It’s been a minute, so I guess it’s time for me to finally recap our weekend in Kentucky for the  Bourbon Country Burn.  For those that may have forgotten, or who joined us during this past summer season, last year two members of our team got married in October; Megan and Jeff Boos.   At around the same time, I learned from Derek Nelson (member of Team Good Beer and a good friend) about this ride in Kentucky that combines cycling with bourbon tasting, which I thought sounded awesome.  Several of us on Team Bad Decisions discussed it and chipped in together to give Megan and Jeff  their registration into the Bourbon Country Burn as a wedding gift.   From the moment they said, “I do,” we knew this trip was on.

So who went?  Well, obviously Megan and Jeff were there, but also Craig Miller and myself.  We also met up with Derek and Cori Nelson while down there who road with Team Good Beer.  Mark Scrivner and Dan Cunningham from the Velo Garage Thirsty Thursday Ride were also there (psst..  Mark had a pretty nasty fall on day 2.  Ask him about it.   Crazy ass hill that we all descended and he blew a tire).

Megan, Jeff, Craig and I got up SUPER early on a Thursday morning, and car pooled out the Lawrence KS to pick up the RV we rented for this trip.  The way this ride worked was, there was a base camp setup at the Kentucky Horse Park Campground in Lexington Kentucky.  Each day, you’d set out from there, and then return back to the main base campsite every night.  An RV was perfect because they had dedicated RV spaces that we could plug into for electric and water.  I’m now a convert.  RV camping is awesome.  Not that I’ll never primitive tent camp again, but man is RV camping easier.   Anyway, we picked up our RV in Lawrence.  That took a little longer than we’d expected, but it’s probably good that everyone got the tour of the RV and learned all of its functions.   The one we got was pretty damn similar to the RV took to RAGBRAI.

We hit the road!  Then drove that road… then drove it some more, then drove some more.  If you’re unaware, it’s a pretty long trip to Lexington, plus there’s a timezone change.  So despite the fact that we left our houses at 5:30 am, we didn’t get to Lexington until around 9:30 pm eastern time.   Also, when we got there we guessed, that we may have hit a skunk somewhere along the way cause…  Wooo…!   Luckily the smell only lingered for a couple hours.  We parked, setup camp, had a beer or 2, and then finally went to bed to get ready for the next day.

Friday!

We awoke in our awesome RV.   We got ready and discussed what we wanted to do.  The organizers of this ride offered riders options every day.   There always was a Short, Medium, and Long route, and on a couple days, they added a couple more routes in.   On Friday and Saturday, there was a casual route that was only 22 miles long.   Saturday, there was also an optional Century route.  We’ll get to Saturday in due time though.   Each route had slight differences in what distilleries you’d ride by.   On Friday, the Long route offered 2 distilleries, whereas the medium and short route didn’t offer any.   However!  The casual route offered 2 in downtown Lexington.   Since it was our first day, we didn’t feel like putting in 70+ mile and 4500+ feet of climb, and we were giving high value to seeing distilleries, we decided to start with the Casual route.   This route was an out and back route on a dedicated bike path from the Horse Park into downtown Lexington.  About 11 miles each way.   The trail was in fantastic shape.   At first as we were riding though, we were thinking we might be the only people that decided to take the casual route that day, because we didn’t see ANYBODY.   Turns out though, we were just late starters.   As we road on, we eventually started catching up to other Bourbon Burn riders who had made a similar choice.   There we started the usual chat and banter that accompanies such events.   This is where we first learned about a plan that we would put into action on Saturday!   Eventually we stopped at our first Distillery.  It was about 10:00am Kentucky time if your keeping score.  Bluegrass Distillery.   This is a local distillery that you’re not going to be able to find in many places outside of the Lexington area.   They had 3 or 4 whiskey’s for us to try right away (free).  The ones I remember are an apple cider based whiskey,  their small batch barrel strength bourbon, and their Rye whiskey.  As you progressed down their sampler, the proof of their liquor went up.  Very nice <wink wink>.   It was here that I bought my first bottle.   If you bought a bottle of their small batch reserved bourbon, you got to fill and label the bottle yourself straight from the oak barrel.  So of coarse I did that!   The organizers of the ride were also smart in that they organized a Sherpa service.  Any bottles you bought at the sponsored distilleries, could be left there, collected, and would be delivered to the base camp for you.  No need to ride with several bottles of whiskey on your bike!

From Bluegrass we hopped back onto our bikes and headed deeper into downtown and quickly got to a company that was both brewery and distillery:  Lexington Brew Co and Town Branch Distillery.   When we got there, we’d just missed our opportunity to join a group for the full tour, which would have included the brewery and the distillery, but were told that if we waited a few we could join for the distillery half.   Otherwise we’d have to wait over an hour to take the full tour.  So we sat back and had a beer as we waited.   Then we joined the group for the distillery tour.  Interesting that this place uses the same wart that they use for their beer to distill down for their whiskey as well.  they had pipes running from the brewery to the distillery to transport the wart.  Town Branch had a pretty nice setup and we learned several things about the distilling… and the tasting process.    That warm burn you get down your throat and chest when you drink whiskey?   They call that the “Kentucky Hug!”   We like that.   Our tasting guide also taught us about the “Kentucky Chew,” which is a way to taste/drink Ryes and other hot, high ABV whiskeys without having an overpowering/uncomfortable Kentucky Hug.  Ask me and I’ll show you some time.  It’s pretty cool.  Town Branch had several whiskeys to try, along with a Rum, a Gin, and something of their own creation called the Sundown.   It’s Bourbon mixed with coffee, brown sugar, and a few other things.  When mixed with hot water and heavy cream, it makes a delicious desert drink.   I may have gotten a bottle 🙂   actually, I bought three different bottles from that place.

