Fixin' to have a great day!

So....wednesday was one of those "bonus" days that we sometimes get 'round these parts late in November.......unseasonably warm, lots of sun.......all the good stuff. I had the day off and I've been instructed by the staff in no uncertain terms to "stay the hell outta the shop on your day off!!!" so I thought I oughta get a buncha riding in.

I met Rach, Berger and Julia @ the shop for the morning ride (it's okay......it was before we opened!) and we rolled east. 'Twas chilly @ 8:30, we all had full tights, booties and such on but a lovely morn as we cruised around out Overisel way. We had 3 fixxies on the ride which gave us a chance to give Julia crap for being a "coastie" and a "shiftie" but she's kinda new so we took it easy on her. Musta not taken it easy enough though, as karma gave me a boot in the ass by havin' Berger strip the threads off of his (mine!) track hub about 5 miles from the shop. Now......what that means to you non-fixed types is that he couldn't pedal and that I had to push his arse back to the shop. Rach helped up the big climb on Country Club but our boy Berger is what we used to call "full grown" back in the day and combined w/ the fact that I was already pushing a fairly stiff gear on my Sofa King...............it was plenty of load on my old knees.

Still ......we had to detour to the bagel joint, natch.........it was pretty flat by then!

Back @ the shop I traded the Sofa King for my latest fixxie....the "Glow Worm" and headed east to meet Danielle @ Townsend Park for some dirt roads. (The Glow Worm is my old Surly Cross Check, set up as a fixxie and painted fluorescent yellow. And when I say "fluorescent", I mean it!) We rolled outta Townsend Park and worked our way east and north, neither of us knowing exactly where we were going but havin' a blast on all those sweet hard-packed dirt roads. It was so sweet to be comfy in knicks and a l/s jersey too! We did a coupla hours and then ran into Crazy Bastard Brethren Mark and Bill as we got back to the park. Next thing I knew.............we were riding back out w/ them and did another hour or so. As we split off from them and turned back towards the park I commented that I was "officially tired" and Danielle was kind enough to pretend to agree. All in all I was lucky enough to get almost 5 hours of riding in, all off it fixed, on 2 different bikes w/ 6 different riding buds.

See what I mean when I say that Bike Life is grand?

And grand it is! There's so much goin' on @ the shop that I can hardly wait for 2007! If you haven't made a habit of checkin' Danielle's blog yet.....yaoughta! (www.daniellemusto.blogspot.com) She' gonna be great to work with and to ride with and she's so in tune w/ what we wanna do and be as a shop that this really feels like a no-brainer match up. I just wish that she'd asked me sooner!
The shop is fillin' up with coolness from Gunnar, Niner, Cannondale, Chrome, Seven, Electra, Bianchi......you name it. The Tuesday Night Dirt Road Ride (aka crazy Bastards West) has been a hoot and the next Fun-Raiser is scheduled for 12/10. There's just a ton of stuff comin' up and I can hardly wait!

So.........'Black Friday" I hate that crap! I know that we're a retail store and all that but this nonsense of talking about the "post-Thanksgiving selling season" is such a drag. And don't even get me started on the idea of camping out overnight to get a deal on a TV or a Play Station. Gimme a break!

Okay.....Rant Mode off and I'd better shut up before I tick someone off (again). It's gonna be a great weekend.......there's the last 'cross race of the series this Sunday here in town (www.kisscross.com) and that 'oughta be a blast. Hopefully the good weather has dried up the area and the boyz were able to design a fun course.

See you there!

Long day!

This is a self-portrait that I took after another l-o-n-g freakin' day on our self-supported Kokopelli tour last August.

Dang! Whatta a big weekend!

