With the gorgeous and ample snow in Rice County, we moved our group ride to the River Bend Nature Center in Faribault yesterday instead of a return visit to the MN River Bottoms as planned back in January.
It turned out to be a good decision. The grooming of the two-way doubletrack trails by members of the Faribault Flyers club was perfect, making it easy to share the trails with XC skiers, one of whom joined us for much of our group ride.
I attended the BikeNorthfield
steering committee meeting at the Northfield Public Library last night, as the agenda (PDF) included a discussion with City staff leaders (City Administrator Nick Haggenmiller, City Engineer/Director of Public Works Dave Bennett, and Engineering/GIS Technician Jasper Kruggel) about two upcoming street improvement projects that concern bicyclists: 3rd St. & Hwy 3; and Woodley St from Division to Prairie.
There may not be an obvious connection between CROCT’s mission and the current activities of BikeNorthfield (a link to their Facebook page). But our Sechler Park MTB trail is popular in part because it’s directly connected to the City’s paved trail through Riverside Park and across the Peggy Prowe Pedestrian Bridge. Our discussions with the PRAB could lead to the establishment of mountain bike trails and skills parks in several other City parks, in which case, extensive street and local paved trail networks are increasingly important so that off-road cyclists of all ages can ride safely to and from the dirt trails and bike parks.
Photo album:
Five above zero and windy? No problem. River Bend Nature Center held their first Fat Bike Event on Saturday and it was a hit, even for those like me who spent most of the time in the cozy confines of the RBNC Interpretive Center.
It was a first for CROCT, too: our volunteers staffed a table, complete with our new CROCT banner and CROCT brochure (PDF):
Props to CROCT board members Galen Murray and Jeremy Bokman, as well as member Michael Lehmkuhl for getting the banner and brochure created in time. And special thanks to RBNC Education Coordinator Kaytlan Moeller (pictured above/left with CROCT board member Carl Arnold) for hosting us. She posted a thank-you note on the RBNC Facebook page, along with 18 photos.
CROCT member and blogger Christopher Tassava wowed the crowd with a presentation on his recent fat bike adventures:
And two local bike shops, FIT to be TRI’d and Milltown Cycles, were co-sponsors of the event, providing demo bikes, on-site maintenance, and group ride leadership. Travis Seeger, Tom Bisel, and their minions rocked!
Here’s my album of 30+ photos of the event: Continue reading The fatties (and CROCT) turn out for River Bend Nature Center’s Fat Bike Event
Last week, Marty Larson and I made a short presentation to BikeNorthfield‘s 2nd Annual Soup & Cycles community meeting. We reviewed our progress in 2014 and previewed our activities for 2015. Many CROCT members attended, as did CROCT board members Galen Murray, Curtis Ness, & Scott Koehler.
See my album of 80+ photos from the entire night here:
Our photo-infested slide presentation:
We held our December CROCT Board meeting at Milltown Cycles in Faribault last week. A stand-up meeting, mostly!
Left photo, L to R: Kris Brazil, Jerry Walsh, Brent Johnson, Dave Meehl, Phil Thorson, Joe VanBogard.
Center: Sarah Jansen, Galen Murray, Marty Larson, Curtis Ness, John Ebling, Dave Klemmer
Right: Joe Thorman, Rob Newman, Jeremy Bokman
Not pictured: Mike Rost
CROCT hosted its first ever group ride in Sechler Park yesterday during the area’s first real snowfall of the season. Nearly two dozen riders participated.
After a couple hours of riding, we convened for some refreshments at Fit To Be Tri’d in downtown Northfield, courtesy of proprietor Tom Bisel. He even provided the food (salami, cheese, crackers). I didn’t get a good photo of Tom so I’ve plugged in his face in the photo above. #noskillswithphotoshop
CROCT Board member Carl Arnold made this 1-minute video of some of the rides:
See the large slideshow of 80+ photos (many low res, captured from video) or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow: