Some cross-training and riding in the Wisconsin – Minnesota river valleys

We are on a mini-vacation within our vacation staying in a remote part of northwestern Wisconsin, where the nearest traffic light is about 50 miles away, and even then, that’s the only traffic light within about 100 miles of here! Anyway, today’s ride involved shuttling out the two miles of unplowed road from our cabin to the main highway, parking and riding from there. No real way to ride the road bike on an unplowed road. Warmer temps today just above freezing, but still cold with a stiff south wind blowing. I rode through the snowmobile capital of northwestern Wisconsin, and saw maybe 75-100 snowmobiles and even had a chance to race one!

Ride map

Ride data

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Three icy rides

We just wrapped up our annual Christmas trip to the upper midwest, and I finished it up with the three icy rides below:

	Shell Lake Lake Ride Air temp: -10F (10 below zero) Distance: 7.8 miles (it was cold!!!) This was my last ride in northwestern wisconsin, and it was also my last chance to really explore the frozen lake. It was plenty cold (-10F) cold enough to freeze your breath almost instantly. But unfortunately warmer temps and even light rain on Christmas left about an inch of water melted underneath a thin layer of top ice. I kept crashing through into the puddled water. No danger of crashing through into the lake b/c there was another layer of thick ice below that, but problematic enough with the temp -10F to shorten my ride. Still, for this Alabama boy – the novelty of riding a bike on a frozen lake never gets old!
Northwest Green Bay ride Air temp: 15F(and very windy) Distance: 61.4 miles (very flat) This was my first ride in the Green Bay, Wisconsin area. I thoroughly enjoyed it although most of the ride was table-top flat. I could tell that if I had gone northwest away from the lake instead of towards the lake, it would have been a much hillier ride. But I really wanted to see Green Bay and see the ice flows and icebergs on the lake. I wasn’t disappointed – although my camera batteries were dead after only one picture. We drove out later to get a few pictures that I posted below.
	La Porte, IN to New Buffalo, MI Air temp: 10F (10 above zero) Distance: 36.9 miles (it was cold!!!) We spent New Year’s Eve with Kristine’s grandma in La Porte, IN which is just south of the Michigan border and southeast of Lake Michigan. I had a great mountain bike ride in the middle of a minor lake effect snowstorm. It was quite an experience and perfectly safe as the roads were snowy and not icy. Actually makes for pretty good traction on a mountain bike as long as you keep the tire pressure low.

And here are all the photos from the three rides…

Ride #1 – Shell Lake, WI – 12/29/09

Ride #2 – Northwestern Green Bay Area – 12/30/09

Ride #3 – La Porte, IN to New Buffalo, MI – 1/1/10

Awesome mountain bike ride Shell Lake to Rice Lake

Kristine had errands to run in Rice Lake (about 20 miles away), and we wanted to take the kids ice skating – so we worked it out for me to bike down there on some nice backroads for a good 32 mile ride. It was COLD. The air temps were in the lower teens, but the wind was just unbelievable. I only had Kristine’s iphone with me to take these pictures, otherwise I would have taken video of the snow blowing across the road at 20mph. Check out the pics!

Mountain Biking Adventure

	Here’s the annotated topocreator route.
	Lots of long straight flat icy snowy roads – the challenge is finding a smooth line and riding as fast as you can without falling
	Some curvy roads too
	Some very icy roads – this is the stuff you want to avoid
	A huge snow plow
	The view from the high point of the ride
	Blowing snow – the windchill was incredible. There was one part of the ride where the wind was blowing hard from the side and being funneled right into my eye by my sunglasses. I had to turn to look into the wind because my eyeball felt like it was starting to freeze!
	Snow drifts
	Rice Lake – the cool thing about this picture is the island with a picnic table only in the winter (or by boat in the summer)
	Ski-do anyone?
	My mountain bike at the ice rink
	An icy version of me at the ice rink.

Wind skiing

This was awesome to watch. Unfortunately my batteries died right before this guy took off … literally. He got going very fast and then jumped at least 8 feet in the air with the windsail taking him up and setting him back down. I got a new set of batteries in just in time for him to make it back. How cool!!!

Ice Skating Princesses

My favorite picture of Analise and Kristine, the ice princesses

Cold roller ridin’

The high temperature today was at midnight this morning. The temperature dropped throughout the day until it was just over 10 degrees by the time I started a two hour ride on the rollers outside on the back porch. By the end of the ride, the temp was down to 3 degrees.