On Friday Margeaux and I convoyed up to Virginia, MN to participate in the Mesabi Trail Tour. We made our first stop at Gordy's Hi Hat in Cloquet, MN, Gordy's is by far one of my favorite places for french fries and strawberry milk shakes. After eating lunch we headed to Carlton, MN and the Jay Cooke State Park for some hiking. While at the park we picked up a GPS and did some geocacheing, that was a new adventure for the both of us. We found the test cache fairly quickly but the second one took us a while. After locating the cache we did some hiking along the St. Louis river. What a fantastic way to spend the afternoon.
After leaving the park we traveled back to hiway 33 and on up to Olcott Park in Virginia. Once we arrived at the park we picked up our ride packets and dropped off the bikes. This is the only thing I did not like about this ride, I hate not having my bike with me. You need to drop your bike off the night beforehand and they transport it to Marble, MN where the ride begins. After taking care of business we headed to our friend Julie's cabin in Biwabik, MN. We chilled at the beach and went for a boat ride then drove to Julie's mom's house where we would stay for the night.
Saturday morning we were all up early and off to Olcott Park to catch a shuttle to Marble to begin our ride. The ride started at 0900 and Margeaux and I crossed the start line about 0915. After about 10 minutes into the ride we hit our first hill, lots of people having issues. Things flattened out after that until the first rest stop. We made a quick stop, grabbed some snacks and on our way again. The next stop was Hibbing, MN where we spent a little more time, lots of snacks and music. The halfway point was Buhl where we took a nice long break. Kayaks were available so we each took one out and paddled around for about 45 minutes, very nice, relaxing and quiet. This stop also had ice cream, mmmmmmm. We skipped the third stop and cruised on into Virginia around 1430. We relaxed, ate lunch, listened to music and picked up our t-shirts. Afterwards we packed up our bikes headed back to the house for a quick shower then back over to the cabin to spend the evening.
Margeaux says this was her favorite ride so far this year, I rank it in my top 3. It certainly has a lot of beautiful scenery, lots of hills and curves to the trail. I did not encounter any riff raff on this ride but did see one man peeing in the woods, I could have done without that, YUCK! The open pit lakes were spectacular, the bluest water you can imagine. I plan to do this ride again next year and would love to take a road trip up there this fall to see the leaves change.
So anyone up for some riding this fall let me know, I'm in.
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