After that, as we road our way back across Lexington, we came upon a restaurant called the Country Club smoke house.  It was lunch time, so we figured we’d stop for a bite.   They had smoked chicken wings that offered an option of sauced or dry rubbed.   I figured I’d take it easy on myself, go the less spicy route and take the dry rubbed.    I was wrong!  I don’t know their exact dry rub recipe, but it sure as hell wasn’t the lesser option.   Those suckers had some heat.  Full on sinus opening, sweating, coughing heat.  They were good though.  I was just unprepared.

We got back to base camp eventually and got cleaned up and ready for the evening.   At base camp that night, they had a full catered pasta meal.  Not the greatest pasta, but pretty good for catering to about 1000 people.  After that, the bourbon tastings and music began.   They had several good bluegrass bands play which were fun just to have going in the back ground as we made our way to several bourbon companies tasting tents.   We each got a punch card for each evening that entitled us to four, 1/2 oz. tastings and 1 beer.   At first I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to taste everything, and that it wouldn’t be enough.   I was wrong.   1.  None of the tasting tents were only pouring 1/2 oz pours.   They were all full 1 oz. shots.  So you got a good portion.  2, thanks to us being to nice and friendly, talking to other riders, making friends along the way, several people kept giving us their unused punch cards.   By the end of the evening, we’d all been able to try every liquor that was there to be tasted, had had a couple beers, and had extra beers that we were able to take back to the RV and put in our fridge.   We had a good time :).

Saturday!

So, I mentioned that someone gave us a great idea about how to go about Saturdays routes.   There were 3 options that offered the possibility of stopping by distilleries.   The Medium and Long routes had 1 potential distillery stop; Woodford Rerserve.   The Century had 2 with an optional un-sponsored 3rd; Woodford, Four Roses, and Wild Turkey was along the way, but there would be no SAG or Sherpa service there.  The Medium Long, and Century all passed through the town of Versailles Kentucky on the way to the Distilleries and then came back through on the way back.  What was recommended was to load up your car, drive to Versailles, ride the Century route from there to all the distilleries, and then call it a day when you got back to Versailles.  This sounded like a fantastic way to approach the day.   We had to do it with an RV and not a car, but we made it work.   We disconnected from the shore, loaded up and drove out to Versailles first thing in the morning.  There we parked in a Kroger parking lot and hit the road.  The back country roads the route took us on where absolutely gorgeous.  Amazing horse farms at first, and then we started getting into the Kentucky River Valley area where the rollers began to get a little steeper and more frequent, but the scenery was amazing.  It was a cool morning, and our legs were fresh.  It was a fantastic start to the day.   We were also well ahead of the rest of the riders, but as you can expect, that didn’t last long.   We were stopped on the side of the road to take pics of an amazing barn, when the first pace line of riders out doing the full century road past.  I’m sure they were asking themselves, “how did these jokers get out here before us?”  Then there was a woosh as they road past and were gone.  We got back on our bikes and road on.   At about mile 9-10 we reached Woodford Reserve.  We stopped at the SAG Stop to replenish our water bottles and have some snacks, then we went up into the WR visitors center.  There we signed up for one of their tastings, visit the gift shop, and generally looked around for a bit.  It’s a really nice/classy place.  Well done.  At the tasting, we got to try their Straight Bourbon, their double oaked bourbon (bourbon that goes through a second aging in a heavier charred oak barrel), and their Rye.   We got to teach several of other riders and guest about how to do the Kentucky chew.  Megan was later stopped by some of the other ladies in the tasting and thanked.  After the tasting, I purchased the a bottle of Woodford Reserve Rye with “Team Bad Decisions 2019!” etched into the glass bottle.   Super cool.  Looking forward to sharing it with you all.

One of the things that amazed me while we were there, was the number of cyclist that didn’t stop!  Or, only stopped for a quick SAG break and road right through.   These are the century riders of coarse.   Here we’ve got a route, specifically designed to take you to these awesome venues, and they ride right though.  I’ve mentioned to several of you that I’ve learned to love the motto, “smiles over miles” when it comes to cycling.  I must not forget that there are still those that feel “smiles come from miles.”   Different philosophies I guess, but I definitely like mine better.  Less misery in-between.

