Photo album: CROCT group ride on doubletrack at the River Bend Nature Center

With the gorgeous and ample snow in Rice County, we moved our CROCT group ride to the River Bend Nature Center in Faribault yesterday instead of a return visit to the MN River Bottoms as planned back in January.

It turned out to be a good decision. The grooming of the two-way doubletrack trails by members of the Faribault Flyers club was perfect, making it easy to share the trails with XC skiers, one of whom joined us for much of our group ride.

I was tail guide (sweep) this time instead of lead guide. I felt useful as I helped one rider with a chain that had come off and jammed in the front derailleur. And I did a hike-a-bike up a few steep climbs with another rider whose recent medical condition made the ride more difficult at times than they expected. I was actually glad for those hike-a-bikes as I was more out of shape than I thought.

Another rider broke a chain, just like on the last group ride. Fortunately, they had a chain link tool and knew what to do. This made me realize that A) I need to carry a chain tool with me at all times; B) I need to regularly rehearse how to use it so that I can do it quickly when it’s cold out. It would not have been fun yesterday, as it was 10 degrees F and windy.

See the album of 21 photos.