Hibernator 100

I should have done a better job capturing pictures from Saturday's ride, but I was too busy just enjoying the day on the bike.

I rode the 100k version of the Hibernator 100, based out of Laona, WI.  Small gravel grinder ride put on by some locals.  It was friggin fantastic.

The route was all gravel/dirt, forest road type roads.  I chose to ride the scalpel - I hemmed and hawwed back and forth between the caadx with 35c Sammy Slicks and the Scalpel in normal MTB setup (2.25 Ardent Front and 2.1 Racing Ralph rear).  I'm glad I chose what I did as the gravel was not super packed for most of the course.  It would've been quite doable on the caadx but would have required a bit more concentration and line choice.  I wanted to just go and ride.

The scalpel is a great bike.  It's light, obviously I would've preferred at least a hardtail but with the lockout on for both shocks it was fine.  Plenty comfortable for the 61mi I ended up with an no issues keeping up for speeds I was wanting to go.

I think for my next ride like this though I'm going to put some wider tires on the caadx. I'm thinking something in the 40-42c range would be great, probably I'd set them up tubeless also.  I've gotta do some research on what tire size could fit in to my frame and then within that size what tires to choose.  I found myself missing the extra hand positions the woodchipper bars would give me and the efficiency of the cross bike versus the FS 29er would be helpful.

Next up my plan is to just get as much time on the bike as I can the next few weeks. Iceman is in about a month and I want to be able to hammer as hard as I can for the whole 30mi.  I don't know how well it'll go being in one of the later waves (my first Iceman) but I'm going to give it my best shot.  That'll be another one to wonder about bike choice but I'm 95% sure I'll end up on the scalpel again.