Variety!

It's a good thing after-all. The local HyVee liquor store has always been really good about carrying all kinds of craft beers from just about every region. They recently picked up Stone Brewing from CA. I've only tried one so far and it was fantastic - need to go back and pick up a Ruination IPA yet. 

Fat Tire Finale!

This was a most unexpected finale. I really did think it would be raining at some point during this whole thing but we actually had solid weather for the duration. 

The destination today was Confluence Brewery which is near Gray's Lake just outside downtown Des Moines. We got a private (as a group) look and tasting session before the public grand opening. This place isn't joking around - large capacity and way bigger than any other brewer in the nearby area.

Multiple kettles.

Heading back to El Baitshop to wait for the bike raffle.

...I don't know what this is.

After the raffle (didn't win), we went looking for some offroad trails to ride. We had 2x CX bikes and one road bike?

Not many pictures of the trails (as I was working to keep my road-bike upright on wet dirt) but this one dead-ended in some construction.

Found some ultra-fine/dense sand that my bike easily stood up in.

Mullet Fall Classic!

Placeholder for Mullet Classic.

Wooden Shoe!

I've got a couple videos of the 2012 Dirty Wooden Shoe. It had a fun course which was much more complicated (and better for it) than last year at the same location. I placed 14th in Cat-4 which was the exact same result from my previous race (Capital City Cross). 

Having never tried a multiple race weekend before, I was unsure how the following day would go. I was already too tired (or so I thought) today. Some fun stuff happened - the Cat-1/2/3 elite race was flat-out dominated by a guy on a single-speed mountain bike.

Learn something new every day!

And all this time I've been referring to my whiffletree as a seat-post, wow I feel like an idiot. Luckily my new light came with these handy instructions to straighten me out on use of the magic strap.

That time of year

Big skies again!