New Fargo Complete

I got this finished late last night. Still have some finishing touches and I need to make a crankset spec change for the final build, but it's ready to roll! This bike is going to take me places this year. I can't wait.

Have a great Friday and a great weekend.

Ride your bike! Take some pictures!

Fargo - 1 Year Ago Today

1 year ago today, I left on a 3 day Fargo adventure in California with 3 friends (also riding Fargos). It was simply awesome and something I will never forget. When I returned home to Minnesota, I left my Fargo at a bike shop in the LA area. I left it there for quite some time to use as a demo. When it returned, I was in Mukluk mode and let it sit. Time went on and I decided to leave it alone so that I would ride other bikes. I figured I needed a change and thought I'd diversify a bit. In the end, my Fargo ended up at Park Tool as a long term loaner.In fact it is still there.

This weekend I finally started building a new Fargo. I started from scratch and am building this bike up pretty darn cool. While most of the parts are old and off old bikes and other builds, I gotta say it is coming together nicely. Sometime in 2012 I hope to ride this bike across Japan. It's not ready for the reveal yet, but I do plan to ride it on Sunday at Ben Witt's Fall Gravel Tour. This may be my nicest build yet. I can't wait to ride it and share my build.

Night Gravel

Yesterday was just too awesome I don't even know where to start. It started out great and ended great. I got up early and came home late. Just like the picture above, my brain is a bit hazy and out of focus right now. All I can think about is riding my bike again.

Not just any bike either, I rode my Vaya Ti last night for the first time in 5 months. I'm embarassed to say that out loud but it's true. My last ride on that bike was the North Central Cyclery Gravel Metric back in May. Ouch. It just stopped working along with some other stuff going on in my head and I just never got around to putting it back together. It rode beautifully last night and it felt so, so good. I'm already planning my next big ride.

OK....I'm a bit tired and I've got stuff to do this morning so I'm going to share just one last picture. It's my favorite of the evening.

Old friend, trusty steed and new roads

As noted last week, riding was good to me. I had 3 killer rides in a row. All different. All on the same bike, my El Mariachi. Day one was single track. Day two was bikepacking set up super commute. Day three was coffee and sunrise with my friend Ben. I topped it off over the weekend with a family ride on the Minnetonka Regional Trail, again on my El Mariachi. 

As if that recipe wasn't good enough, last Friday Ben showed me a new route out of Northfield, MN. I had passed by one of the roads before while driving but never ridden it due to the fact that it's only accessible by pavement. Not that pavement is bad or anything like that, but I had no known reason to stray from the almost all gravel route I know and love. Well, now I do. This is a killer route filled with beautiful scenery and lots of hills. I can't wait to go back.

Hope you all had a great weekend. I did. I just enjoyed my time with my family because starting later this week, my life gets crazy. That will make sense shortly, but soon I will have mountains in some of my pictures. Looking forward to having grand back drops and something other than corn and gravel roads in my pics. 

I better get going to work. Busy day today, but this is going to be one heck of a good week.

My favorite gravel route

The other day I mentioned "my favorite gravel route" to someone and they asked me if I could share it? Well...my routes often are not grounded in maps nor do I even know 99% of the road names. I don't have a GPS, they are just roads I explore and find. They are also rated by bakery stops, and food.  Today, I'm going to take you on a little visual exploration of one of my favorite routes. The pics are not from one ride, but a series of rides and experiences.

It all starts with getting out of town and weather permitting, I always ride this road in U More park in Rosemount. I love it because it is a restricted road and I don't need to share it with automobiles.

I then like to head east, south east toward Redwing and Cannon Falls. Depending on wind and how I feel, I might end up out at the Welch Village area and then work my way back to Cannon Falls.

I like to go really early in the morning so that I can get breakfast in Cannon Falls. Here is my favorite breakfast, Sausage & Egg sandwich with coffee at The Old Market DELI.

I then like to hit the Sogn Valley. The Rawland ride of a few years ago turned me onto this amazing area South of Cannon Falls. It is filled with beautiful roads and STEEP hills.

It is also filled with barns. Here is one of my favorites. I've shot this barn a few times. I have yet to make it out there for sunrise or sunset. One of these days I'll get this barn shot in the golden hours of light.

I then meander south, south east to hit Nerstrand. I've shared this before, but this is the stop at the meat market. There is also a nice convenience store. 

I then head straight east through Nerstrand Big Woods State Park. If you miss going to the convenience store, there is a nice park headquarters that has clean bathrooms and great drinking water. I think the road is County 29. Depending on how I feel, I head into Faribault to see my friend Ben at Milltown and hit the bakery & cafe next door to his shop for an egg bake and some sort of calorie rich treat.  

Once I've hit Faribault, I head back towards Northfield with a ride up Farmer's trail and then it's almost a straight shot north to Northfield where I either stop at Goodbye Blue Monday coffee shop or at the Super America for a chocolate milk.

I then head back east a bit and zig zag north on gravel all the way back to Rosemount, again through U More on my other favorite road in the county. 

In the end, I finish up with somewhere between 100-115 depending on if I make it all the way to Faribault, MN and depending on what new road I see and explore. Regardless, I always finish up tired and happy.

So...In short it goes like this. Apple Valley to Rosemount to Trego to Cannon Falls to Nerstrand to Faribault to Northfield to Farmington to Rosemount to Apple Valley. There you go. My current favorite route.