So we took off again from W.R. and got back at it.   This is were the hills began to really show up.  My new Garmin (thanks Derek) has a hill profile feature that will show you the  hill, how many feet of ascent are left, and how many miles of road are left as you go about your climb.  It also color codes the hill by gradiant so that you can see how difficult the climb is going to be.  You know you’re in for it when that pops up, you see 450 ft of climb over the next 1.25 miles and most of the profile is either Red or Darker Red.  Wow…   Some of the harder climbs I’ve ever done, I did on this day.  There were several of them.   After a few descents into and climbs back out of the Kentucky River valley, we gather up as a group and took stock of what was ahead.  If we attempted to stick to the Century Loop, there was going to be about 2000 ft of climbing that we’d have to do to get to Four Roses and Wild Turkey over about a 15 mile out and back strech.  Did we think we’d survive that, or should we cut those distilleries out and stick to an altered route that was part of the century, but lacked those 15 miles?   It probably was doable, but I’m pretty glad we didn’t.  I think we’d have been miserable.

There was one problem with the altered route we took though.  We failed to see that we were also cutting out a few SAG stops with our altered route.  We ended up having to stop in a nice lady’s yard at the top of one of the many climbs  and ask if we could refill our water bottles, as we were bone dry.  Luckily…. she’d just purchased a new water faucet for her kitchen and was happy to show it off!   We all thought it was a very nice faucet and thanked her kindly.   She also gave us a few hints on other places coming up we could stop if needed.   Eventually we made our way back to Versailles.   There we found a restaurant, Ricardo’s Grill and Pub, that was offering a special to riders on the Bourbon Burn.  We had some fried pickles, fried banana peppers, some amazing burgers, and a few cold beers to finish off our ride.   We then trekked back to our RV, loaded up, and drove back to base camp.

That night at base camp, they had brought in several food truck vendors for our evening meal.  For those that got their food early, it was fantastic.  Those that waited until later in the evening ran into problems with the food trucks running out of food.  We were in the middle.  What we really wanted was gone, or had incredibly long lines for, but we were able to get some papa John’s pizza.  Not the best, but hey..  we didn’t care.  We needed carbs.    Once again there were several great bourbons available for us to taste that night and more bluegrass music to listen too.   One of Jeff’s old friends who now lives in the Cincinnati area was able to drive down to Lexington and join us for the evening at base camp.  Once again people were handing us their unused punch cards, because we look like friendly people who like bourbon, and the pours were still full 1 oz. pours,  so there was more than enough bourbon and beer to go around.   After the tasting we all hung out, outside the RV on our lawn chairs, talking, listening to baseball, and having a fine end to our evening.

Sunday!

Sunday morning we got up, a little soar from the day before, and hit the road for the Medium route, which was a 48 mile route that took us to 1 distillery:  Hartfield & Co in Paris Kentucky.   This morning’s route took us through some beautiful rolling farmland along horse farms.  We even came upon one where the horses had all come to the fence line to see what was going on, so of coarse we stopped for pictures.  Paris was about 20 miles into the route and was our second SAG stop of the day.   While at Hartfield and Co, we got to taste several of their liquors.  They had rums, tequilas, bourbons, and interestingly an Oktoberfest whiskey that started from a Wart that a local brewery used for their Oktoberfest beer.  They just distilled it down to a whiskey that was pretty interesting.  I picked up a bottle of their bourbon though cause… well that’s what I was there for.

After that stop, we started heading south into a bit of a head wind.  It added a decent amount of difficulty and I pulled away from the rest of the group, which was good because they weren’t around to see me pull into the final SAG stop.   It was in the parking lot of a little country store/restaurant at the corner of two county highways called the Windy Corner Market.   They’d just put down a new layer of gravel on the parking lot, and I wasn’t paying attention as I pulled in and turned a bit too hard.  My front wheel dug into the gravel, slid out, and down I went.   Came out relatively unscathed though.  I was pretty dusty, and sprained my wrist a little bit, but I’ll take it cause it could have gone a lot worse.   It was then that I discovered that the crash detection feature on my Garmin does indeed work!  It was trying to text Megan and Jeff to let them know I’d fallen.   Now the blue tooth connection with my iphone had somehow gotten disconnected, so it couldn’t send the text, but it was cool to know that it was trying and that it did accurately detect the crash.    So I hung out and waited a good while for Megan, Jeff, and Craig to show up, which was good cause I needed to get cleaned up some.  When the group finally caught up, we went into the Market and all had some fantastic Po-boy sandwiches, which was their specialty.

For the rest of the ride, I made a good push to finish out as strong as i could, which with the wind, and my slightly sprained wrist was harder than expected.  Still, I feel I finished strong.  We got back, had a couple celebratory beers, and then got cleaned up.

That evening, we decided to Uber to downtown Lexington and see what they had to offer.   Our first choice for a restaurant was pretty booked, so we had to wonder around some, but found another place that was more of a latin american place and advertised, “The best Margaritas in Lexington.”   Well..  Let’s find out.  Yep!  Pretty good.  Honestly it was nice to get a bit of a break from all the bourbon.  The margaritas and other various beach style drinks were a nice change of pace.  Craig had one made with beat juice, which I think he’s insane for getting, but oh well.  We had some terrific tacos, tamales, guac, chirizo enhanced queso dip, and some empanadas.  The food was amazing and we were all in good spirits.  On the Uber back to the camp site, we had a bit of an adventure trying to get our driver to stop so that we could pick up a bag of ice for our coolers and for cocktails back at the campsite, but a phone call to one of Craig’s friends who speaks fluent Spanish was able to ensure that we got what we needed.

