Short Report I'm home and I still have all my apendages. Jim and Pat also made it home okay in case anyone is wondering. I'll post a detailed report tomorrow with pictures and videos. Until then here's the short story. Doug also has a great write up already if you need your blogging fix. Way to go Doug! Very cold race. -30F normal temperature and -45F wind chill on the weather channel when we left for the start. I made it to the checkpoint at mile 74 at 11:00pm. Pat White made it as well at 3:00am. Jim Grjalva almost made the check point, but came up 8 miles short when he was picked up by a snowmobile. Great job guys! More tomorrow when I'm rested.

Last minute details

The Arrowhead is almost here. Just getting all the cold weather gear I own together and stocking up on chemical warmers. With lows forecast from -20 to -30. I will need all of it and then some. I decided to add a layer of insulation to the Lake winter boots I have. I went to the local Fleet Farm and bought a pair of size 15 felt boot liners. I got them big enough so that I could put them over the boots and cut holes in the bottom for the cleats. Then I put the Salomon XC boot covers over them. They turned out pretty nice. They clip in and out of the pedals just fine, but rub a little bit on the cranks. I need to take them out for a couple test rides before next week to make sure they will work alright. I took a couple pictures below. I also put on the new Team Brown Bear sticker I got from Brooks. Very nice. Thanks Brooks! I'll try and post again before I leave Sunday. Here are the pictures.

10 day forecast for International Falls, MN

Check out this forecast for the next ten days up at the Icebox. Here's the link since blogger won't let me hyperlink it.

http://weather.msn.com/tenday.aspx?wealocations=wc:USMN0698

Looks like the start line will be a cold one again this year. -25! Ouch. I can't wait : )
Edit: The low is now listed at -42! This could get interesting : )

It could be worse. Here's a picture from one of the sponsors : )

Pictures for Gary

There you go Gary. The last picture I took just for you : ) And here is a little winter biking hill repeat video for ya : ) Enjoy.

Cold Pics

Here's a couple pictures from last nights ride.

All dressed up to do battle with the cold : )

Here's Rick lit up like a Christmas tree. Definitely safer than my setup.

A blurry one of my piddly lights.

A quick drink of a tasty beverage.

Starting to get a little colder out.

Warming up with a hot cup of coffee and a Campmor catalog : )

The bikes patiently waiting outside in the cold.

Thanks for the great ride Rick. Let's do it again soon. Good night.

Edit-after greg and brooks comments, I realized that I forgot the best picture from last night. How did they know about the pirate and ninja swords at the truck stop? : ) Here it is!

-30 wind chill The budget biker and I went for a little ride up in GF last night. -30 wind chill was quite a slap in the face : ) Three hours and 45 minutes worth. Minus a 15 minute hot chocolate break at the truck stop. That is 3.5 hrs x 100pts=350 WCRS pts. I'll post some pictures later tonight. Stay tuned.

WCRS Ride

Went out for a great Arrowhead training ride today. Two hours in the -20F wind chill. That will more than double my WCRS points so far. 180 pts to be exact. I took the pugsley for a tour of the icy and snowy bike trails of Fargo. I found an extra icy spot with my shoulder. Didn't see it until I was down on the ground. Good thing I had my helmet on. I smacked my head pretty good. Hard enough to crack the styrofoam core. It looks like winter is finally here to stay. Highs are supposed to be in the negative numbers this weekend. I'm really excited about that! Time to start chasing all you other WCRS riders : ) Here's a couple pictures.

This was the only spot where the wind wasn't blowing.

Frosty head.

Looks like I can put the 2300 and the trainer away : )

Wedding Post

It's about time I make a post instead of just reading everyone else's. So here goes. The wedding went very smooth. No bridezilla moments or anything like that. I wasn't even nervous. The day really flew by. It's all a blur. Thankfully there were a lot of nice people taking pictures. We got a ton of great gifts that we're still finding room for. Thanks everyone for being so generous! Married life is pretty sweet. I don't have to sleep out on the deck anymore : ) Just kidding, I'll still be adding to the cold night count. I even got some titanium out of the deal : ) I couldn't have asked for a better wife. Awwww. Now here is a few pictures for all you sappy cyclists and non-cyclists out there : )

Evil kitty! Crazy eyes flash from Maxwell M. Pussycat.

Red Ass 300

All you GF guys better mark your calendars for this one in June! Thanks Paddy! Who's in?

Team Brown Bear Brian and Brooks are making their Team Brown Bear roster for next season. They decided that I would be worthy of riding for them. Thanks guys! I can't wait to see what the team jerseys look like. Hopefully they aren't too furry : ) Chris and Dave send some of that snow up this way!