Do what you love

By now it is pretty darn obvious that I'm going through some things inside my head. I don't want to drag it out, but I do need to get it out. It's part of the process, at least for me. For some time now I've been just a bit off. I haven't had that really strong drive. Don't get me wrong, I've still accomplished a lot and I'm really proud of some of my accomplishments, I just didn't have that drive to push just a bit beyond and get to the really good stuff.

Whenever I get like this, I like to recess into my own world. I've used the words "go into my cave" before. I like to go into my basement, hide behind my computer and read, learn and process images. It is my way of filing away things inside my head and it is my way to learn and be inspired.  

Recently, I read a post over on Chase Jarvis' Blog. It's titled "Stop trying to get everyone to like your stuff." I don't read Chase all that much. He's wildly talented and I do like his stuff, it's just sometimes he's a bit too glam for me. In short and in his words, "...by trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. Especially yourself." While these words could be spun in many ways, where I am at is not about trying to please everyone. Sometimes at work it is that way, but it certainly does not apply to all my stuff. I mean seriously, I've been out riding solo for hours on end so it's pretty obvious that I was doing things that were pleasing to me and putting off things to please others.  But...As I get beyond those words and that valuable lesson, what really hit me was his simply 3 step advice. 

1) Shoot what you love

2) Pimp that work

3) Repeat

Ok....Now for me I just need to replace Shoot with Do. I love to ride bikes, take pictures and share them. That is what I love. That is what I need to do. In looking back over the last few years, when I do those things the rest falls into place. It's when I get too serious about any one of those things and start to try to please others that things fall apart. So, that is what I'm going to do.

I'm also going to take this opportunity to not only do what I love but to pimp my work just a bit. First, I am sharing a picture of my friend Ben because I was supposed to go riding with him this morning but I had to cancel to get my work done so that I can do more of what I love. I am almost there.  Ben, thanks for understanding. 

Second, in the next month, my images will be featured in several upcoming publications. I've got images in cycling publications in Australia, Japan and USA. I also was contacted yesterday by another. Pretty darn cool. In fact, that image above was one of the images requested by the Australian magazine. I don't think it was the one chosen, but it could be. 

Third, repeat. I haven't been shooting much but tomorrow I'm going to pull out the good camera and get back to work while riding with friends. Oh yeah, now it's coming back to me.

Do what you love.

Photo Geekdom

This week has once again stunk for riding. However, at least I've gotten to geek out on my other passion, photography. This past week has been quite exciting. I've been courted to do a freelance project for publication, I've been contacted about purchasing an image, I picked up 20 large prints for my "May Artist's Hallway" project, and the image below was used in an ad in the April 2011 issue of Adventure Cyclist.  

Heading to the clouds in Big Sky Country

Oh....And this image was recently in a full page ad in a UK magazine. The name of the mag escapes me currently.  

Matt & Mike riding the dirt ribbon at Sea Otter 2010

Thankfully I've had this stuff going on otherwise I'd be a bit depressed about my riding.  

Photo Friday - Ride for light

You might think I'd be tired about writing, riding and sharing pictures about sunrise or sunset. I'm not. I don't think I will ever tire of the feeling I get when I pedal into a beautiful sunset or sunrise. A good sunrise or sunset can make any landscape stunning. It can make any day better. It can help ease any pain. Some folks say they ride bikes so they can eat whatever they want. That's true of me too. But, I am starting to think that I ride for light.

Have a great Friday folks. Hope you've had a good week. Mine has been the best in recent memory. I'm feeling good and I got to ride my bike quite a bit this week. I'm so looking forward to the weekend with my family.

Ride your bike! Take some pictures!

It's about time - part two

First off, thanks to each of you that commented or sent me notes after yesterday's post. I feel so fortunate and thankful for all the kind words and encouragement. Words cannot describe the gratitude I have for my friends, family and support structure. It is amazing. Thank you.

Curtis & Ben night cruising Farmers Trail road

Also, at last minute, I decided to get down to Northfield again for the Not So Fat Fat Tuesday ride with Milltown Cycles and friends. I got home late last night so I did not have a chance to write or process all the images. I must say though that a few of them could be cover shots or advertising shots for some certain company.  Look for words and at least a story or two to come from it. It was just what I needed. Until then, here is one more shot from my rejected file.

Curtis, Ben & Ben searching for the sun (I so wish this shot was in focus)

Truthfully I am just amazed that I got two great rides in this week already and one with some great guys. Based on the last few months for me, that is a gift.  It's about time I get back on my riding routine.

Good Fortune

Yesterday I was at lunch and having a work meeting at the same time. Lunch was the only time that could be squeezed out of the day to make things happen. This happens frequently lately as I've got lunch meetings on both Thursday and Friday planned too. The cool thing about yesterday was that it was a meeting about something pretty darn cool that will one day come to fruition in a grand and spectacular visual form. That in itself is good fortune. However, after finishing my kunk pao shrimp, I broke open the fortune cookie and received this fortune.

You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems.

Usually when I receive one of these fortune cookies I read them and move on. This one I took with me. While I'm not certain never is perfectly accurate, I am certain that I am wired in a way to tackle difficult problems. It is part of who I am and I've walked my whole life this way. 

As I read this fortune I was replaying in my head the things that are going on around me and in my life. There are big things happening in all aspects of my life. I also have big dreams. I feel really fortunate that I don't feel paralized by what is happening. I may not be moving fast and I may be hesitating a little bit as I ponder, scheme and try to make my dreams come true, but I am moving forward. Bit by bit. Step by step. Often times that is the only way to tackle the most difficult problems.

I needed this reminder. It was a true gift. Good furtune.