The Link is what Giant calls there annual dealer meeting. Their top 10% of dealers are invited, which we have been for the last three years. We are in our second full day here, and after a morning of seminars, we have gotten another chance for some demo riding. Today, at A1’s request, I took out a 2011 Giant Trance X1. I have to agree with A1 on this bike. It climbs, it descends, and it is quick in the technical stuff. I sort of had two different rides on this bike. First I went off by myself and climbed to the top of the mountain. I rode the exact same route as I did yesterday on the Anthem X 29er. I felt like I was able to climb faster, and the technical switchbacks were definitely easier to negotiate. When I got to the top, there was a pretty good lightning storm going on, so they had shut down the lift. I had planned on meeting Claire up there, but she had gotten stuck at the bottom. I chose to ride down to meet her, and got a pretty good drenching on the way. The ground was perfect with the dust being packed down by the rain. The thrill of hearing the lightning and thunder happening almost simultaneously added to the excitement. At the bottom Claire and I took a couple of minutes to walk through the product gallery which featured all of the 2011 bikes and accessories. Here is a link to my ride.

When they opened back up the lifts, we were one of the first back on. Claire was riding a Reign X and was very impressed with Giant’s brand new seat post which raised and lowered with the push of a lever on her bars. Our first run down was pretty uneventful, except for Claire getting a little sideways in a couple of corners. She managed to keep the rubber side down and we both finished with big smiles on our faces and raced back to the ski lift. We got another ride up and headed out for some very cool single track around the other side of the mountain. Well, we got a little lost, thank you very much, but managed to finally make it back only about an hour after the demo stuff was supposed to end. Both of us were a little bit on the dirty side, but we were in great spirits at the end and ready for a sit down dinner with a bunch of other dealers.
Here is a link to our ride.

 

 

I got the chance to take out an Anthem X 29er today for a very good test ride. I will post some pictures later on. I rode the chair lift up first and then rode the bike up second and then met Claire for two more chair lift rides. I really pushed myself on the climb, which felt great. The bike climbs great and it sure felt like it had more than 4 inches of travel on the down hills.

 

Well, Claire and I are here in Park City, Utah checking out the 2011 Giant Bicycle line. We arrived yesterday and are looking forward to some informative meetings and some demo rides.

Here is a picture of the plane they sent to pick us up.

– Posted by Chaz

Well, Claire and I went to Lake Tahoe last week for four days of camping.  We camped at DL Bliss campground which is only a couple of miles away from Emerald Bay.  We spent our first day kayaking down to  Emerald Bay and out to the Tea House on Fannette Island.  We picnicked on the way back, and I even jumped in the water and swam for a bit while Claire towed my kayak.

The next morning I got up and climbed the 500 feet out of our campground to Hwy. 89 for a clockwise ride around the lake.  I had planned on taking it pretty easy, but I ran into a fellow who was getting ready for the district road race championships, and we traded turns pulling for a while.  George, that was his name, pulled off for some coffee after about 30 miles, and I rode on by myself.  At the 42 mile mark, I heard and felt a nice little click in my drive train.  I had just broken my chain a couple of weeks earlier, and figured that I must have cracked another link.  Well, that wasn’t the problem, it turned out that I had broken the spring inside my Crank Bros pedal.  That meant I couldn’t clip in for the last 33 miles.  It wasn’t bad if I concentrated on keeping my foot in place, but as soon as I stopped thinking about it, my foot would slip right off.  This was a little disconcerting, mainly when I was climbing up around Emerald Bay at the end of the ride.  Anyway, I survived and felt quite good even at the end.

On Thursday, Claire and I did a 15 mile hike from our campsite over to Vikingsholm and then up to Eagle Lake.  The hike was much tougher than the ride around Tahoe.  We both had some good blisters to show for it, but we were lucky enough to have some homebrew waiting back at the campsite for us.

