In approximately 10 days I will be in that glorious promised land of off road cycling. I’m going with a few guys from ISUUC, and will be riding for about 5 days. Of course, I will be unicycling instead of biking. There’s going to be 5 of us total, 3 of us went over last Thanksgiving, and 2 will be out there for the first time. Here’s a small gallery of pictures from last time. I’m the tall, long haired, blonde guy. I’ve been excited about this trip for a few months it seems. Not just for the riding, but the whole experience with the camping and the food, and the fresh beer, and what not. Hopefully this year Porcupine Rim will be open, as last year there was snow on the top. It’s supposedly one of the best trails, ever. It’s 13 miles of fun, with the first 3 being a brutally steep climb, and the following 10 miles being fast, fun, downhills. The trail starts about 5 miles away from where it ends, so there’s a need for a second vehicle or a nice cooldown spin back to your car. If you can make it out there, I’d highly suggest it. You don’t even need a nice bike, most the bike shops will rent you a pretty solid dual suspension bike for under $50. A few will rent you high end Santa Cruz’s and similar bikes for $70/day. I guess that’s all for now, I should return with pictures and maybe some video clips for everyone to enjoy.

If you need something to do that isn’t shopping at the mall or eating leftovers and watching football the weekend after Thanksgiving, you should check this out. It’s Jinglecross Rock, two days of cyclocross racing in Iowa City at the Johnson County Fairgrounds. All ages and abilities have races just for them, even kids. Spectators are free and the events are Saturday and Sunday, so you can still shop Friday if you need to. If you’re not even sure why cyclocross is, or have some questions, this article should help you out.

In other news, we’re going to be having our trainer rides every Wednesday around 6 pm, so come in, ride your bike, and join us afterwards at one the area restaurants, just like during the summer. The place we eat will change weekly and will be determined by the group the night of.

You heard it here first. I’m slacking it. I’ve stopped commuting for the season mostly due to the combination of dark and cold. Mostly the dark I think is what made my mind up. There’s good solutions to being cold on the bike, better and/or more gear. No almost no matter how much light you’re putting out, riding on the road, especially outside of town, is kinda sketchy. Not that i even had a lot of close calls or anything, but it’s nerve racking enough in the darkness without freezing. So I’m focusing more on unicycling and plan to hit the gym a little bit and try to get a good upper body and cardio base built for next year. I still plan on riding during the day year round, but this whole commuting totally in the dark thing, especially while it’s cold is just not enough fun.

I just noticed that all of that sounds like I’m making excuses and well, maybe I am.

Just saw this completely insane video of Alex Ovchekin. This guy is amazing. Hope you enjoy it. You can buy his skates, CCM Vector 10.0s, right now, on sale at Irwins. Anyhoo, check out his video it might take a few seconds to load and get going, especially on a slower connection, but it’s worth it.

That’s correct. We’re starting our trainer rides tonight in the basement. Possibly going to be doing this every week as opposed to every other week as in the past. No official word yet, but that’ll probably get sorted out tonight. Stay tuned for info on that.