Coming Home

As I hurriedly threw all(we'll be back on this point..) my things in my bag for this past weekend, I really became giddy with excitement. I was going home. With bikes. To ride my favourite roads, and my favourite trails. All is well with the world. Well, mostly. The point that I said we'd get back to, has to do with my packing abilities. For anyone that has ever taken a trip with me, watched me pack, or seen my Jeep when I pull up to races, they know how much crap I always have. I pack clothes for every possible weather condition, wheels and tyres for every possible combination, and enough spare (insert bike part here) to outfit a PROTour team. But, it wouldn't work out as usual this time. I left home without shorts. Yes, I realise how absurd that is. I, the eternal overpacker, forgot shorts. I had visions of pounding the gravel roads near my home, and laps at my trail in town; all go running out the door as I realised that my shorts forgot to come along.

Frustrated text messages ensued, and those were followed up with a frantic phone call to Mary to see if she could find a Dick's for me to stop at. Knowing that I live at least 40 minutes from one at home, and that its already 9 at night, and they close in thirty minutes. The nearest one turns out to be on the south side of Indy, and I make it there with two minutes to spare. I run in, find something half-ways suitable, and sprint to the register. Here I was, the first time ever paying full pop for a pair of PI baggy shorts. Now, I'm used to paying near the same money for shorts; granted at EP, frankly I was a little scared of these. I've never had bad shorts, but I don't know that I could ever sell these shorts to a customer, unless they signed a waiver that they would use once and toss them.

So, shorts in hand, I continued my travels further north to where my trails await. I got home a little after midnight, and immediately crashed. Waking up the next morning to a nice cool breeze, and the silence of being in the middle of the woods was about as refreshing as ice cold water on a 110 degree day. It had been so long since I'd actually slept, and not had a train, or a car alarm, or a dog, or just plain traffic wake me up. I've never adapted well to living in town, but this time its been rough.

So, I make a quick egg burrito, and its time to hit the trails. I live just five miles out of town, but the in between space is some of my most memorable. I know every tiny backroad, every possible detour, every combination to get anywhere between home and the town. I kitted up, loaded up all the water and goodies I needed, and I was off.

Arriving at the trail, I was greeted by a small grizzled man, riding an ancient yellow Stumpy. He was kitted out in a button down flannel shirt, and some equally ancient PI shorts. Breathing hard, he asked to tag along for a lap, and I kindly obliged. He would be the first person that I’d ever ridden the trail with besides my brother and Mary. We started down the trail with the random chit-chat that accompanies a proper trail ride, but soon evolved into me rolling down the trail at a clip that made him work. We did a lap together, and it felt great to share the trail with someone who was just learning it. He’s been a MTB’er for a long time, and hasn’t kept up with the times and technology, but he loved riding more than anyone that I’ve come across lately.

That joy brought back memories of my first mtb rides, and the thrill each time my tires hit the dirt. Cycling is such a beautiful sport, passion, habit, addiction, and cure, but sometimes the beauty gets lost amongst the stress of training, or the monotony of day to day life.

All it takes is Coming Home to find it again.

Back in the Saddle... Almost

New music. Speakers on.

I apologize for my temporary leave of absence from the blog. I had a little surgery almost a month ago now, and will hopefully be back on the bike in about two weeks - just in time for 'cross! In the meantime, I've cranked up my literary intake, expanding onto a whole new shelf, and I even picked up a first edition of Faulkner's Pylon! Pretty exciting stuff! I've also been experimenting with some whole grain baking, thanks to Matt at Bob's Red Mill. Going whole grain definitely takes a bit more practice, but that's why I have the Bob's Red Mill Baking Bible. It's absolutely worth it; the food tastes sooo much better, and it's obviously a whole lot better for you, too. Check out their blog for some recipes!

My other projects have included the creation of a new CX squad via the shop, through our partnerships with Bob's Red Mill and Rocky Mountain Bicycles. We've got six riders, and it's going to be totally awesome! And the development of the new shop website: http://www.mountainbikedepot.net. The new site definitely wouldn't have been possible without some help from Joe; he knows all the cool codes. We've got it set up with a blog as the front, so content will stay fresh, and then we have links at the top with info about the shop, services we offer, trail maps galore, local rides, our events, and shop specials. Right now we've got six '08 bikes that are priced to make room for the new.

I also got the okay to pick up running about a week ago. I'm slow. Very slow. Much slower than I remembered. But, it feels good to be doing something active, and the timing is right heading into CX.

Since I might be starting the season a bit slower, I bought some bling new wheels and tyres, so at least I'll look super PRO, since folks will likely have a longer chance to scope my setup!