Younger Chaz

Well, yesterday was a triple B day. I made three loaves of bread, I transferred 10 gallons of beer from the primary to the secondary fermentors, and Claire and I went out and did a great 30 mile bike ride over Coleman Valley and down the coast.

I had the chance yesterday to go out and do Sweetwater on a demo ***** road bike.  The ***** rep had brought by 3 or 4 bikes for Claire and I to take out.  First off, it was good to be back on a traditional double.  I believe it was Alexi Grewal who once said, “there are no climbs in the U.S. where you need more than a 39×21 gear.”  Well, I had a 39×25 yesterday, and there were a couple of cupcakes that were telling me that I could use an easier gear.  Anyway, the ride went great, with only one pothole big enough to eject both of my waterbottles.  I lost some time there and got beat by previous Chaz by about 1 minute.  I also got held up by some road construction on River Road, otherwise I would have won.  That is my excuse, and I am sticking by it.  Here is a link to the loop.

Well, today is Claire and my twentieth anniversary of owning the shop.  It is hard to believe.  Twenty years has just flown by.  I still remember our first day when our friends Frank and Malcom came in and bought a tube so that they could be our first customers.  We still have that dollar bill with a little message around the edge that Malcom wrote.

At that time we lived in the house behind the bike shop and only had to walk out our bedroom door into our office and then into the shop.  Things were definitely different back then, much slower pace, more time for ice cream on the porch.  Claire and I would take turns going back and making dinner while the other person kept an eye on the shop.  Sometimes our employees would complain about the smell of dinner that wafted into the back of the shop, saying that it wasn’t fair when all they had to eat was Powerbars.

It is probably good that we don’t have lots of time for ice cream anymore.

It has been a very exciting twenty years, and Claire and I are looking forward to the next twenty.

Well, we are on our way into the shop this morning.  We have stopped off at Aroma Roasters Coffee shop for some refreshments and 10 pounds of coffee.  Yesterday we spent 4 or 5 hours in the back cleaning things up.  Boy, did that make a difference.  We can fit many more bikes in there.  I wish I had some before and after pictures.  Maybe I can describe it for you.  Close your eyes, now imagine a big room filled with bicycles placed safely, but chaotically around the floor.  Now imagine all of the bikes in a nice row with some hanging safely from the ceiling.  That is before and after.

It is back to work this morning, but not before Claire and I had a couple of good days off.  I was able, with Claire’s persuasion, to get out for some exercise 4 days in a row.  Saturday I rode into the shop, taking the hilly route.  Sunday morning, I got us out for a run around the neighborhood.  Monday I rode the rollers for an hour, see graph on the right, and then we went out for a hike in Armstrong Redwoods.  We got hailed on a bit, which made it all the more interesting.  Yesterday I went out and did my favorite loop again.  I felt much, much better than I did last week.  Last week my whole body was aching on the ride, and this week I felt great.  I was around 6 minutes off of my best time.  And to top it all off, yesterday I made 6 loaves of sourdough.

Well, after being off the bike for a couple of weeks, I decided that I needed to get out and hurt myself a bit. I did my favorite loop on Monday hoping to beat the rain.  I did beat the rain, but just barely.  I was about 20 minutes off of my summer times for this loop.  I knew that I would be slower, but I didn’t think I would be hurting quite so much by the end.  For the most part, the ride was uneventful as far as traffic goes.  I did see a couple of mountain bikers up in Willow Creek State Park, and I think I startled them as I cruised by on my cross bike.  Duncan road was a bear as usual.  It is around a 20% grade at the bottom, and it is always a hard transition after coming down the flats of Hwy. 116.  There were a couple of more trees down across the trail, but nothing that I couldn’t claw my way over.  When I got home I realized how sore my entire body was.  At first I thought it was the ride, but after even waking up the next morning still feeling the same way, I figured I had caught a little bug.  Claire knew I was feeling too good when I chose Sprite over beer and only one slice of pizza at Zachary’s in Berkeley.