Salt the rim

Usually for me this refers to the rim of my margarita glass.  Today not the case. Bummer!   Instead it was the edge of the road that was nice and salted.  Seems with the dusting of snow, and the excess salt the county has due to lack of snow, they decided to put it all on the roads this morning!  This made me come in with my tights covered in a nice white coating and everytime a car passed you could taste the salt in the air.  If it was only 40 degrees warmer I could of at least dreamed I was riding down HWY 1 on my way to Tam! Guess I will have to overcome this with 2 for 1 margaritas tomorrow at our local mexican joint! 

Shiver me timbers........

So yesterday the temp was not too bad but if you hit any open stretches the wind was fun! Luckily I planned a good route and minus the Amherst side of Morgan hill and the over pass next to the brewery I was good. When I hit those stretches though, the Bar Kites(Mitts) were doing their best to act as sails and and push me into the ditch on the ice/snow covered roads. This made it a little harder to maintain a constant power and I ended up coasting through some of these section with one leg unclipped and trying to counterbalance the wind effects with one leg! Even with mother nature throwing what she had my way, I did manage another 4 hr ride which seems to be bossmans go to length of the year. So here is the route:

Yeah, it was another southerly route, which is weird for this time of year.  Luckily for all of us the south winds keep bringing us mild temps and I hope this trend continues. 

So after the ride Mark brought some new name decals over for the bikes!  Thanks Don for letting him use your printer.  I will not share any of the bike stuff till we get them built, but I got 6 of them on Friday and they are going to be faster than last years bikes.  They look really good too! 

We then finished off our Saturday with a trip to the brewery to help them celebrate 14 yrs.  Michelle was volunteering at the food table so Timster, Sarah, and I sampled all their small batch beers and some of our favorites.  Not a bad way to rehydrate after a ride!! 

Now for the week I have a lot of riding on the schedule.  I also have an audio/video install to do at my sisters in New Jersey the week after so I have to get tools and parts shipped out and start on the programing.  Nothing crazy this time, mounting a 64" TV on the wall, then doing 6 zones with a Nuvo Grand Essentia.  One of the zones is outdoors so I am expecting them to have the coldest weather of the year while we are doing that!  Also doing a Paradigm Surround in their living room with an Anthem MRX receiver and a URC Remote.  Luckily my friend Jasen from Precision is going with me so it will be a lot of fun and we will be able to rip through it in no time, OK 3 days of 12-14 hrs a day cause we have to cut in all the speakers and chase the wires through the walls, oh yeah, doing a security system for them too! Should be fun!

S'more

MMMmmm!  So last night Michelle was making fun of me for roasting marshmallows in our indoor fireplace.  I couldn't help it though, they tasted so good!  I then moved onto making S'mores, even better! 

So on the ride front things have slowed down some due to sickness and a recovery week.  I guess if you have to get sick, a recovery week is the best time to plan it?  It is hard though to have the pedal to the metal on training then hit the brakes as hard as you can.  Lets hope the anti skid kicks in and I start feeling better so I do not slide all the way back down the hill! 

On the bike side, I heard that there are some Specialized Epic 29er frames on the way for the team.  I am super excited to see these new race rigs.  They should also be followed up soon with a care package of XX from SRAM which will go very nice with the already received Truvativ pick me up and is going to give the 212 Team the best weapon a team can ask for!  Thank you sponsors!! 

Also the time has come to think about looking good.  We always say if you are not going to race good, you better look good!  For us to accomplish this we use Hidden Bay!  They can not make it any easier or affordable to make a team look good with a high quality product.  So if you are looking at new kits this year give them a call.  You will not regret it.  Most of the 212 squad actually orders extra clothing each year because of the comfort of their new shorts. 

Race motivation

Cohutta 100 press realease.  Pretty excited for this race already, and it is still 4 months away!  This is where I started doing the NUE 100s and I always enjoy going back here.

Over the river and down the snow covered road....

.....to another 4 hrs of T.I.T.S I did go.  For those new, that is Time in the Saddle.  Saturday mother nature tried to deter me with the starting temp of -6F, but I made it.

Now is the good time to thank those that make products that you pay for no matter the cost!  Bar Mitts!  A must have for winter riding.  Luckily for us they were a sponsor of ours a few years ago and they keep your hands warm no matter the temps. 

Assos tights, yes they are really expensive, but they are the best!  I have bought only 4 sets in my entire time of winter riding and they just last!  So get over the price and Sponsor Yourself! That is there marketing slogan. 