That night, we prepped our campsite and RV for an early departure, then we toasted to our weekend with some tasty old fashioneds, chit chatted for a bit, and then hit the hay for an EARLY (5:00 am) departure the next day to drive back to KC.

Now some of you from the RAGBRAI trip may be thinking, those jerks got through the trip without any problem with their RV!  Don’t speak too soon.   for the most part, it was uneventful.   We popped the breaker to the AC at one point and had to figure out why the AC wasn’t working, and we discovered a couple points of per-existing damage to the RV while we were on the road, but for the most part, yeah… It went really well.    UNTIL……

We made it all the way back to the KC area and decided that instead of taking the RV out to Lawrence, unloading it, reloading our vehicles that we left there, and driving back to KC to unload again, that we would just unload and clean in KC before returning the RV.  As we pulled up to Jeff and Megan’s house in Waldo, we clipped a tree along the side of the road.   The damage was minor.  The awning caught the trunk of the tree and tore a little.   We were able to push and lean the RV away from the tree so that we could drive the RV away without any more damage, but about an 8″ tear remained in the awning fabric.  Ugh…   So we’re waiting to hear what that’s going to cost us.  We just can’t win when we rent RVs, but that’s part of the game I guess.  I’m pretty sure the security deposit will cover this one too.  Man…

Anyway!  It was a fantastic trip.   That ride is super well organized.  Which is really amazing considering that this is only it’s third year.   Everything about it; the registration, the camp setup, food, tastings, route, SAG Stops, Swag, Sherpa service, and information; was well run.  You can tell that the organizers have participated in quite a few rides and knew what they wanted when the started.  They say that they don’t intent to grow the Kentucky Bourbon Country Burn any more.   They’ve reached the size they want and don’t want it any bigger.  Which is cool.  It’s a fun vibe and I could see that if it got much bigger, there would be a whole new mess of problems to address and it couldn’t be run quite as tight as it is now.   For now, it’s a premium event for people who love cycling, love Bourbon, and don’t mind it’s premium nature.   They did, however, say that they were considering creating a different ride to do something similar, but this time in Tennessee.  Get your Tennessee Whiskey face on!  Their level of organization does inspire me and make me think that we could pull something similarly well organized.  Maybe not something quite so big, but I think it’d be cool if TBD setup it’s own regularly scheduled biking event.  Some may have heard me mention another ride that we learned about that’s got a fun twist: The Tour de Donut in Troy Ohio.   We may try to organize something similar.  Stay Tuned!

Cheers!

This past weekend was the annual Tour de BBQ ride to raise money for Children’s Mercy and KU Med’s work to treat pediatric cancer, and Team Bad Decisions had a good turn out.  We also picked up some additional friends for the ride!  Nancy F., Drew, Megan B., Jeff B., Craig, Tara, Robert, Keith T, Chris B., Regina W., Joseph B., and I all took to the 35 mile route.  Though I didn’t stick around at the end long enough to see her finish, Karin Jones also was out on the 62 mile route.  It was a nice day to be out on the bike.

The 35 mile route took off from the Prariefire shopping center in Overland Park somewhere around 8:30 in the morning.  They let groups out in waves to keep our disruption to traffic minimal.  As would be expected, we were not in the first wave 🙂   We took off at a nice leisurely pace in the second wave and made our way through OP to Burnt Ends BBQ near Metcalf and 119th.  There they had a pretty good Breakfast Burrito with Pulled Pork mixed into it for us to munch on.  From there we took off on the next leg, and the group spread out pretty well up until we got to the next stop.

Chris B, Keith T., and I kicked out with a pretty decent pace and pushed ahead, pretty much catching up with the first wave of riders by the time we got to BB’s Lawn side BBQ in KCMO down off of 85th St.  We were all welcomed by a pretty lively group of volunteers serving Jambalaya mixed with BBQ Sausage.  We also quickly found that their bar was open and that they had a special going on with PBR buckets (That’s Pabts Blue Ribon for the uneducated).   So we grabbed one and waited for the rest to show up on their shaded deck.  Tara, Robert, Nancy, Drew, Joseph, and Regina were the next group to show up.  They had gone off route and ended up taking the Trolley trail down to BB’s.  They too picked up a couple buckets of PBR.   Megan, Jeff, and Craig brought up the rear gaurd and joined us, though they missed the update about PBR buckets and bought themselves some fancy, highfalutin beers.  By the time we finished up all our beers, we were pretty much at the back of the second wave of riders again.  We didn’t care.  We were there for the fun of it, and we had a short cut, or at least we thought we did.

