airnimal joey

The Almanzo 100 is a gravel road century. It was a natural that Derek and I would do a century on gravel at some point. A bit of a stretch for us to do a race that is a gravel road century, but the Almanzo 100 is a well run race (thanks to Chris Skogen's efforts) that starts just south of Rochester Minnesota.

The ride started at the Spring Valley High School at 9am. I don't know how many riders showed up at the start, but 450 were signed up and I see that 267 finished. It was a mass start which made for a pretty cool roll out. At the beginning of the ride I was a bit full of myself, but by mile 50 that had more than worn away and by mile 70 Derek was dragging me along. I kept hearing in the back of my head "why didn't you get more miles in this spring?". I don't think we would have been much faster had I been more prepared, but the finish would never have been in doubt.

May was month #9 in the 12 x 100 Challenge (one century per month for a year). It was a busy month (as are all) and we scheduled the ride with a day to spare (whew!). So this past Saturday (May 30th) we set off early. For the first time in 9 rides we had beautiful weather (that's right, we were 0 for 8 as of Saturday morning). JOY!

Being that we have now completed the really challenging months I decided to add a theme to our May Century. I loaned Derek an Airnimal Joey D (drop bar Joey) and I rode my Airnimal Joey Explore 27 and we called it our Joey Century. The Airnimal Joey is a suitcase style folding bike with 24" wheels. I set up Derek's Joey D to match the fitting he has with his Surly Cross Check. I ride my Joey Explore every day as it's my daily commuter set up with fenders and  rack. I have fallen in love with this bike as it's a sporty rocket that can be nicely fit into a trunk with a simple 45 second "trunk" fold. I have suitcased it a couple of times to fly with it, but I don't travel enough to take huge advantage of that aspect of the bike.

The weather was absolutely beautiful  and the only hiccup in the 100 miles was me having a worn out rear tire and thus having to deal with those consequences (shame on me). Derek rocked out on the Joey in spite of the fact that he'd never ridden a folding bike. The transition was pretty seamless for him. I learned that my Joey is just as versatile as I knew. I've said many times that if I had to have one frame for the rest of my life I'd choose the Joey. I Love It!

We met up on the Greenway here in Minneapolis and we headed east through St. Paul and out to Stillwater. Then we followed the St. Croix river south to Afton before swinging west and making our way back to Minneapolis.

Bike Details:

Derek's Joey: 9 Speed Joey D with a bottle cage and a Carradice Nelson seat bag supported with a Utilitarian Transports UT Support Rack. 52 tooth chainring with an 11-32 cassette on the rear. Panaracer Pasela tires (24 x 1", 115 PSI)

Luke's Joey: 27 speed Joey Explore with Salsa Bar-Ends, bottle cage, rack and fenders. This Joey Exp;ore was built up with 520 wheels ("roadie" sized 24" wheels as opposed to the 507 wheels that are the stock Joey Explore size) with Intense Microknobby 24 x 1-3/8" tires.