Hand warmers!  You can get an entire box for something like $20.  When the temps drop I usually will wear toe warmers, then stuff one of these between my shoe and toe warmer, then put a bootie over.  Always works.  I also take an extra pair just in case the bonk hits, or dreaded winter flat.

My routes:

Saturday Route:

Sunday Route:

Not all about fat!

So there seems to be a 2nd 29er revolution starting and it has to do with the fat bike.  It seems as everyone has given up this opportunity to ride a normal bike and learn some bike handling skills out in the snow.  Don't get me wrong, I am sure they are fun to ride, just like mopeds and other things till your friends see you, and if you are a sport rider just looking to maintain some cardio through the winter they will work fine for you.  As a training tool, I'm not buying it.  I honestly thought I was cheating myself when I changed from a road bike all year round to a studded tire cross bike, but that now seems to be the bike I grab.  It works just fine in the snow and I am able to mount the power tap up to it, train, not go bow legged from a 140mm stance, and not have one more bike to maintain.  If Q factor doesn't matter then why does egg beater and speedplay make different axle lengths. So sorry Simonson, I will not be at Cohutta on that 19 lb fat bike you dreamed about. 

So onto some training.  It seems as things have ramped into full speed ahead with the the end goal of raising the bar going into the season, as it is every year.  Lots of new plans in the works and some extra volume should help.  The group of Sarah, Mark, Michelle, and I keep hitting the weights hard as well with Gabe to make sure come Sunday afternoon and a week of training the remote seems like a heavy object to lift.

Also on the training front, two camps are in the works. One for another trip to Cali in February with bossman to drag him around Mt Tam and Mt Diablo. We did this last year and it was such a blast. We have also completed plans for a team plus a couple extras camp in Prescott in March.  This one will be for the MTB and will be our first MTB camp.  Super excited about this.

Till then it seems as my anti fat bike riding will continue on the winter Wisco roads.  Here are a few random shots:

Riding in the storm last week

Forgot, you are not supposed to be able to ride this without a fat bike.

Blazed a lot of tracks that day on the cross bike in 4 inches of snow.

Krayer's get y'er guns!  Time to get some dinner!

My training weapon, minus the bar mitts which I swear by! Carbon and TI bolts = no rust!

Yeah, 5 degree wind chill and snow! That is ice on my nose and my glasses are frozen to my eye brows! So when is the Cali trip again!!! 

Pinky and the........

Agood reason why not to loose a bet, at least it was for a good cause though! 

Full Swing

The 2012 season is now in full swing without the end in sight.  This year promises to be another fun year of racing, traveling, and goofing off with the team.  The team will remain the same as last as we all continue to get older.  Luckily we have Myles and Darrin on the team to make us feel young again!  OK, not naming names, but there are a couple of us on the team that will never act a day over 12!  So the race schedule, that is different for each rider and will become more concrete over the next month.  I do know that my focus again will be on the NUE races and will be dragging Ryan into it as well this year.  Ryan though will transition back into WORS for the late season races while I plan to blow the entire WORS season off again this year!  Scott and Mark will also join us for some of the NUE races as well.  The rest of the team will be focused on WORS.

Also with the start of the 2012 season, Mike and company at the Chicago headquarters have been busy coming up with some new cool kit designs.  Once again Adventure 212 and Specialized will get a lot of real estate on the kit as we enter our 5th year as partners.  We are so lucky to be riding the best bike on the market and equipment with adding huge support from SRAM and Truvativ.

So for training.  Things are changing a little bit this year by adding a little more time on the bike for me.  Luckily for all of us here in Wisconsin the weather has been great which means you can usually find company on your longer rides.  This weekends ride at one point we had 10 riders made up of the Wildside team and A212.  It was lots of fun as we cruised around the hills of Denzer! 

So that is about it for my morning ramblings.

No other way

We all have our issues

If it happens once it is no big deal, but if it happens again then there might be an underlying issue.  I am talking about drinking and riding.  This past weekend Mark, Sarah, Todd, Di, Ryan, Lisa, and myself went out for a burn some calories before the eating and drinking begins ride.  No big thing, that is until Ryan and Todd found an unopened 6 pack of poor quality beer in the ditch!  Most people would ride by, not Ryan and Lisa though!  They stopped and picked it up, Denzer style!  Lets just say most of it was gone before we got back home!  Good thing we were on the rail trail and close to home!