Foggy Gravel Ride

Ross and I had some more riders for this edition of our Early Saturday gravel rides, we knew Noah a strong junior from the St.Cloud area was going to join us, but we were pleasantly surprised when Chuck showed up a little before 6am to partake in the gravel grinding. I'm usually not up at 6am, and our previous Saturday rides have taken off around 6:30, but it's really dark out. My little headlight really didn't do much to illuminate the road in front of me so I had to use the Force and hope nothing jumped out in front of me.

Here's Ross Powering up a hill. Not only was it dark out, but we also had to deal with a thick fog .

The gravel was like peanut butter, it was supper smooth but slow. Every little incline was like climbing a much larger hill. We really had to work to keep the speed up.  Skittles handled the mud great and I never felt out of control, even when I hit some unexpected mud holes. I can't say the same about Noah who was the only rider on a road bike, he tried following my line on a couple of downhills and got pretty squirly. Chuck had a near crash experience when a mud hole jumped out in front of him around a corner.

There's the road

I really didn't have a route planned for the ride and the wind was not a factor so we head west on the trail until we got to Centennial. We crossed 82 and had our first taste of gravel on Centennial. From Centennial we crossed 94 and made our way down Moe Hall Road. Moe Hall is a pretty fun little stretch, at one point the road took us between two swamps and it looked like the road was sunken into the swamps. From there we headed to Pioneer park for a little rest stop. After that we headed to the dreaded Browns road and the fearsome Brownsberg. Not really that dreaded or fearful but a fun little road with some steep climbs. Once we got to the end of Browns road we turned around and did it backwards which has even more climbing. From there we made our way to county road 15, and took that for a while, nothing special but just one roller after another. Then it was on to Solem lake road, half of which was virgin roads to me. Rolling hills and turkeys, pretty fun. After that we headed back in. In the end we ended up with around 50 miles, and I'd say 40 or so were on gravel. Pretty fun ride.

Rides at the shop are in full swing, so Tuesday night we have our sprint night that leaves at 6pm. Thursday Night is our social road ride that also leaves at 6pm. Saturday there are a few option, 6am gravel, 8am road, and 12pm road. Hope to see you on one of the rides. 

Sun tried breaking through but didn't come out until we were done riding.

With the fog every climb felt like we were climbing into the clouds.