Summer Summary

Cycling

Nov 4

Uff dah, anyone else feeling a bit overwhelmed lately!? We’ve sure had a doozy of a year, but meeting y’all at events and reading your notes in our inbox has energized us to keep moving forward one step at a time. We spent most every weekend in May, June & July supporting & volunteering at events throughout the Midwest, including The Bear 100, Rumble on the Ridge LPS, Le Grand du Nord, Kidpacking Swift Overnight, Hotdish 100, Ridin’ Dirty Gravel (hometown Viroqua!), Eugene Curnow (canceled day of due to heavy wildfire smoke), The Crusher, Voyageur 50, Wausau 24, and The DaMN! I think I’m forgetting a couple.

Colorado Trail Race

After chatting with friends and cheering folks on for the midnight start of the DaMN in Gary, SD we immediately road-tripped southbound to Colorado so I could line up for the northbound edition of the Colorado Trail Race. Not much for acclimation this year, so I struggled on the brutal wildfire-choked, at times 800+ ft/mile climb straight outta Durango! I finished the race barely besting my time last year, 9 days 2 hours, but it was an entirely different experience. While I was experiencing hypoxic hallucinations high in the mountains Bree worked her fox tail right off from a dispersed campsite to keep the business stable and Sylvan mostly out of curiosity catching cactuses. More on CTR in a future episode.

Overcoming Production Challenges

Being tight on time from my pokey pace, we boogied on back to Wisco to try our dangest to get through another round of Maple Energy Production, which has been packed full of stressful challenges. We sincerely apologize to those that have been experiencing a shortage of your favorite Good Energy, it’s been the cause of a lot of anxiety for us, and we feel like we’ve let you down. We’re a small farm & small business, and everything feels personal to us because it is. We truly do care about you, appreciate you, and value you and your support. First we weren’t able to get the film to make the pouches, then the pouches weren’t sealing correctly, and finally the pouch filling machine kept squirting the delicious Maple Energy on the outside of the pouches instead of the inside. Yeah, close, maybe good enough for some but after surviving a pouch disaster when trying to launch Embark in 2021 (who remembers the PROTOS!) we won’t risk product we can’t stand behind (or on top of!). We’re going through final QA/QC (quality checks) on the entire process, and should be getting through full production again VERY SOON! Small business is not boring. Thank you for sticking with us! Like, not literally.

Vapor Trail 125

Between production planning fiascos we head back out to Salida, CO so I could race Vapor Trail 125. This race is a beast 125 miles 17k vert, and I thought I’d be ready for it following a CTR finish, but many variables just didn’t line up. Ultimately, I don’t feel my body had recovered from CTR, and I was in a bit of a funk. I became ill after the first aid station, and didn’t eat for the most difficult 40 miles of the race, skidding into Aid2 with seconds to spare! Tight on time I pedaled on low on calories, becoming dizzy and lightheaded on the relatively mellow climb to Monarch Pass. After my first race scratch ever, we dispersed camped near Salida for the next week, trying to work through productions logistics and business management.

Bikepacking Roots Summit

The following weekend we attend the Bikepacking Routes Rocky Mountain Summit in beautiful Buffalo Creek, Colorado. This was an incredible event, full of good folks with plenty of Good Energy to go around. There were all sorts of group rides, a super fun Campfire Storytelling session, a camp-cookout led by Yeehaw-Giddyup, gear repair demos, bikepacking workshops, and a lively expo. Each morning we setup an Embark Maple Oat Bar with all the fancy fixin’s! Bree & I also hosted a DIY Trail Snacks demo, where folks made some of our trail recipes (Embark Energy Balls, Elderberry Lemonade & Maple Energy Pepitas). My highlight was celebrating Sylvan’s 4th birthday with a proper 40 mile Kidpacking Overnight group ride on the Colorado Trail (with singing & cake!). He was ecstatic to be experiencing the same trail he’s heard me talk about so much. Bikepacking Roots is a fabulous organization dedicated to bikepacking advocacy through expanding access and inclusion. If you can, please consider supporting them, and watch their calendar for more rad events!

Fayetteville Ultra Circuit

Post Rocky Mountain Summit we hit up Central Station in Denver where Bree & Sylvan boarded the California Zephyr for a train ride home, while I continued the adventure towards the Ozarks! I haven’t spent time in NWA in almost 20 years, and was very excited to be back for the Bikes or Death Ride Your Damn Bike Fest and the Fayetteville Ultra Circuit. Fayetteville is a beautiful small city, very reminiscent of Madison, with excellent riding and a spectacular community. I couldn’t decide which race I wanted to sign up for; I lusted for the grand adventure of the 400, particularly in the Buffalo Headwaters, but the community overnighter sounded SO CHILL!! I ultimately gave my go at the “Punchy Middle Child” 200 mile race. The route was stacked with punchy trail from the beginning, elevated by torrential downpours creating their own single-track channels, pedaling upstream or downstream. Riding amongst small currents ONLY on the trail was a surreal sensation. I’m hyper aware to flash flooding, and this was nothing like that, however one lightening storm turned the soggy Type B fun into adrenaline fueled Type C “get out of here” non-fun. Around mile 112 the 200 route connected with the community overnighter at Devil’s Den State Park, where I laid out by bivy under a picnic table for somewhat sheltered rest. I was awoken TWICE by a skunk snarfling at my face before I moved my bivy away from it’s apparent feeding ground, happy to risk more rain from the lightening filled night sky instead of being sprayed at point blank from the backside of a skunk. My secret plan was to join the community overnight ride back to Fayetteville in the morning, which I did, and it was a marvelous decision!

Photos of the event professionally captured by Mixed Soil Media, check them out!!