{"id":2565,"date":"2010-05-24T00:07:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T04:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/?p=2565"},"modified":"2010-05-24T00:07:17","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T04:07:17","slug":"lumberjack-route-at-big-m-and-north-country-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2010\/05\/24\/lumberjack-route-at-big-m-and-north-country-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Lumberjack Route at Big M and North Country Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This weekend Danielle and I headed up north to the Manistee<\/a> area to meet a bunch of Trail’s Edge<\/a> folks at Big M<\/a> to ride this year’s route for the Lumberjack 100 Mountain Bike Race<\/a>. After doing one lap of this 33 mile course I’m quite certain that there’s no way I’d be able to complete the three required for the race. It’s a hard trail, almost all tight, winding single track with unexpected sand at the bottom of hills.<\/p>\n

At one point I was coming down a hill, only to see Nick and Erik standing at the bottom of the hill. It turns out that Bill (pictured on the right<\/a>) had slid a bit in some sand and hit a tree hard with the side of his head, leaving him sitting dazed on the ground. As I tried to assess where I should go and slow down I too slid in the sand, but instead spun my front wheel around and stopped against the tree, hugging it and holding on to stay upright. Just as I came to a stop I watched my front wheel roll up towards Bill, only to stop an inch from his helmet and face.<\/p>\n

Thankfully I didn’t hit him, as that would have made an already bad situation even worse. Even more thankfully, after sitting for a while Bill was able to get up and ride out, feeling only a bit shaken and showing no obvious signs of what I knew to look for indicating serious brain injury.<\/p>\n

After the ride we headed over a nice, but older campground a few miles from the Big M ski area where we’d reserved a number of campsites, and a cabin for the less hearty of the bunch. Tents were set up, a fire was made, food was cooked, and beer was drank while sitting around. We ended up eating a spectrum of food, from locally made beef jerky and kielbasa<\/a> to spanish tortilla<\/a>, a mini-keg of Oberon<\/a> to Trader Joe’s<\/a> house-brand Pilsener<\/a>, from Annie’s Cheesey Lasagna<\/a> made with high quality turkey in a dutch oven to sandwich cookies and M&M’s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The following morning, after eating breakfast at a local diner and breaking down camp, some of us headed over to the Marilla trailhead<\/a> of the North Country Trail<\/a> to do some riding there. Erik, Kristi, and I took off together, but with the terrain there being almost all bench cut trail leading up and down the sort of hills that I normally don’t ride, I soon turned back. If I was in better shape, or maybe if it was a bit cooler or less sunny, or maybe if hadn’t ridden one of the hardest long rides of my life the day prior I would have ridden more, but I’m glad that I headed back when I did. Once back at the trail head I couldn’t stop sweating, and only felt better 20 minutes into the drive home in a car with the air conditioning on high.<\/p>\n

Here’s some of the photos I took this weekend:<\/p>\n

· Joe, Jon, Marty, Nick, Kristi, and Bill as we are about to leave the Big M parking lot to ride the Lumberjack race route.<\/a>
\n· Bathroom break. There were an equal number of people using trees along the right side of the trail, but the lens wasn’t wide enough.<\/a>
\n· Consulting on the route while standing in some CCC pines.<\/a>
\n· Sandy downhill where Bill crashed and I almost ran into Bill due to my inability to stop safely in the sand. I ended up stopping against \/ gently hitting the tree on the left. <\/a>
\n· Kristi, collapsed on the ground, after riding up a hill that everyone else walked. Erik then helped her get unclipped.<\/a>
\n· Typical Big M Ski Area signage.<\/a>
\n· Bratwurst boiling in a cast iron skillet before being grilled.<\/a>
\n· Bratwurst on the grill as a paper plate burns and Tak and Nick sit in comfy chairs.<\/a>
\n· Kristi and Bill along the North Country Trail right near a bench overlooking a wonderful hill.<\/a>
\n· Sign pointing back to the Marilla Trail Head from the North Country Trail. Much of the riding was sandy like this.<\/a>
\n· Riding back to the Marilla trail head on the NCT alone, as I turned back before Erik and Kristi.<\/a>
\n· This bridge was not far from the trail head, at the bottom of a ravine.<\/a>
\n· Some inconsiderate person tucked a dirty diaper under the bridge on the North Country Trail.<\/a>
\n· Looking over the handlebars down from the spur of the North Country Trail leading back to the Marilla trailhead.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m hoping to get up there to ride the NCT once more, this time a bit better prepared both mentally and physically. With all the bench cutting the trail is a little more intimidating than I’d expected, and with all the climbing it’s a bit more grueling than I’d hoped for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend Danielle and I headed up north to the Manistee area to meet a bunch of Trail’s Edge folks at Big M to ride…<\/p>\n

Continue readingLumberjack Route at Big M and North Country Trail<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14,29,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-food","category-outdoors","category-travel","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2565"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2567,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions\/2567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}