The majority of the crew left BB’s, and immediately went off route to try to cut over to the Indian Creek Trail.  That, we knew, would take us down to Blue River Rd, get us within a couple miles of the next stop (Jack Stack’s BBQ in Martin City), and all without having to climb all the nasty hills that the main route took up Wornall.  We thought we were being clever.   Somehow, Chris Bobal didn’t get the memo that we were going off route and we got separated.  He ended up sticking to the main route.  So the rest of us started making are way east on 85th and then wanted to head south on Blue River Rd, but we found ourselves blocked by a train.  If this becomes a regular thing on our rides, I may have to start rethinking my bike routes.   Anyway, the train came to a stop, blocking the crossing, so we decided to send Robert out on his big fancy mountain bike  to see if he could see how far away the end of the train was and if we could get around it.   He came back pretty quickly stating that the end of the train was just a ways down and we could easily get around it.  Those of us with road bikes picked up our bikes and started walking down the second rail line to go around.  We then got to the point that Robert thought was the end of the train, only to learn that it wasn’t the end, they had just hooked up a couple engines in the middle of the train.  We had no idea how long the full train was, but this was a bad sign.  Then we heard a train whistle and discovered that another train was coming down the track we’d been walking on.   Ugh..   So we all huffed it back to the crossing.   There was a little moment of tension from Megan as she feared for her new husbands life, as he was further down the rail than she was, but in the end, the second train was moving pretty slowly and we all made it back safely.   So then we had to take a detour to find a way around the train.   We did, but it also added about 4 miles on to our route.  Urg… not what I was hoping for, but Indian Creek trail is a really nice trail, so it was a good ride.  Chris B. ended up getting to Jack Stack’s about a 1/2 hour before us.   He waited a bit, but eventually road on with out us and finished out his ride.

Oh!  Right as we got on to Indian Creek Trail, Nancy failed to have enough speed as we had to  make a 1 ft. traversal across grass from a parking lot to the trail.  She, and her brand new bike, took a spill.   Nancy got away with just a scraped up knee, but more importantly, her bike was mostly OK.  Mostly because her front disc breaks must have shifted and were now squeaking as she road.  Nothing looked too serious though.  At Jack Stack’s we got her cleaned up a little, and tried a little bike surgery to get rid of the squeak, with mild success.  It was still squeaking some, but the wheel was spinning and she could finish the day out.

The nice thing about Jack Stacks is, It’s RIGHT NEXT to Martin City Brew Co.  We we had to make a stop there, right?  So we did!   We held to a single round, but it was a good time.  After recharging our batteries with beer, we took off for the short 3 to 4 mile jaunt back over to Prairiefire.  There we were greeted with some more free BBQ, some free Goose Island IPA, or Michelob Ultras, and a cool place in the shade to stand around and joke around for a while.  All in all a fantastic day.

Upcoming Rides

Pedal N Pub – Saturday Sept. 14th

Why not get out Saturday evening if you haven’t got anything better to do and mix our favorite hobbies, biking and drinking?   Do be careful though.  I’m not advocating biking while intoxicated.  Know your limits.  Details in the link above.

Sunday Gravel Day – Sunday Sept 15th

If you can’t make Pedal in Pub, or if you can and have the fortitude to get up the next morning and go for a ride, why not join for a little gravel riding.  Route is still to be determined, but I hope to keep it short enough that we’ll be back in time for the Chief’s game.

Now Pics!

I took a bit of a nap last week, and ended up not writing up about our cycling adventures, so now I’ve got 2 weeks worth or rides to report on.   Let’s see what I can remember!

Past Rides!

Summer Breeze (Aug 25th)

While meeting up for a Royals vs. Cardinals baseball game, it was decided that Megan, Jeff, and I needed to really kick it in gear and get some good training rides in prior to our Bourbon Country Burn ride in late September.   So we agreed that it’d probably be a good idea to sign up to ride the Summer Breeze ride and get 30+ miles in.   So we did!

Megan, Jeff, Craig Miller, and I also met up with Chris Bobal, the husband of a member or my book club, on a cloudy drizzly Sunday morning.  Chris had been riding regularly for several years, but never anything much more than 20 miles.  This was going to be his longest ride ever and he was a bit worried.  He had no reason to be.  Chris was more than ready.  We’d been watching the weather all weekend, and it didn’t look great, but it looked like there was a chance we could get the ride in, so we hit the road!   The 36 mile route we signed up for was very similar to the 50+ mile route that we took the year before.  It looped around Long View Lake, took us south into Raymore, to our first stop.   Things were going well on this leg of the trip, right up until mile 12.   Then the drizzling started.   Luckily for me, mother nature called at about this same time, and Chris Bobal and I pulled over at a CVS so that I could use their restroom.   We tried to wave down Megan, Jeff, and Craig as they road past, but were unsuccessful.  They road on.  It seems that while I was using the facilities, the wave of rain really came through, and dumped a good amount of water on the ride.  I, for the most part, missed it.   Ahhh Shucks!  Chris and I got back on our bikes and began trying to catch up.   We finally caught up at the Raymore Recreational Park (our first stop) and found a drenched Megan, Jeff, and Craig waiting.  Chris and I were a little wet, mostly just our shoes and socks as water splashed up through our cleats.

While at the stop, we pulled up the weather map and took a look at what was coming.   There was a good wall of rain on its way in.  Estimating its arrival, and our current pace, it looked like if we went the full 36 mile route, we’d be smack dab in the middle of the rain, however, if we cut it short and took the 27 mile route (the routes diverted right at this stop) we might be able to make it back to the beginning before the heavy rain got to us.  We made the call and took the shorter route.  Smiles before miles!

