Exaggerated adventures by Ted

 My eyes eagerly opened at 5:00 a.m. on the dot. El Carlos had a conch shell he was going to blow into at 5:00 a.m., after he flipped the coin and the route direction was chosen. I heard the Conch and grabbed my phone to check my email. Clockwise direction!  That was bad news. My gamble had not paid off. My 50/50 shot was now 100% going the wrong direction. I quickly pulled out my gps and started loading the CW route. Calculating, calculating, calculating, and 13% dead stop. Just will absolutely not load. Ok panic is setting in. What can we do? Start over I guess?. So I reset my Garmin and delete and reinstall the apps on my phone. Big mistake. Now I’m really lost. I have next to no cell service and no WiFi.  Ok calmly pivot. It’s 5:45. I’ve got 2 hours and 15 minutes to the start. Starbucks has WiFi and is 17 minutes away. Do it, go! Now! Time is ticking away. Make a decision and go! So I did.  I pulled the sheets from my windows. Left my bike leaning against a tree...

 I had no interest in driving my Kia forte 9.5 hours north to the U.P. in February, ever in my life. That seemed like “the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze” just for a 30 mile race on a fat bike I do not own. So polar roll was off my radar.  Then Ms. Todd tells us that the secret event for the Hall of pain members is this October. The hall of pain for me this year would mean I’ll have to do Polar roll MS30, Crusher 225EX, and Marji 100. Marji 100 has been 2 years in the making and this was the year. Crusher 225 EX has high reward, low risk in my mind. I would have 40 hours to complete it, but if stuff goes sideways, I’ll be prepared enough to bikepack it for multiple days and get back. Reward being, if I can make the 40 hour cutoff, I’ll have 2/3 adventures complete for the triple crown. But the year starts with Polar roll, so if I’m going to take a stab at making the hall of pain this year and getting invited to the secret event; then I had to do the polar roll MS30.  You ...

 Friday morning was starting out with a smidge of stress. Yah see, I had this exam that needed done by midnight; but having only taken exams from my home computer, I was a little nervous about the WiFi stuff, signing in, etc. So, since I’m an early riser naturally, I had this plan that Starbucks opens at 5:00, therefore if I positioned my car heading toward the exit of the campground the night before, I could wake up, slip into the drivers seat, and disappear into the darkness to suck on a $9 coffee and crunch some numbers.  Everything was going as planned, flawlessly, until…. I got to the gate of the campground and it’s locked. Hmm. This is not a common practice in Ohio, our campgrounds never lock. So I am unable to leave until the place opens. Ok, Pivot. What now? There’s a possibility that I can use my hotspot from my cellular device to telepathically, through the airwaves, connect my laptop to the interweb. So I fired up the hotspot and got it all connected, did some playi...

The Huracan 300 is a flat, touring esc, alligator spotting , leisurely stroll through some fast flowing, hard packed, gravel roads; with the option of walking through some thicc puddles ……. I thought 🫢  I first found the Huracan route on bikepacking.com and thought it would be a nice little vacation from the Northern Ohio snow. They just so happen to have a “grand depart” the first Saturday of February, so that seemed like a nice easy ride to make some friends and get up close with some alligators.  Yah see… I’ve been workin on this adventure bike project for a bit now and it’s really starting to come along. This bike is really going to give me the freedom to see the world in a whole different way. But…. You gotta be comfortable rite?  I know they say “don’t carry to much weight”; “you don’t really need all that stuff” ect…. But… what do those people know? It’s like they have already done it or something 😂.  So I get a small front chain ring because then I can comf...