Black Dog Run & Stillwater Odyssey

By G-Man

Your favorite Luxembourg brothers were slammin’ the biking this weekend!

Saturday: 25 mile mountain biking ride on the trails from Old Mendota to the Black Dog Power Plant (Black Dog Run). Luxo-D and I were joined by my sister-in-law Karin and Luxo-D's neighbor, Roy. Fine river silt coated the trails in a number of places — making it difficult to bike through. I fell several times as I was getting used to riding new SPD pedals on my Bridgestone MB-2 — right into the powdery silty fluff. Luxo-D led most of the ride, including a blazing power thrust through a 30 foot long puddle of green algae, demonstrating his multi-dimensional skills at both road and MTB. We concluded our ride with a Egg Sandwich and a cup of joe at TK’s coffee in Lilydale’s Diamond Jim.

Sunday: As you know, Luxo-D and G-Man are building up miles for an end-of-the summer century ride. We put up a 60 mile ride on Sunday morning. Leaving Luxo's house at 7:30 a.m., we headed toward downtown St. Paul, where we picked up the Gateway Trail (at the intersection of Mississippi Blvd. and Cayuga, just on the edge of downtown). This is an absolutely beautiful trail that goes northeast toward Stillwater. We jumped off the trail at Manning and then road into Stillwater where we enjoyed a cup of coffee and a roll and saw the prepping for the Nature Valley Grand Prix. The new Cannondale Caad 9 was a delight to see in motion and the Orbea allowed the G-Man, in his rookie road season, to stay with the seasoned vet, Luxo-D. As part of this ride, we climbed the hills of Stillwater and ended the ride with the meat grinder -- Ohio Street Hill.

We ended Sunday with the news that Luxembourger Frank Schleck, riding for SaxoBank, won the Tour of Suisse, just on the heels of his 2nd place showing at the Tour of Luxembourg.

There it is, a weekend of...Fantasia!