The rest stop was a little after mile 16.   A little after mile 18, Chris and I pulled over at an intersection to wait for Megan, Jeff, and Craig.  We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and then 2 older, very out of shape individuals whom we passed almost immediately as we left the rest stop went by, and then we waited some more.  Finally we spotted the 3 coming up the road.  They claimed they stopped to help someone out who had a flat.  We’ll believe them…   this time.

So we took off again, and I told Chris that since we were going a shorter route, I really wanted to pick the pace up to the end so that I got some sort of workout it.  Christ agreed and said he’d do his best to keep up, but not to worry if he fell behind.   So we kicked it up!  For pretty much the final 8 miles I was going at the hardest pace I could go for that distance.  Chris, well he was able to keep up, and was right there with me the whole time.  Like I said, he could ride.  Once we got back to the start area, on a whim, I decided to start a stop watch to see how far ahead we had gotten from the rest of the group.   I guessed we’d have about 10 minutes on the, and I was right.  A little after 10 minutes later, Jeff, Megan, and Craig pulled in.   There, we sat under a dry tent as the rain started to come in.  We had some pizza and salad, and enjoyed a couple rounds of beer, as we are known to do after a ride.  A good ride.

Elapsed Time	Moving Time	Distance	Average Speed	Max Speed	Elevation Gain	Calories Burned
02:31:39 hours	01:58:18 hours	27.26 mi.	13.82 mph	31.76 mph	1,296.26 ft.	1,128 kcal

Bourbon Burn Training (Sept 2)

This time Megan, Jeff, Craig, and I met up on a gorgeous Labor Day morning.  We gathered at Opera House Coffee in the River Market, where we spent a good 30-45 minutes drinking coffee and, as Megan would describe it, chit chatting.  From there we headed east over to cliff drive.  I wanted to go for a PR up the connector trail climb, but was unaware of where the segment actually started.  At the base of the connector, I stopped to make sure the group knew where the turn was.  little did I know the clock was running.  Grah!  So I didn’t get that PR, but I did get several others on the day.  We road what used to be a pretty typical Velo Thirsty Thursday ride route before the sink hole opened up in the East Bottoms.   We road it anyway and found a way to navigate around the construction.   Up on cliff drive, it was shady, cool, and a nice ride.  We then turned up Gladstone, and spent a little time checking out the Kansas City Museum and the Amazing houses to the north of it.  After that, we bombed down Chestnut down into the East Bottoms, where Megan had the brilliant idea to go see if the Rieger Distillery was open.  IT WAS!  So we stopped in to check out there amazing space, and since we were training for the Bourbon Country Burn, we might as well have a whiskey drink while we were there, right?

After our drink, and subsequent slide down the AMAZING TWISTY SLIDE at the Rieger, we headed back up to the River Market and then North across the HOA bridge, through NKC, and then over and up the Line Creek Trail.   We rested a bit up at Barry Rd, then made the return trip back the same way.  Then we stopped at Strange Day’s Brewery in the River Market for a post ride drink….  Just in time for the Monday Strange Days Ride!   Megan, Jeff, and Craig called it quits after the 32 that we’d put in, but I stuck around.  Lynne, Jeff W., Nancy, Derek R., Tara, Robert, Neal and Emily from the Ragbrai team, along with several others who we commonly see out all showed up for a pre-ride drink, and then we went out on a little 14 mile route through KCK.  We went through a cool historic area with ties to the Underground Railroad, and then back through an unexpected gravel route along the railroad tracks, as our crossing was blocked by a train that wasn’t going anywhere fast.

I finished the day with a couple more beers at Strange Days, and 46 miles in the books.

Elapsed Time	Moving Time	Distance	Average Speed	Max Speed	Elevation Gain	Calories Burned
07:07:46 hours	03:47:20 hours	46.78 mi.	12.35 mph	31.09 mph	1,725.72 ft.	4,105 kcal

Upcoming Rides

Tour De BBQ – Saturday Sept 7th

Team Bad Decisions is riding the 35 mile route.  Come join this Saturday for a fun ride with some good BBQ.   Checkout the above link for details about the ride and registering.   The 35 mile route stages at 8:00 am and departs at 8:30.  If you’re not going to get to one of the pre ride packet pickups, be sure to get there a bit earlier to pick up your packet.

So, Ragbrai is now officially 3 weeks behind us.   It’s time to stop resting and recovering, and get back to what we all love doing, cycling regularly.  This is equally important for those of us that have rides coming up in the near future that may require a little conditioning to complete.  So that’s what we did this weekend.

Scott Timme, Megan Boos, Jeff Boos, and I got out for a great ride this past Sunday.  We were able to enjoy the weather, and to begin building up our endurance to prep for the Bourbon Country Burn at the end of September.   So we got out and did about 32 miles.  I drew up a route that took us from McClain’s, all the way down south the Martin City Brew Company (for a mid ride beer), then back north through Swope Park where we considered going to the ethnic enrichment festival for food, but instead decided to cut that out due to time, and just head back to Bier Station for some beers and a little food at the end.  I may have thrown some good hills in that route too.  It was a pretty fun route, despite having several of the roads closed due to construction, or just being in a flood plane.   Here’s the route we took.

