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August 12, 2005
Plog #3 – Friday, August 12, 2005
This morning I got up at about 7:30AM. Yesterday I had asked the park ranger if I could ride my mountain bike in the Off-road-vehicle park and they said yes, there was no problem with that. So this morning I was intent on abusing myself with some heavy exercise. At 8AM the park ranger lady was a little surprised to see me and my bicycle, and with a sparkle in her eye and a smile, checked me in and told me to have fun. I think I was the only bicycle rider to come through there in a long time. I checked out their website once and they said they have special BMX events there, but other than that, the park is targeted toward off-road motorized vehicles.
I rode through the trails for about an hour and a half and had a blast! Some parts were easy, and some very technical and dangerous. Note to self: Don’t take that swampy motorcycle-only trail again! During my ride I wiped out twice; Once on that motorcycle trail when my front tire went into a hole and stopped me immediately, sending me over the handlebars. I let out a yell, but when I got up I realized that I was the only one there and no-one would have heard that. The other time I wiped out I was on a muddy road, trying to avoid a rut full of water when my back tire slid into the rut and I went down on my side. I had no injuries bus was plenty dirty. When I left the park I washed off my bike the best I could then told the park Rangers that I was out of the park. I had so much fun, that I plan on doing other mountain biking in the future.
Back at the campsite I ate breakfast, drank some coffee then packed up and moved from campsite 38 to 46. Later I was changing my wheels out for Saturday’s Mesabi Trail Tour when I discovered my rear wheel was wobbling. I tried tightening the skewer but it didn’t help. On further inspection I discovered that my axel was broken! I was really happy that I had two sets of wheels with me because at that time of day I would not have found an open bike shop. I looked at my options. 1. I had a useable mountain bike wheel with knobby tires on it, but it had a broken spoke from my earlier ride and was a little out of true. I didn’t have any replacement spokes with me either. I could put the slick tire on that wheel and take a spoke from the wheel with the broken axel. Or, 2. I could take the axel from the knobby-tired wheel and put it into the wheel with the broken axel and not have to deal with the changing of tires or spoke replacement. Simple right? No. I managed to change out the axel but somehow got the centering wrong so my wheel was too far to the left and was rubbing on my left break pad. Too late. It was all together and it was getting late. I disconnected my back break and I was back in business for the bike ride. Not the best solution but it worked. We hurried off then to find my wife’s starting point in Buhl and the check-in/registration point in Virginia. They had very poor directions so it took us a while to find it. Once we got our starting packet and T-shirts, we retreated to our campsite again, had a fire, ate some campfire stew and baked apples with cinamon again. Today it was hot and sunny and we were able to wear shorts. Tonight it’s very cool so the fire feels good.
Posted by carl1236 at August 12, 2005 10:40 PM | Balance