The Beermuda Triangle

The plan for July is to ride, ride, ride! I have a 12 hour race coming up August 2-3 in Wausau, Wisconsin which I am really excited for! I'm hoping I can build my endurance up so that I can have consistent lap times like I had at the Lumberjack 100.

I had plans to ride for 6-8 hours on Sunday. My friend Bob told me about a group that was doing the Beermuda Triangle, which I had never done before. Intriguing: 125 miles and an average pace of 15-20mph. Yup. That'll do it. I figured I could get a good ride in with some roadies while riding my Salsa Fargo and I was pretty happy to have a fun group of people to ride with. 

It's going to be a good day when you're greeted by swaggering Bob!

The Beermuda Triangle... originally, the triangle starts at Founders Brewing Company and rolls out to Bells Brewery, then New Holland Brewing Company, and then back to Founders. Yesterday, the ride leaders decided to switch it up a bit and we rolled on over to the Waldorf Brewpub for our second stop instead of New Holland.

So I met Bob and Jeff at their house at 10:30 around the corner from my apartment. I was pretty chipper from a good breakfast of coffee and steamed kale and was pumped to have a whole day of riding with those two ahead of me. I've done long rides with both of them before and they're always a TON of fun! Another bonus was that Jeff has a speaker and is a pretty awesome ride DJ. :) 

Waiting for Bob to lather up with sunscreen, Jeff's rear tire suddenly made a PSHHHHHHHHH noise. Flat tire! Lucky for us we hadn't hit the road yet or met up with the rest of the group and Jeff was able to quickly change it right in his very own driveway.

Off to a great start!

We rolled up to Founders and met up with some of the Founders Race Team members, Brad and Dennis, and a new face, a guy in a Twin Six jersey named Ted. Twin Six? Instant friends! We stopped at a semi weigh station on our way out of town to see how much all of us weighed together, but the scale was off and we didn't get to know who had guessed the correct weight. I'm just going to pretend that I had guessed the closest at 1200 pounds for 6 cyclists, their bikes, and all of the gear I had packed on my Fargo. ;)

Another cyclist, Paul, met up with us on our way to out of town. Once we hit Plainwell, we were joined by two other riders, Robin and Matt. We had blue skies, everyone was smiling, the pace was good, and I was pretty much having the best day ever. (Which is basically how I feel every time I'm on my bike with friends!)

En route to Bells!

Someone admired my Fargo and asked if I had a road bike. I think it's funny that my response was, "this is my road bike!" The Surly Knard tires that I put on the Fargo are 700 x 41 and to me that's pretty dang skinny. I absolutely love those tires. I didn't feel like they were holding me back at all from riding with the road bikes for the Beermuda Triangle, and they're pretty great at being resilient and handling well in gravel, through construction zones, and the occasional ride-on-the-grass-and-road-shoulder-because-you-can moments.

Before I knew it, we were at Bell's! I love how riding with others can make 55-some miles fly by. We ordered food and our beer and sat on a picnic table in the beer garden. So good.

Bell's Brewery

Jeff was feeling a little rough before we had gotten to Bell's, but was recharged by the delicious beer and decided to stick out the rest of the day with us. I'm really glad he did! Leaving Kalamazoo, we found a new brewery that had just opened. We thought we'd add a fourth stop to our brewery bicycle tour, but we were there too early and they weren't open yet. Boo!

We'll have to ride back down another time to check out the Boatyard. :)

Bell's to Waldorf was about 35 miles and we kicked that out pretty quickly. Rolling into Hastings I saw a water fountain about a block away from the brewery and I had to stop to play in it. There were a few kids playing in the sprinklers and I bet they thought the cyclists running around in the water were cray cray! The water felt so, so good. And then the beer at the Waldorf was also so, so good.

Waldorf Brewpub

We all had more than one beer at the Waldorf and we had about 35 or so miles back to Founders. I had packed some fireworks in my pannier and was super excited to find a spot to light them off for everyone. A little outside of Hastings we found a field and I was so pumped that everyone was as excited as I was for the fireworks. A few weeks ago I had bought some alien parachutes from a fireworks tent on my way to the beach with my fat bike. The parachutes claimed "real aliens!" and the guy who sold them to me very elaborately described how awesome they were, "so they go up real high, and then POP the parachute opens up, and there's an alien on it, and there's a cloud of blue smoke that chases the alien around!" Unfortunately, all of the alien parachutes that I had light off wound up getting caught in trees or landing on the bike shop's roof, and I was determined to catch the last parachute.

REAL ALIENS

The parachute exploded and we all cheered! Then the parachute drifted over an electric fence and landed in a farmer's field. NOOO! Determined to see the alien, I was able to climb over a locked gate and ran through the field towards the red parachute. I was seriously so excited to see the alien!!

It was just a white army guy! What a rip off!

Pfft. The alien was no alien. It was just a regular old army guy who had been made white to look different from the regular old green army guy. Not fair!

The rest of the ride was pretty great, the sun was starting to set and it had been a really, really good day. We all rode pretty good together and had been cracking jokes and chatting all day. I'm so glad that Bob had invited me on the ride because it sure beat riding a century by myself. You have to love training days that involve other cool riders and fresh, cold beer.

heading back to GR

We got to Founders a little bit after 9pm and snagged a spot at a table on the outside patio. What a great Sunday! I can't wait to do the Beermuda Triangle again!

Good to be home at Founders!