Elapsed Time	Moving Time	Distance	Average Speed	Max Speed	Elevation Gain	Calories Burned
04:04:13 hours	02:29:30 hours	31.93 mi.	12.81 mph	33.11 mph	1,578.08 ft.	2,876 kcal

As an added note, I’d like to let you all know that Scott, Timber, Timme lived up to his nickname.   I had a wonderful laugh as I watched him try to take his bike off road at a very slow speed, where his front wheel dropped into some mud and stopped. That’s when Timber did an endo up and over his handlebars.  Luckily it was soft ground, and he didn’t get hurt.  I’d say nothing but his pride was hurt, but we all know he doesn’t have much of that at this point anyway.

Upcoming Rides

Summer Breeze – Aug 25th

Several of us have decided to register for the Summer Breeze ride this upcoming Sunday.   I added the event to our Rides page and can be found in the Link above.  Come and Join us!  Challenge yourself.   It’ll be a good/warm ride.

Tour de BBQ – Sept 7

Another ride that Team Bad Decisions commonly makes an appearance at.   We typically role the 35 mile route.  Info above.  Sign up and join us.

Good morning team!

I thought I would send out a couple tips and things that I have learned along my Ragbrai adventures for some of our new members. For those of you that have done Ragbrai before or are not joining us this year please add any tips that I might be missing!

One of the first things is the Expo will be overwhelming. You will never see more bikes, bike gear, and people riding bikes in one place. It is such a fun experience and chance for you to check out new gear, latest bikes from every known manufacturer, and you can even set up to test out a new bike during the ride for a day. Have fun and look at everything.

Sunday morning when we get up and are ready to start the ride you will definitely feel excited and ready. It’s important to remember that you have a full week of riding ahead of you, and not to rush. It can be easy to feel the need to go fast and not stop a lot. This is the time to relax and stop at everything that looks fun. Whether this is a slip and slide, bath tub races, cow patty throwing, etc. I actually made a bad decision last year and didn’t want to get wet at one of the best stops we had during the ride on Wednesday. There was a farm setup  with a zipline  into a pool and a Big Blob  that you could be launched off, Scott and Jared wanted me to get onto the blob and jump off the platform and launch me into the pond. It would have been awesome and I decided not to do it. I still regret that! Our goal for our team is to have fun, enjoy some beverages, and explore these little towns. Every time you see something that looks fun stop and wait for the team to join!

Here are some things on the ride I found specific to Ragbrai.  The mornings will be crowded and this is one of the more frequent time of the day that crashes happen. You need to be comfortable being surrounded on all sides with people on bicycles no more than a foot away from you. Some of these riders may not be as experienced, they could just be someone who picked up their bike and is riding to the next town because they wanted to join. This maybe slow and a great time to have conversations with people next to you. The next thing is that train tracks are a place where a lot of crashes happen, especially if it is raining. There are medical support vehicles that ride with us. Normally a couple of medics on motorcycles and an ambulance. You will hear and see these guys often, make sure to wave and say thank you.

Get comfortable with the word Rumble. These are rivets in the road that approach an intersection. Every time you come up along one it is customary to either yell the word rumble or to gesture with your hand that there is something in the road up ahead to people behind you. You will find that people love to shout this word although riding across one surprised is definitely not comfortable.

A big challenge on the ride is to actually try and stop to join your friend’s or for a place you want to check out. You will be surrounded by cyclists, once you decide you want to stop move yourself to the right and then say bike off. You can also say bike off right. Unless it’s unavoidable or there’s just a large enough gap I would not suggest trying to get off of the road on the left side. Similar to group rides that you may have done already and driving, the left side of the road is typically reserved for people that are a faster pace than you. You will often see people in a Peloton formation to help draft or to pass so that they can get ahead of the group. Needless to say this will be Michael yelling out on your left until he’s hoarse again. Once you decide to ride again after stopping wait for a pause in the road and yell bike on to indicate that you are joining.

If you are not familiar with a Peloton formation it is a great tool that can be used on a really windy day. A lot of teams will ride together in this formation not just to help draft each other but also so that they can make sure that they stay together. This is a move where you ride behind a cyclist and will draft off of their air movement. This can literally save you on a day when you are struggling. For example: the day after my century Brandon long and his friend drafted me into one of the towns that we stopped at. It was extremely windy and I was very tired. At one point because they were letting me draft off of them we were going 27 miles per hour and I never would have thought I could do that one day after a century ride. We noticed last year that some of the teams actually became annoyed or angry with us if we jumped on with them without asking. This is pretty abnormal for Ragbrai, but it’s something to consider.

I am sure this is repetitive for most of you, but I didn’t know any of this my first year and I thought this could help.

Kinda of steamy out there this weekend.

I know some of us got out in it.  Those of you training for Ragbrai, don’t forget that you do need to get some training during the heat.  You need to learn how to take care of yourself so that you can be out in that kind of heat all day long.  Bring extra water bottles.  Poor water over your head occasionally. Be sure to stop and cool off in the shade occasionally, and don’t forget to replenish those electrolytes.  If you don’t have anything yet, consider getting something.   I’ve used several different drink mixes, gels, other things, but  honestly I’ve found that electrolyte replenishing pills work the best for me.  If you’re looking for specific suggestions, I’m more than willing to share what I use, but everybody’s different.  Get out in the heat.  Try different things.  See how you feel and figure out what you need to consume to be able to keep moving forward.