Tranquility

There are few things that put me at ease like building wheels does. If you look at it from an outside perspective, you'll just see a pile of spokes sticking out from a hub like a monstrous squid. Its easy for a newbie to be a little scared of this creature, but once you know how to tame it, he is your friend. I started off pretty rough, but I was taught to build by a fantastic wheelbuilder.

I knew today was going to be a long day; lots of projects, lots of customers, and lots of wheels to build. Its 'cross season so the flavour of the month is 32 hole hubs on either a Velocity Escape or Mavic Reflex. They are actually some of my favourite wheels to build, mainly because of the sensitivity of the rims and light spokes. They react with each twist of your fingers, and you can feel the wheel gain its energy.

A wheel starts out its life as a pile of parts, but the result isn't equal to the sum of its parts. It becomes an object with characteristics and personality. It also needs to be built by a competent and sensitive hand, so that it can reach its potential. The best hubs, the lightest spokes, and the fanciest rims can be spoiled by the details. Proper prep is often overlooked locally; lots of dry spokes tossed in a hub, dry rim, labels not facing the proper direction, all of these contribute to a non-PRO wheel. Spoke length is also an unknown science to folks as well, I recently rebuilt a set of wheels that had 7 different length spokes. Spoke tension also seems to be baffling.....

So, to my pleasure, I had a stack of rims arrive today, a few boxes of spokes, and some hubs to lace up. My reputation has been spreading in town as the "Wheel-Guy", so it seems like I'm having more conversations about wheels everyday. I'd really just like to build wheels all day if I could get by on that.

So, stressful day mostly avoided, just hand me a wheel to build, and I'll be fine.

Cycling Business Trip

Mary and I have been neck deep in Short Track, repairs, selling bikes, doing fits, and every now and again we get to ride our bikes. I think thats something that people miss when they come in and talk with us. We love bikes, we love riding, we put a lot of passion into running the shop, yet more and more, people just see us as "Sales people." Unfortunately in this market, quality gets overlooked, as well as the knowledge that is available in shops. Its not just some dullard sitting behind the counter to ring you up when you're done. We're also fighting with the customers that come in to gather the knowledge and take it elsewhere. I've lost many a sale to folks that take their fit measurements or my recommendations and shop on price. It is a frustrating endeavour at times, but there are always highs and lows with all businesses. We've had some nice highs recently; starting to move some high-end bikes, more and more bike fits, finally getting to build some more nice wheels.

So, a few weeks ago, for my birthday we set out on a ride to Madison, IN. Mary surprised me with the trip the night before we left, and the next morning we were off to a little bed and breakfast in Historic Downtown Madison. We rode through on the Indiana side to take it easy on the legs. We got rained on a little at the start (What's with this rainy June?) but the weather was good for the remainder, and we had some nice scenery along the way. Many of the sections reminded me of home, with the slightly-rolling winter wheat filled fields, small patches of woods, and narrow roads. It was a nice reminder of where I started riding, and the kind of roads that make me feel at home.

We strolled into Madison, making pretty good time, and were greeted by warmth of an old town. I don't enjoy the hustle and bustle of big cities, and it was definitely slow there. Louisville's charm wore off a long time ago, and it drives me nuts that it takes 15-20 minutes to get away from town at a minimum. Anyways, we stayed across from the Lanier Mansion which belonged to the family that bailed out the Union during the Civil War. It was quite the place, gardens, cobbled paths, the whole nine yards.

We spent our weekend off, just meandering about town, checking out the different little shops, winerys, and of course the food. We found a few of the most important things right away: coffee, gelato/ice cream and pastries for Mary. We sampled a few of the local restaurants, many of them in huge old houses, that showed the years of wear and tear that they've been through.

Back to our home for the weekend, it was a huge old house that had awesome inlaid floors, a huge living room with pool table, but was so warm and inviting that it really felt like home as soon we stepped in the door. Our bedroom was Mary's favourite colour, a nice burnt red, with a nice comfy bed, and cable(....I long for Food Network....). There was a little room off to the side with a computer to use, and nice couches and chairs to relax. Overall it was probably the best hotel/motel/B&B/buddies house I've ever stayed at. Our hosts even made fresh coffeecake and muffins every night for our contintental breakfast. Ask Mary about them, and she'll probably smile to capacity and beg for them.

So, the weekend over, we headed back to Louisville Tuesday morning. We stayed on the Indiana side again but chose a slightly different route. We slept in a little late and ended up getting crisped by the scorching sun. We made it back just in time for me to run into work to get buried in bikes to work on, and people coming in. I was fully immersed in exactly what we had left. Well, that was a vacation for a bit, and now we're back in the swing of things again.

Short Track Series Finale!

Fun.  Music.  Food.  Prizes.  Raffles. Oh yeah, and Bike Racing.

Kids’ race goes off around 5:30pm.  See you all there!