Arrowhead Recon

Rick and I headed up to International Falls on Sunday to check out the trails and do some riding. Well we ended up doing more driving around than riding. We started out at Melgeorges Resort on Elephant Lake. There was quite a bit of snow up there. I'd say a good 6-8 inches on the trails. There was a couple inches of packed snow under a layer of icy snow with 4-6 more inches of fluffy snow on top of all that. There weren't any snowmobile tracks and the trails haven't been groomed yet. So, that meant they were pretty much unrideable except going downhill. On any incline we'd just spin out on the icy layer of snow. We pushed up a really long hill and then rode down it. Short but fun. We only lasted about an hour before we packed up the bikes and had the "Lumberjack" breakfast special at the Melgeorge restaurant. The ham that came with it was an inch thick and filled us right up. Good stuff!

We decided to go check out some other areas of the trail to see if we could find a section where snowmobiles had packed it down. We only found one trail crosssing where there was a snowmobile track. That was at the Gateway Store crossing. We quickly unpacked the bikes again and headed up the road to the trailhead. We started down the trail, but again found it unrideable. We rode back out to the road and packed up the bikes for the ride home.

Kind of disappointing, but Rick got to see how much work it can be to push a loaded bike through snow up a hill : ) And that was priceless. We had plenty of time on the drive there and back to talk about what we could change on our bikes. Most of the conversation on the ride home was about what gear we could lose or lighten up to save weight. I think everyone would be a weight weenie if they had to push a 60 pound bike up a long hill in the snow : ) Here are a few pictures of the adventure. Enjoy.

Rick at the trailhead by Melgeorges Resort.

The Pugs all loaded and ready for the Arrowhead.

Rick powering through the snow.

Rick not feeling so well after powering through the snow : )

Rick taking the Pugs for a spin down a hill. Weeeeeee.

Cooling down after a long ride : )

A picture in the Melgeorge Restaurant in tribute to Mrs. Paddy : )

Tagged Well I've been "tagged" by Paul. So now I must tell you six things that most people don't know about me. Here goes nothing. 1. I sleep walk sometimes. This really makes Jen nervous when I sleep out on our third floor balcony : ) 2. Like Kerkove, I don't drink alcohol. Sorry Mr. Nice and all you Guiness conisuers : ) 3. Brian gave me the cycling nickname "Vino". After Alexander Vinokourov. I guess I kind of look like him, and I like to try and make big breakaways on our group rides. Notice I said "try" : ) 4. I was a wrestler in high school. Not the WWF kind, but the "I don't wear tights. I wear the required uniform" kind. 5. My favorite movie is "Joe vs. The Volcano" with Tom Hanks. "Lone Wolf McQuade" is a close second though. 6. I'm getting married in two weeks to the bestest girl in all the land : ) Hi Jen That's all your getting out of me. Now I tag all the ND bloggers. Sound off Brian, Greg, Fox, Brooks, Lane, Dr. Dingle, Budget and Sears.

Pugs Update

Well I dropped off the Pugs at The Ski and Bike Shop Saturday afternoon to get some parts put on. To my delight Sears had everything done by the close of business on Sunday. He did an awesome job. Top notch I tell ya. Just check out the pictures below. I was sooooooooooo excited to be able to have it back so that I can start scoring some points in the WCRS. I promise to start riding again this week Gary : )

This morning I was going to go and take some pictures of the Pugs to post, but my camera wouldn't turn on. I thought that I might have left it on and run down the battery, so I put it on the charger to see if that fixed the problem. It didn't. So, I took it too Best Buy, where I had bought it, to see what they could do for me. At first the service guy looked at it and checked it out with his gadgets. Then he said to just go and pick out a new one to replace this one. I thought that was pretty cool. So, I went to the camera department to get another one. I told the sales person what had happened and he said that he could give me a comparable camera that was about $200 dollars less than what I had paid for the original camera. I said no thanks, and told him that was a pretty sh**ty deal. He said that this new camera was better than my old one, and that they don't have one like my old one. I still told him that wasn't good enough. I had spent a lot of money on my other camera only 6 months ago, and now he was going to give me a cheaper camera. I don't think so. So, he went and talked to someone in back, and they said that I could pick out any camera that I wanted that was equal to what I had originally paid for the first camera. That seemed fair. I picked out this one, and was on my way. Long story, but I had to vent. Here are some pictures from the new camera of the new parts on the Pugs. Enjoy.

This is the Pugs before all the new goodies were installed. Also the last picture taken with my old camera.

New center-lock rotor.

The Paul Thumbie with Dura-Ace 9-speed bar end shifter. I really like this setup. Very nice!

This deraileur has seen more action than Squez : ) Still going strong.

Mmmm, gears. 9-speeds and a new XT hub.

New spokes and brass nipples for Marge.

Full length housing with a little Sears Rasta flare on the zip ties. It is very Festivus!

Thanks again Sears and SBS!