bikecam video of me biking up the sled hill:

I’ve got another bikecam video riding across the frozen lake and then snow bike sled racing with the kids. It’s taking forever to upload so I will link to it here later.

After the kids were ready to go, I headed out the back way out of the resort area and ended up on Co Rd F. Good hills on the way out to F and then on F itself. I took F to Co Rd K, which also had some good long hills. Down at Co Rd A, I turned right to climb up and over the Spooner High School hill. On my way back over the hill, I saw a huge eagle glide across the road up in the distance. Later in the ride, I saw two more eagles and wild turkeys.

I ended the ride reversing a route I took back in 2005 when I got lost in the fog on the lake. That was quite an adventure, although even on a perfectly clear cold day with foot thick ice and pick-up trucks driving out onto the ice, it is still disconcerting to ride across sections of bare ice looking into deep dark frozen water so far from the shore. Check out the map zoomed in of my route up at the cabin and then also across Shell Lake.

Here’s a short iphone video from the middle of the lake:

Frozen lake riding and snow bike sled racing at the beginning of the ride

Long route across a frozen Shell Lake at the end of my ride

Two Garmin screenshots pieced together to get my route through the lake

Annotated ski tracks – Josiah’s ice skates, “Boots the dog” dog tracks, Kristine’s ski tracks, and Analise’s ski tracks

Auger for drilling ice fishing holes

Keeping an ice fishing hole open (simply scoop out some water every few minutes)

Eagle tracks around and inside ice fishing hole

Nasty large snotcicle and beardcicles

Frozen snotcicle and beardcicles from the side

Markville via lots of snowy roads and snowmobile trails

This was my longest and fastest ride so far this year up in Wisconsin. It needed to be fast because I got a late start after sleeping in a bit and then having fun out on the frozen lake with Josiah ice/snow astronaut skating and Analise snow skiing. After warming up a bit, I left by about 1:00 with an anticipated 4 hour loop over to Mankville, Minnesota. This ride was different than yesterday’s because I headed north for nearly an hour first before heading west. There was a strong tailwind from the south — presumably why the temp was about 5 degF warmer than yesterday even though there is a strong blast of arctic air moving in with low temps tonight heading down into the double digits below zero.

Josiah the astronaut ice/snow skating

Analise and Kristine snow skiing on the lake

Right on snowmobile trail

Long beardcicles and frozen snot after four hour ride with an average temp of 16 degF.

Quite cold and dark by the end of the ride

I got lots of bikecam videos sorted by the best first. The snowmobile video (the second video) is bookmarked on youtube if you want to jump straight to the interesting parts. The others are not bookmarked. The first is only about 2 minutes long and shows some good snow biking on perfect snow leaving the cabin.

Quick ride report, pics, and videos – Heartwood

Yesterday’s ride from Shell Lake to Heartwood was much colder than I anticipated mainly because of the constant light snowfall that combined with salted county roads meant wet, cold, cold, cold feet. Fortunately, I had a chemical warmer pack and was able to put that into my shoe about halfway through the ride. Unfortunately, I also took the opportunity to drink about half of my gatorade bottle which had turned to slush by this point. Stopping and consuming that much frozen slush dropped my core body temp a ton and I never really got warm the rest of the ride. Still, in comparison to the Cullman ride in the rain where I could not stop shivering for a good solid ten minutes after the ride was over, this was like riding in short sleeves weather. I even had enough warmth to go “bike sledding” with the kids over on the frisbee golf course. These are the first two videos below. The third video is a cool one of frozen rapids and tunnel water on the Namekagon River. The fourth video I took while I was stopped and got really cold after I got the chemical warmer put into my shoe.

Bike setup – note the new contour roam2 camera I got for Christmas

Lower Mackenzie road looking back south

Frozen beardcicles on lower mackenzie road

Frozen rapids on the Namekagon River

Heartwood entrance – still a couple miles of a fast snowy road left

Snowmobile and ATV route directional signs

18,000 miles for 2011

Today was my last ride for 2011, and it just so happened to take me over the 18,000 mile mark for the year. I had originally thought I was going to be short of 18,000 miles, but I noticed after my ride on Monday that I was reasonably close to try and make it there by the end of the year. Also, I had 2,134,824 ft of climbing … that’s the same elevation gain as climbing Mt Everest 73.5 times starting from sea level.

Screenshot of strava stats for 2011

I also ended up winning the Strava climbing competition for December and for 2011.

2011 Studio Velo climbing competition overall winner

It’s so cold even the water bottles have to wear gloves!

Salem Lutheran Church

Terminal Morraine in the direction of Timberland Hills

Rolling hills heading towards the morraine

This is almost a categorized climb

Church in the highlands

More snow at nearly 1500′ elevation

Fire tower near the Timberland Hills lighted ski trail

Ice age national scenic trail spanning the entire state of Wisconsin – my father-in-law is hiking all of it over the course of the next year

Welcome timberland hills west lighted ski trail

Lights, grooming equipment, warming hut – the only thing missing is the snow!

Confused yet? The small green signs on the left say “public hunting and fishing grounds”. The sign on the tree is a “posted no tresspassing” sign

Co Rd J – the hilliest road in the area with several 10+% rollers including one that maxed out at 14%

14% max gradient on one of the hills on Co Rd J

More of Co Rd J with blowing snow in the distance

My first barn/silo picture of the trip … these are everywhere but it is not always easy to be in the right spot to take a pic of then while riding

25.4 degF – a bit warmer with the approaching storm – 3-4″ of snow expected tonight

Snow biking with the road bike – yes, it’s possible, but not recommended. That is an ice covered road, the snow was much easier to ride on

A lot more climbing today

I can pretty much guarantee that this has never happened in Alabama before – kids taking turns pulling each other on a sled across the frozen lake using a 4-wheeler

I think this was somewhere near the 18,000 mile mark for the year

Snow drifts on the lake. You can ride your mountain bike on the lake as long as you stay in the snowy areas. It is fun to try to map out your route from one snow drift to the next to minimize the areas of open ice that you have to cross. It is also possib

Trickiest part of the ride was navigating the driveway — all good!

Frozen slushy anyone?

Recall governor walker

Screenshot of strava stats for 2011

2011 Studio Velo climbing competition overall winner

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