Almanzo Gravel

So Friday night I wandered down to Spring Valley, MN to meet tohe NE crew of Cornbread, TK, Schmidty, Rafal-do, Malcolm, and Aaron. I was going to be their support as the group collectively laid waste to Southern MN gravel. I had contacted Almanzo director C. Skogen to inquire if I could provide a neutral feed station on the Royal 162 course. He acquiesced, and gave me a sweet spot right at the 100 mile point right next to the Root River.
With this knowledge, I saw the Nebraskans off, and headed off to meet the boys at the 38 mile mark in Preston.

The usual suspects fixing to roll the Royal course.

The Royal riders looked a lot better than the 100 crew when they hit Preston. It had not started to rain yet. I got Cornbread fed, lubed and watered, then waited for Rafal, Aaron, Malcolm, and schmitty.

Malcolm doing what Malcolm does best. After he rolled out I waited for Schimtty to roll through. He rolled up to me and expressed his contempt toward SRAM, as his shifters crapped out. So we loaded up his bike, stopped at Chic's to pick up a half dozen pizzas, and roll south toward the village of Granger.

Once We hit our neutral feed spot, I set out the gnosh, started heating up the hot, spiced wine, and started prepping things. We first saw the group lead group that contained Cornbread. Corey stopped killed a coke and 3 slices, and eventually the others came over and had a slice. They said that Troy was not too far behind.
TK rolled in a few minutes later and was in pretty bad shape. He was shaking pretty bad and could not use his hands.

Troy decided that he was done for the day so we put him in the truck, cranked up the heat, and pumped him full of hot Aveda tea.

30 minutes later.

We saw all kinds of people roll through. Our favorite was the guy wearing Keens with wool socks, with platform pedals and a single wool sweater. He truly seemed to savor his slice of pizza and coke.

Rafal rolled in a little later, and was the only person all day to take the hot spiced wine (you can see it dribbling out of the sides of his 'stache).
He would go on to win the SS race.
I see a high correlation between hot spiced wine consumption and victory, just saying.

We also picked another straggler after we met Malcolm and resupplied him with pizza, coke, and 3 beers. He would finish at 10pm, in the dark, with no lights. Normally I would insert a quotation about how if you are gonna be dumb, you better be tough, but the kid has a graduate degree in Physics.


Rafal. Victorious.


The aftermath of hauling filthy bike people around.
I feel pretty sure that despite the conditions everybody had a great time.
Big shout out to Herr Skogen for being the ring master for this circus.