Beautiful Bokeh

Cycling the Badlands

After quite a bit of research, I took two bikes with us to the Badlands: A cyclocross bike and my mountain bike. I knew that the main hiking trails in the park are off limits to bikes but that (1) the dirt roads are all fair game, and (2) riding is allowed in a good half of the park (the "South Unit") but I'd read it was more...well, brutal, than the other half: hence the mountain bike. What I didn't realize though, until the Ranger at the park explained it to me, was that not only are there no road or trail entrances into the south unit, but it's also impossible (almost) to enter that area without crossing private land or an indian reservation. It's still possible to get in, you just have to gain permission from an owner (and they have a list of them). Some warnings though, if you try to go riding in there....it used to be used by the Air Force for practice bombing runs and there are spent shells but also some unexploded shells still lying around. Also, NOBODY goes in there, so make sure somebody knows your flight path in case you get lost, and bring lots of water. And watch out for cliffs. The Rohloff hub performed spectacularly on it's first real I-will-die-if-you-break test. The only time I had an issue (I thought I had lost half my speeds) it turned out that when I replaced the rear wheel, I hadn't fully hand-tightened the screw on the Rohloff thingy that you're supposed to fully hand-tighten when you put the replace the rear wheel. Once I did that I was golden again.

Oh and I replaced the rear wheel a lot. Bring lots of tubes. The thorns out there are mean as hell.

One awesome feature of the whole area though is the ancient cars and stuff that the desert has reclaimed. Pre-dustbowl, the area attracted lots of settlers who were excited about the cheap land but disappointed to discover the land was, well, "bad." As a result you can run across some pretty cool stuff. The whole trip we had pretty bad luck with weather during the golden hours, but even though I was riding in the middle of the day in bad lighting at least it wasn't storming, so I took my little D40 with me in a little backpack (along with extra water). Some of my nicer shots ended up from the lil' guy. I guess sometimes luck trumps technology.

The cyclocrossing on the dirt roads turned out to be a bit tedious by comparison, although the scenery was still quite spectacular—especially on the (paved) loop road.

Badlands Brutalism

When I was studying architecture, one of my favorite styles was one that was really unpopular with all my fellow students: Brutalism. I liked the fact that those buildings had surfaces that looked like they would cut you if you touched them, but were simultaneously beautiful and inviting. I guess whatever part of my brain that draws me to that sort of thing is why I love the Badlands of South Dakota so much. It's hard to imagine more brutal terrain, but to my eyes it's also absolutely beautiful and other-worldly. Even the plant life that is badass enough to survive there has the same don't-mess-with-me look to it.

Thankless Speedwork: Domestic Pros in MPLS

Being a pro bike racer in Europe is one of the hardest jobs in the world. The doping scandals over the past several years have made it even tougher still. But at least in Europe the compensation is still good, the race locations are still sexy, the crowds are still big, and the admiration is still there.

But being a domestic pro in the US, even at the top level is almost as hard physically but they get little money, little love, and have to race on a lot of really boring roads. I don't know how they do it.

Recently the domestic pro peloton came to Minnesota's biggest race, the Nature Valley Grand Prix, and Brenda and I watched these guys turn themselves inside-out on the downtown Minneapolis streets. I hope most of the crowd understood just how impressive the show was.

Everybody seemed fascinated with the bad boys of Rock Racing though, especially David Clinger's facial tattoo.

New Favourite Photo

~brf

Perhaps the best CW photo in circulation.