Where do I begin..........

Sometimes I just don't know where to start, after a few days so much has gone on that I can't remember all the stuff I wanted to throw on the blog. So here we go, tidbits from the week......

Here's two things from the shop that I so wish I had a camera ready,

A customer who has been known to be difficult comes into the shop and is looking to buy a Madone. Of course this person is shopping us hard against another shop for a better deal and the sticking point is his old bike. Now we don't take trade-in's and the other shop does, and he's going to get a great deal, and they are going to take his old bike. Que the used car salesman theme song, bottom line.....they give him x.xxx dollars for his old bike, and jack up the cost of the new bike to make it up. What a great deal! At least he got something for his old bike!

But the story doesn't end there, no the fun has just begun! Our customer shows up in the store to buy some brake cable, why you might ask.......... Our fine customer has decided that even though he bought the less expensive model that has external brake cable routing he still wanted the internal routing of the more expensive bike. You can see where this is going, or at least hear the drill running. Yea......went ahead and drilled some holes in that carbon fiber frame so he could run the cable through there. But don't worry, since he had to make the holes a little bigger to get the cables to run better he figured that he could seal them up with silicone seal and it will be all good.
If I ever get a photo of this one you'll see it here.

Then there's this........... I'm sitting at the service desk finishing up a ticket when I hear a bike rolling back to the service area. I know Dean's back there so I don't look up, and try to finish up what I 'm doing. Dean walks up and in his cheeriest voice asks if he can help them. Then I hear the customer say............"MY BIKE DOESN'T GO FAST ENOUGH", Dean and I look at each other and there are so many things that I'm dying to say. But, we both manage to get serious enough to see what we can do. Seems his Mongoose MTB with the electric assist just won't keep up with the mopeds, darn, not much we can do for that one!

Since we've had so much rain lately that the trails have been off limits I decided that I should give a MTB race in Omaha a try. The race was Saturday so to get ready Friday night I attended the Cub Scout picnic with the boys. Did a little(very little) fishing(dad hold poles while kids run around), then got my pre-race meal. Two hot dogs, potato salad, chips, and a cookie. Forgot to mention that we are having 3 of Jonas's buddies over for a sleepover for his birthday. So much for sleep for me.

Got up bright and surly Saturday to meet Ben at the shop and head for Omaha for the race. Got there and found trail conditions perfect, tacky and fast.
















A fair number of Cat 1 (expert/Pro) riders were on the line for the race. Going into the single track I made it into the front group of 5 and we quickly started to pull away from the field. This is where it gets strange, it's a 5 lap race, 2 laps down and I'm feeling pretty good. The legs are feeling kind of weird, tired or starting to cramp, I'm not sure, but still feel strong. Soon I get it in my head that if I can stay with the guys in the group I'll do no worse than 5th. In those last 3 laps the group split apart as 2 of the guys rolled away from us one at a time as the race wore on. Could of/should of, tried to go with one of them but I didn't. Rolled across the line 5th and didn't bother sprinting Shim for 4th since I'd been riding on his wheel for the past 2 laps. Overall it was a good race for me and the crew running the race did a exceptional job. So did I leave something in the tank, I think so. Next race I'll have to be a bit more aggressive and see how it goes. No more head games with myself!


Got to give a shout out to my 29'er teammate Mark, won the 3 hour by 8 minutes on a Superfly SS. Ya hooo.

Can't forget about Magic Matt! The Lincoln Industries colors were out there with both Matt and Smitty. Both of them were rolling the Fisher Paragon 29'er and loving it!