Brown County Breakdown

The Brown County Breakdown is a mountain bike festival which includes 2 nights of camping in Brown County State Park (BCSP), live blue grass, food, beer, and plenty of trail riding.  This festival is promoted by the Hoosier Mountain Bike Association (HMBA), and helps fund trail building around the state.  Because of the hard work of volunteers we now have many excellent trails to choose from.  BCSP trails are probably the cream of the crop in Indiana.

I decided to ride to the event carrying everything I needed for the weekend.  I loaded up my trusty Redline Monocog.  No frills or thrills, no suspension, 8 speed steel bike.  I added arrow bars for the occasional needed stretch, plus they're great for strapping gear to.   Revelate tangle frame and seat bag, Salsa anything cages with my jet boil and sleeping pad strapped to them.  The set-up worked great.

In Indiana it only takes a few miles to get out of the "city" and into the country for some beautiful riding.

The weather was absolutely beautiful for the ride down there.  Low 70s with a slight breeze. Here a guy stepped out of his house and asked where I was coming from, and where I was going.  Then he offered me some food and water if I needed it.  This was a first for me.  I politely declined, I wanted to get to the park as early as possible.

Harvest time:

You cross some large machinery riding around the country this time of year.

Some views from the road less traveled:

I love coming to an intersection that doesn't have any road name indications, adds to the adventure.

Finally made it to the park.  A lot of climbing on a loaded over weight bike with fat knobbies and narrow gear range is new territory for me.  Also I made a wrong turn that probably added 10 miles and a couple monstrous climbs on a busy road.  No big deal, once I got into the park the views made it all worth it.

Showed up at camp, had a beer with a couple friends, and set up my tent.  Ready to relax for the night, get up in the morning, and hit a couple trails.

In the morning I rode a couple miles to "town" for water and decided to have a second breakfast.

After breakfast I headed back to the park and hit the trails.  BCSP has terrific trails in a beautiful section of Indiana.  Trails include fast descends, nice climbs, plenty of magnificent views, and rocky technical goodies.

After a couple miles on the trails I stopped at one of the provided food trucks for a veggie sandwich.  When the sandwich was finished I headed back on the trails for more riding. 

After the second round of trail riding and some pizza for dinner I was exhausted.  This night I was in my tent around 10pm.  The weather channel called for rain in the morning so I decided to get up early to see if I could beat it.

Back home Sunday afternoon.  I didn't beat the rain, in fact it showered on me the entire ride home.  I enjoy riding in the rain so it really didn't both me, in fact it was quite peaceful.  Around 135 miles for the weekend, an absolute blast. 

Playing with GoPro on my commute home from work.

This is a short video of my commute home from work.  I haven't played with the GoPro much so this video is extremely raw. 

Please excuse my handlebar bag, next time I'll try for better camera placement. 

The trip is 11 miles one way so I get about 88 miles of bicycle commuting per week. 

Run with the Foxes

The Plan:

Bicycle 40 miles, camp, run 13.1 trail miles, ride 40 miles back home....

The half marathon is called Run with the Foxes, which is put on by the Hoosier Hikers Council in Morgan Monroe Forest, (MMF).  I haven't been running a lot this year, but I felt alright running the Indianapolis Mini Marathon, plus I've been commuting a lot on my old Fuji bicycle, so I'm good right?  

I didn't want to waste the beautiful ride to MMF in a lousy car, so I decided to go ahead and ride my bicycle to the starting line.... The run was on a Saturday, so I figured Friday I'd ride my bike 40 miles to a MMF campsite, wake-up Saturday morning to complete the run, and finally ride back home.  Sounds easy enough, eh? 

Is there another bike back there? Yep, I was able to get some good company during the ride. 

 

The ride was going real well, even though the sky was turning ominous.  The local weatherman said "not to cancel plans this day, if we did get a storm it'd just be a pop-up".  Well we were lucky enough to have a storm pop-up on us.  I don't mind riding in the rain, in fact I kind of enjoy it, but when strong winds, lightening, thunder, and hail are thrown in the mix, I'm looking for shelter.  Luckily we were about 4 miles away from a shelter I knew about in Brooklyn, but of course during that 4 miles we rode through the strongest part of the storm. 

Thankfully the storm was just a pop-up, once it passed the day cleared up and turned out quite nice.  The next stop was dinner in Martinsville.  We figured we'd load up on food and a couple mugs of Dos Equis before we ride the last 6 or so miles to to the campsite in MMF.  

After dinner we made another stop for a few essentials: Sierra Nevada and Crown Royal... 

We took a rest after a big climb entering MMF.  The beer added a little weight. You can tell by the blurred picture that I was still trying to catch my breath while snapping it.  The hill was a real nice climb.

Finally made it to the forest headquarters to pay for the campsite.  Once at camp we set up our tents and hung around the picnic table till about 1am. I had to get up in a couple hours to run 13.1 miles so I decided to turn for the night.  The next morning I definitely wasn't feeling 100%.  Too many beers and too late of a night.  I still wanted to do the run, so after some coffee and oatmeal I headed by bike to the start line.  

Here's a pic at the start/finish line. Somewhere in there is a slightly hung over and tired runner wondering what he's doing.  I did finish the run in over 2 hours.  Not too bad considering the lack of running I've done this year, plus the unnecessary drinking the night before didn't help. How do I celebrate finishing a trail half marathon? I ride my bicycle 40 miles back home. 

Cleaning up at Southwestway Park.

Whoever was fishing at the river, my 5 year old son, 1 year old daughter, and I picked up all of the trash you forgot.  

Stay Classy

BWCA flashback: Perent Lake

Figured I'd write this one to light a spark in some people that shared this adventure with me.

Besides the great company, night sky, mosquitoes, and black flies one of the fondest memories I have is the shear silence.  It actually felt as though my ears were clogged because I didn't hear the constant hum of the city.

 

 Our luxury cottage for the week.  Comes with a bay window and all of the warm lake water you can drink.  Seriously though, the cook did a great job keeping our bellies full, food was excellent. 

 And the cottage came with it's own Pandora's box of music. Most notably the Loons.  This is as close as I could get to them, they are awesome swimmers.  

Beyond those trees are more trees, and beyond that.....yep more trees.  Up north in the middle of nowhere. 

 

 

Of course we had some awesome sunsets:

 Exploring our Island:

 

 

 

While hiking on the island our foot steps sounded hollow on the ground??

To the dismay of my fellow campers I practice catch and release. 

Our Island. 

It was better in person, trust me.  

Few more photos of Perent Lake:

 

 

 

The morning we paddled out:

Its almost like the lake didn't want us to leave. 

What I sight to wake up to though.  That last day was as amazing as the first.  

 

Back on wheels.  A Couple Indiana Jeeps hanging out in the north woods.