Category: Recreation

North Shore ATV Ride

Well, as you can tell from some of the photos in the last post I spent the last few days along the north shore of Lake Superior on vacation.  Two of the days several hours each day were spent riding on the awesome ATV trails in the Silver Bay area.  The trails in the area are maintained by the Silver Trail Riders club of Silver Bay, MN.  Needless to say we had a good time.  This was the first time that we had been on these trails so there is always a learning curve to finding your way around.  The first night we spent some time trying to located the trail to finally realize that just down the block from the hotel (AmercInn) we were staying at.  On Wednesday our first day of riding we headed out of town toward Finland, MN, on this day we rode about 52 miles.  The map is available thanks to Google and my GPS.  Thursday we set out to ride some different trails and ended up riding about 41 miles.  A bit shorter distance and a much a few hours less.  Once again thanks to Google the map is available.  Some parts of the trails were very rocky which slowed us down a bit and some where new trails for ATVs and were signed as such, but had not yet been updated on the maps, so that threw us off a bit.  Overall, it was a fun trip and a fun time was had be all.

GPX Track Files
ATV 2009-08-12
ATV 2009-08-13

North Shore Trip Photos Posted

Yesterday I returned from a trip up the north shore of Lake Superior.  This was a trip to just explore and do some ATV riding as we have not gotten out much this year.  We spent a few nights in Silver Bay and did some exploring around there.  The photos from the trip can be seen at http://www.perrinetech.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=10894

Road Biking

I have always owned mountain bikes and until my last bike, that was purchased over 10 years ago, there were usually from Target or some store like it.  Earlier this month I started riding quite a bit more and much more consistently than I had in the past and that got my thinking that it might be time for an upgrade to my bike.  Well, I really didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew that a mountain bike was not the best for the kind of riding that I was doing (mostly paved roads and trails) so  I look quiet a bit online and thought about it for a while.  Then someone I know started talking about road bikes, something that I had not even considered until that point.  I stop by a number of stores and looked.  I eventually ended up taking a Trek 1.5T for a test ride and turned around and bought it.  I could not believe how much of a difference there is between the mountain bike and the new road bike.  It is smooth and all of the power goes into moving the bike.  I am still adjusting to this bike and I am guessing that will take a while, but I am starting to get adjusted.  I really am enjoying it.  My advice is if you are looking for a bike have a good idea how you are going to use it and purchase a bike that will fill your needs.