Y'know........big weekends aren't all that unusual for this boy, but this last one was XL even for me. I did my first 'cross race of the season on Saturday, the usual mud-n-slop-fest @ Manhattan Park in GR. I love the idea of cyclo-cross....which makes the fact that I suck @ it so much kinda hard to take.I've been outta town and/or injured for the first 3 races in Buddy Rick's KissCross series (www.kisscross.com) and I was lookin' forward to making the last 2. I had no illusions about my fitness and low expectations.I was just hoping that I wouldn't be last or hafta drop out. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in the middle of the pack and enjoying myself once we got the race started. The course was great.......lotsa mud, some boggy single-track, a big downhill that fellow Crazy Bastard MD had broken up w/ a set of switchbacks, a hard-all-Hell run-up on the same hillside that featured a chunks-blowing mudbog @ the top, a little pavement.........6 laps was plenty for Mrs Clark's favorite son to be sure but the bike worked aces, I kept it upright and rolled in 24th outta 40-ish. Fellow HUP-sters Mossimo and Doez were 11th and 30-somthing-ish respectivly, aforementioned Crazy Bastard Dettman was in the top 15 I think and newly-sponsored VCC rider Danielle was 8th overall and 1st woman. I hung 'round for the A race for a bit, watchin' Russ slay all and Nate kick arse in 2nd and hit it for home. I rode in shorts and took the opportunity to conduct an "Embrocation Comparison Test" I had just gotten 2 new kinds of heat cream to try, SportsBalm, which all my West Coast "cross buds swear by and Qoleum, which MD uses and I have comin' in for the shop. I did up one leg w/ each in the hope that I could tell you one was better that the other but........the results were inconclusive. Both were okay, I coulda used a bit more heat but I was okay. More tests!

After a bike-wash session and a rest it was off to the Sandbar in Saugatuck for a Last Call gig. Good night.......great crowd, lotsa friends showed up, we played pretty good, big fun! Made for a l-o-n-g day though, since we played 'til about 1:40AM and it was nearly 3:00 before I got home.

Sunday was the Chilly Chili Ride @ the shop. What a blast! Someone told me they stopped countin' riders @ 70! Big crowd, mebbe the biggest Fun-Raiser ever! Lotsa folks from GR......thanks in part to Danielle and fellow Crazy Bastard Jim talkin' our rides up w/ their buds.Thanks guys! The route was good.....26 miles goin' east from the shop, down PawPaw and around past Ridgepoint and up through Overisel then over to Graafschaap and back in. There were the inevitable splits and different groups but who wants a pack of 70-some riders on the road anyways? There was the typical "We show up for the rides but never set foot in the shop" performance from the Jade crew but that's cool......more food for everyone else.I do wonder what's in it for them, though. There were 11-12 pots of chili and soup waitin' here when we got back, not to mention lotsa brownies, cookies, cornbread and beer courtesy of our friends and neighbors @ The Curragh next door.(Thanks Dave!)Everyone hung out here for a coupla hours, shootin' the shit and talkin' bikes.......it was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The next ride is the Pavement Poundin' Pizza Party on the 10th of December. Mark your calendars!

I got a chance to finally debut my glow-in-the-dark dirt road fixxie on the last Crazy Bastard ride last Thursday night in GR.The ride was faster-n-usual but I was able to hang, pretty much anyways. The paint job doesn't actually glow w/ the light of all the high-end headlights on everyone's bikes but it did look cool and all dangerous-like leanin' up against my Jeep before we headed to the Inn for the post-ride repast. I was testing out a new light: the "Joystick" from U.S.E. It's about the size of an El-Mark-o marker, totally self-contained and burned for the 2:15 duration of the ride w/ light to spare. It rocked.

Lotsa other cool stuff happenin' @ the shop........got some sweet Gunnar frames in...Jane's extra-sweet Seven touring bike went home, lookin' all gorgeous-like in natural ti, black and pink...there are lotsa Chrome bags in route...the new shop kit is being produced as we speak...Lee got my Niner s/s finished and I'm gonna get a chance to ride it asap...........Man, bike life is good!

Rememeber, if yawanna get our e-newsletter lemme know at velocity587@hotmail.com and I'll hook ya up. You can always check out www.club-velo.com too for up-to-the-minute scoop on shop happenings.

Later...........MC