Towards the end of a hot day, you’re probably going to want some sort of energy chew-able or something similar to give you a boost to make those last few miles.   On my second ragbrai, I pulled over with about 10 miles to go on our longest/hilliest day. I thought I was about done for.   Then I remembered that my buddy Brandon had given me a pack a energy chews the day before.  I had just haphazardly threw them into my bag thinking I’d never use them.  I tore into them like a ravenous beast.  Those things saved me that day.   After eating them and then chilling out for about 10 minutes, I was able to make a really strong push, and picked up my pace those final 10 miles.  Then when we got to camp, I still had plenty of energy for setting up camp and felt pretty good the rest of the evening.  Ever since then, I’ve always had at least one packet of those things on me when I ride.

Another note about Ragbrai.  Nuun has sponsored it the last few years, and they’ve typically had a tent out along the route each day. They’ve allowed you to fill your water bottles with their energy drink for free.  Take advantage if you like Nuun, but I recommend you not fill all of your water bottles up.  Always keep one as pure water so that you’ve got something to poor over your head should you need to cool down.  Otherwise you’ll be sticky, and that’s no fun.   Honestly, the key to dealing with heat, is proper consumption.  Keep drinking water, keep replenishing electrolytes, keep consuming calories.  That’s why you need to get out and train, so you can teach yourself to keep consuming in these conditions.  I know that it can be hard to want to eat in the heat or while working out.  You feel sick to your stomach, but you’ve got to.  Finding the things that you can tolerate to eat while working out is key, and there are tons of alternatives out there.

Upcoming Rides

4th of July Ride

Nothing official here, but it looks like we’re going to try to get a good group together to ride on the 4th.  We’d like to get 50+ miles in.  Stay tuned to the Slack Channel for more info.

NO BBBR this month.

The second weekend of the month is our typical BBBR weekend, but that’s going to be a busy weekend this month.   Scott and Bryn are getting married and it’s the weekend of the Lunar Kanza ride.   We’ll be doing that.

Lunar Kanza – Saturday July 13th.

An evening under the moon, riding through the flint hills of Kansas.  It’s pretty cool.   Let us know if you’re planning to join.  We intend to drive there Saturday during the day, do the ride.   Camp out over night, and then come back Sunday.  Registration details can be found in the link above.

This past Saturday was our monthly BBBR ride, and several were able to get out and join us at some point along the day (despite our late start).  Our morning group finally hit the road somewhere in between 10-10:30.  You know… coffee, food, messing with water bottle cages, these things take time.  Ultimately, Tara, Robert, Neal, Derek R., Timber, and I finally hit the road.  I wanted to make sure it was a good training route, so I aimed for a route that was decently hilly.  We went up to Cliff Drive, via the connector, then road up the Goose Neck, then we crossed the river on Chouteau, hit Parvin, and took that West until we got to Briarcliff.  Parvin’s got some decent rolling hills and turns into Briarcliff Parkway, which also has some great rolling hills.  We crossed the river again down by Argosy’s, rolled through KCK, saw a cool little Car Show that we causally rolled through, then up through the west bottoms and on to Strange Days brewing in the River market.  There Timber had to bail on us, but we pickeup up Lynne, Jeff W., and Addie; along with Delvin, a friend from the Velo Garage rides that just happened to also be at Strange Days.

After a couple refreshing beers, we hit the road and headed out for a south loop.   We road over to the Paseo, then down through Hyde Park and then into Brookside, where we hit up BKS artisan ales.  They’ve got some tasty brews.  Check them out.  Then we rolled south to KC Bier Co where we had a little food and some more bevs.  Saddly I had an evening event to get to (which was also at KC Bier Co) so I had to ride from their directy back downtown and ended my ride, but the rest of the crew continued on as they should.  After fixing a flat, it looks like the crew road on the Brewery Emperial for some more bevs before calling it a day.  Ride. Drink.   Ride some more, and Drink.   This is how you get ready for Ragbrai!

Here’s my route, which probably isn’t too different than the others routes on the south loop.

Elapsed Time	Moving Time	Distance	Average Speed	Max Speed	Elevation Gain	Calories Burned
07:24:26 hours	04:12:13 hours	44.98 mi.	10.70 mph	34.45 mph	2,358.60 ft.	1,965 kcal

Despite the warmth, it was a good day of riding.   See Pics Below

Upcoming Rides

Ride to Boulivardia – Saturday June 15th

Details can be found in the link above.  If you’ve not registered for this ride yet, NOW is the time to do it.  Look forward to seeing you out Saturday Morning.

KC Night Glow Ride – Saturday June 21st.

Details in the link.  No registration needed.  Just grab your bikes, your lights, and lets get out and ride.  Road this last year and it was a good time.  Join us!

Lunar Kanza – July 1th

A terrific event that you should go register for NOW!  Current plans are to go down, ride, and then camp that night down in Emporia and come back on Sunday.  Get your Gravel Ready Bike setup and come join us.

Now..  Pics!