Oct. 10

Today was the final ride of my trip! It was in a beautiful area of southeastern Minnesota near Winona. The ride was called Plowline Trail. I found it on trails.com. The only problem was that I took so many wrong turns, I don't know if I ever was on the right trail. Also it turned out to be a double track trail which wasn't very challenging technically, even though the guide said it was a technical level of 2-4 out of 1-5. Aerobically it was very challenging, especially with all the wrong turns I took. Up the hill, then down the other side, oops, wasn't supposed to go that way, back up the hill, then up and down various trails and turning around. There were two overlooks and I never found them. There were other intersecting trails that weren't shown on the trails.com map. I think it would have helped to include the intersecting trails. Oh well, it was a beautiful day, and a great 2 hour break from driving! Marilyn walked the trail and took the same wrong turn as me at first. It was good that I climbed back up most of the hill and met her before she went all the way down. Here's a picture of me after we met up the first time.

Here's a single-track trail that went down a steep hill. I was thinking maybe this led to an overlook but I never saw it. Climbing back up was a good challenge. One thing I'm pleased with is I seem to have a lot of endurance. I kind of feel like I could do this all day, but I'm sure that's not true. Sometime I'll have to see how long I can ride.

You can make out a river on this one, I think the Mississippi. You were supposed to get a great view from the overlooks...

The trail was never level and it was fun to go downhill fast since there weren't too many obstacles (roots, boulders). The first hill was challenging because of the rocks and slippery gravel. So I didn't go down real fast on that one at the end. It's fun to bounce along that terrain with the shocks on the bike. The shock absorbers are still a novelty for me.

This trip turned out to be a great, mostly free, mountain bike clinic for me. In 8 days, I rode 9 times! Okay, one of them probably shouldn't count since it was on pavement. So 8 times. What fun that turned out to be. Now I'm looking forward to trying out the local trails.

oct. 9,

Today I biked at the Mount Kato Ski Area in Mankato, MN. It was a great little trail, totally worth the $8 self-registration fee. They managed to map out about 5 miles of nice single-track winding trails in this ski area. Each section had cute names like Kato Climb, Frog Pond Loop, Outlook Traverse, Staircase, Killer Toad Loop. Trails.com rated it technically as 2-4 on a scale of 1-5, and aerobically as moderate. That seemed about right. At first it seemed like it was going to be technically easy and aerobically moderate, but it got more and more technical as it went on. I even had to avoid a couple of the really challenging spots (there were alternate routes). It went up and down several ski areas so was quite a workout. A few technical things I got to work on were riding on narrow paths on the side of a steep hill--that psyches me out a bit. Another was steep slow turns on switchbacks on steep hills. That also psyches me out, especially the part where if you fall, you might fall down the steep hill. I did a couple of them, and chickened out on a couple of them. Then there is going down steep grades over obstacles, without doing and endover. I managed some of those and on others I chickened out and walked over them. Going up the steep grades, I made most of them, but did walk a few times. It was a great ride with just the right amount of challenge but enough easy stuff to make it fun too. And it was pretty. Here I am at the start of the ride, going up the ski hill, fortunately with swithbacks:

The fall colors were beautiful:

Nice views from the top:

More pretty fall colors:

more nice views.

I managed to finish just about when the sun set.