I finally had a chance to get out for a bike ride yesterday. The shop has been very, very busy, and Claire and I have been going in early almost every day and have been too knackered at the end of the day to do anything. We finally got two days off in a row, and I took advantage of some free time on the first day to do my favorite loop. The weather was perfect, and since I haven’t been riding, I didn’t put any pressure on myself to go hard. When I got into Willow Creek State Park, I decided to explore some single track that Claire and I had done a month or two ago. Riding that stuff on the cross bike is quite an adventure, but I managed to stay upright the entire time. I have a feeling I will be doing this loop again some day with A1 when he gets back from down south. This was the kind of loop you could lose a friend on though since the singletrack had plenty of drop offs and loose dirt in the corners. I had to force myself to go over Duncan on the way home, but once I had gotten up the 22% grade to the start of the dirt, I was glad I had made that choice. I did have a flat with about a half a mile to go, and I used the lazy method of a CO2 cartridge instead of my pump. Here is a link to the loop.

Well, I am sitting on our deck with Claire and Mathilda listening to the Old 97’s on my iPod and drinking margaritas that Claire made from scratch. She is using Debbie A’s recipe, which we have grown quite fond of. My only complaint is that Claire bought some terrible chips to go with the salsa, but, that is a minor complaint in the scheme of things.

Well, Claire and I went out for one of our favorite loops with Mathilda along in the trailer. We decided to take a “shortcut” through Riverfront regional park on Eastside Rd. on the way home. This gave Mathilda a chance to take a short swim. All would have been fine and dandy at that point, but I decided to do the Sweetwater loop afterwards. After getting a flat out on River Road, I rode down through Rio Nido and over to Austin Creek Road. I knew I was in trouble right when the climbing started on Sweetwater. I should have turned around, but I kept going. It was over a 100 degrees on the climb, and there wasn’t much shade up there. I ran out of water somewhere on the backside, and barely made it home. I haven’t felt like that in a while. Here is a link to our ride. The picture is from when we were in Tahoe on our way back down from Angora Lakes.

Well, we are back from our Giant Dealer Meeting in Colorado. It was a great time and really got us excited about the 2010 product line. On the final day, Claire and I took out a couple of Giant Trance X1’s and did some mountain biking. We took the gondola up to the top of the mountain, which was over 11,500 feet and took a really fun singletrack all of the way back down. At the bottom we switched bikes, Claire took out a XTC 29’er while I hopped on an Anthem X1. The Anthem sure is a fast bike, it climbs like nobody’s business, but still soaks up most of the rocky stuff. Here is a link to our ride.

Well, we are in Keystone, CO with Giant bicycles getting educated on the 2010 line-up. We got in yesterday evening just in time for dinner and some really good beer, maybe too good. Anyway, we spent most of today in meetings checking out the new line-up of bikes. It is pretty exciting stuff. We had a really great lunch out on the patio, and then about an hour later they brought out pizza and cookies. It was one of the first times in my life that I passed up the pizza, but not the cookies. At around 3:30, we had a chance to go out and demo some bikes. I took out a XTC 1 29’er that was very, very fast. I ended up doing some single track, and then climbing up a long fire trail to around 10,500 feet. For part of the climb it was raining and thundering, which was awesome. Here is a link to my ride. When I got back from the ride, Claire and I hopped on a shuttle which took us out to some stables where we had dinner. Giant had built a little pump track off to the side so there were people racing around the jumps while we ate BBQ. It was pretty cool being out there in the mountains as the sun went down.

Well, it is Saturday evening, and we are home from a very, very busy day at the shop. We worked with A2 and Jimmy Neutron and spent most of the day not knowing which end was up. It makes the day go by much faster this way. I ended up doing three road bike fits which I hadn’t expected, but people keep buying road bikes. Luckily Andre and I did about 10 tune-ups the day before, so the work board wasn’t that full.

Last week, Claire and I went to Tahoe for a couple of days to get some time away from the shop. We camped at Fallen Leaf lake. We canoed around the lake one day and spent most of the other days sitting on the beach and reading books. We did ride up to Angora Lakes and did some cliff diving. The ride up to the lake was quite steep, and Mathilda refused to do any pulling. She did push on the way back down, so I can’t complain too much.

Well, we are enjoying our second day off from the shop. Yesterday I decided to wait until it got very hot outside and then I headed up over Sweetwater. I had planned on doing the Sweetwater loop twice, but my legs were tired from working. I was enjoying the heat though, so I headed out through Healdsburg after Sweetwater. I was motivated to burn off some calories since we were heading to Aleworks for dinner with A2 and Jimmy Neutron. Tuesday night they have $9 pitchers and $2.50 Bratwurst. Jimmy Neutron had just gotten back from Hawaii, so he had lots of stories to tell us. Here is a link to my loop. I ran out of water in Healdsburg, so I stopped at Veterans Memorial Beach to get some. I think it was over a 100 degrees out there.

Today Claire and I went out on a really neat 33 mile loop from our house. We wanted something pretty flat so that we could just stretch out our legs on the tandem. We both agreed that it was a great loop considering the lack of traffic and the lack of any real climbing. I think I will have to add this loop to the Hub Cyclery Ride page. It has a little of everything including the Joe Radota trail. Here is a picture of us going over Wohler Bridge.

Well, it is Tuesday and Claire and I have the day off. We went into the shop yesterday, even though it was closed, and worked our tails off trying to catch up. I did a bunch of tune-ups while Claire placed some huge orders with different vendors. It was sort of weird being there ignoring the phone and having the doors locked. We had worked seven days in a row, and needed to make sure that we could take today and tomorrow off. Jimmy Neutron is back at the shop today after being in Hawaii for a week, and Andre will be back on Saturday. That should make things a little easier.

I had the luxury of riding into the shop on Wednesday morning. I decided to leave a little earlier than usual so that I could take a hillier route into work. I feel pretty darn lucky living in Sonoma County and having these roads to ride. I hadn’t been up Burnside in quite a while, but I hadn’t forgotten how incredible the views are from the top. I was happy to be descending down the steep side instead of climbing it.

Well, we are back in the routine of things. I rode in to the shop and home on Sunday. I had quite a headwind on the way home that evening, but I was in no hurry, so it was no big deal.