Maze Race and Magicshine Recall

Firstly, a new fun event is happening Saturday. I know, this is last minute notice, but don't pretend like you are so organized that you already knew what you where doing Saturday anyway.

We don't know exactly how it's going to be run, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be fun.

Secondly, many of you have heard by now, but there is a recall of the infamous Magicshine light battery, check out details here:

Magicshine Recall Link, Apparently they were too good to be true after all.

I find this kind of satisfying, as the Magicshine has irritated me since the day I heard about them. Blatant rip-off of the Lupine Tesla light, the Magicshine promised unbelievable lumen output for hundreds less than their competitors.
At 24 Hours of Old Pueblo last year, I started hearing rumors of the chargers and batteries not being UL rated, and of things catching on fire while charging. This all came from a sales rep for another light company, so I didn't think too much of it, but found the info entertaining.
Well, 8 months later, I guess some other people have had similar problems:

What should I do with my battery now?
We recommend that you store them outside in a safe, protected place. Your recall notice will give more information.

Outside in a safe, protected place?  Are things exploding? Spontaneous combustion?
The thing that bothered me most about the Magicshine was their astronomically false claims about lumen output.  Our un-scientific tests comparing the Magicshine to similarly rated lights from Lupine and Light and Motion, in the shop bathroom, led us to believe that outputs were exaggerated by at least double, if not triple the actual amount.

So, while your Magicshine battery sits in your back yard, in a cement bunker, come on by and check out some of the lights we have from Light n Motion.  Made in the good ol' USA, passing all sorts of pesky safety regulations, subject to irritating EPA regulations, these things are extremely reliable, have extremely bright output, and are a good value to boot.
How about 25% off any Light and Motion light if you trade in your Magicshine. We'll take all the batteries, pile them in one place, and see if anything burns down or explodes.

That's all, I'm done gloating about the Magicshine. 

Lastly, we're working on a regular night ride again, now that it's getting properly cold. Tuesday night seems to be the best night for many.  We leave from the shop as early as possible, usually that means at the trailhead by 6:45 or so.  Hopefully we will be out this coming Tuesday, probably north foothills from Ebudito trailhead, so keep it in mind, and I'll let you all know if we're gonna make it or not soon.

Awesome, thanks for reading, and thanks for coming into our shop and buying stuff and letting us fix your bikes and allowing us to live the dream and play with bikes for a living.

SMOOCH!

At least we have a good looking jersey....

Yesterday Danny and I (Lucero)  participated in the Day of The Tread century, on our new tandem.  I was on the back.  The bike is a bit small for a 6 foot tall stoker, so I had a face full of Danny's bony back for the entire 100 miles... at least we have a good looking jersey.

We approached the ride with some trepidation, having both raced ourselves into the ground on Saturday's cross races, and also due to the fact that we had logged about 30 minutes on the bike so far.  But everything went better than we could have hoped for, the weather was great, we had a big tailwind on the long climb up to Placitas, and the bike worked flawlessly.

The bike we rode is a San Rensho tandem, a beautiful and rare bicycle that received many complements along the ride.  It was the first time I had spend more than a couple of minutes on the back of a tandem, and although the experience was intense at times, I'm happy to have done it, and I'm sure we'll be out terrorizing another century sooner than later.

The ride took us four and a half hours. We rode the whole time with our friends John and Brad, who were also on a tandem, and looking suave with matching Bikeworks jerseys (thanks guys).

Beyond that, we've just been knee deep in Cross season.  Getting out to as many of the New Mexico Cross series races as we can.  The races have been an absolute blast, well organized, fun courses, great atmosphere, what more can you ask for (except maybe free beer at the finish, but that probably won't happen until Bikeworks organizes a cross race).  I encourage everybody to come and check it out.

I leave you with this, which was obviously written about our dear Swinton:

Shop Closure: Saturday June 12th for the 2010 Pajarito Punishment

We will be closed Saturday June 12th so we can promote/participate at the Pajarito Punishment.

We are again helping with the promotion and sponsorship of the downhill race this year, which will take place on Sunday (the XC race will be Saturday). 

Check it out:

http://nmmtb.org/

Also, don't forget that this weekend (June 5th and 6th) is the Chile Challenge in Angel Fire:

http://www.racemsc.com/events/chilechallenge.html

With Cross Country, Downhill, Four Cross, and Super D events, the Chile Challenge is always a great race and a blast for spectators. 
The Dan's will not be racing this year, but Tony will be there along with a whole bunch of other Bikeworks racers to represent for the shop.

Thanks
Dan L

Land Managers Meeting

If you like mountain biking, perhaps you should be there....

Calling all Tribes…

 

Come one, come all, to the Second Annual Land Managers Round Table presented by FooMTB.  This event will take place on, Wednesday April 14^th at the BLM Offices  located at 435 Montano, NE.  We will be gathering at 6:00PM and we will have Pizza and Beverages for all.

 

This is your opportunity to hear what the Land Managers have planned for this summer and the longer term future.  It will allow us to get a better understanding of what the Land Manager’s would like to achieve and to provide input with our ideas and comments. 

 

The agenda for this event has been placed on the FooMTB Website at Land Managers Agenda .  We are also asking that everyone who would like to attend please RSVP at http://www.rsvpit.com and use the code “foomtb” (no quotes).  This will allow us to plan the amount of food required for the number of people that will be on hand.

 

Also, please feel free to forward this to any and all Mt. Bike riders.  This is an excellent opportunity for the entire Community to come together and find out what is developing on the trails that we all love and ride.

 

Look forward to seeing you there,

 

Dug-da-Goat

FooMTB Executive Committee

http://www.foomtb.org


 Unfortunately, "beverages" are not adult beverages, I asked, repeatedly.  

The more mountain bikers that show to these meetings, the better for us mountain bikers.  

Pump Track World Championships of Bosque Farms

A sweet little pump track jam went down on Sunday at our buddy Gerhardt's place.  Thanks to Gerhardt, Commencal, and of course Bikeworks, some sweet prizes were to be had.  And thanks to Long Nguyen, some sweet photos were taken.
Check it all out over at Long's blog:

http://longnguyenphotography.blogspot.com/2010/03/pump-track-madness.html

Hopefully more of these events will happen in the future.  It seems like pump tracks are popping up in yards all over the city lately.  Soon we'll have enough to potentially have a series of sorts.

 Awesome, thanks.

Daylight Savings is for Jerks!

I don't think anybody hates Daylight Savings more than Swinton. Seriously, most everybody I know finds it stupid and annoying, but I wonder if Danny might get violent over it some day.
He has become convinced that the next Governor of New Mexico could be elected on an Anti-Daylight saving platform, and nothing else.
Fortunately, we have returned to the reasonable side of the deal.  More light in the evening, when normal people who have normal jobs and lives are awake, as opposed to more light at 5 am, when sane people are still snuggly in bed.
I rode home this evening from work with my sunglasses on.  It was fantastic.
The only downside of the "spring forward" change? Trying to convince my toddler that it is bedtime despite the fact that the sun is out.

Bikeworks regular Donovan found a new good reason to own a Maverick fork this evening:

We loaned him our flatbed bike trailer so that he could tow a bike home that was at the shop for repair (he is one of the more dedicated commuters we know).  As we were about to load a bike onto the trailer, Donovan noticed that the frame of the trailer looked awfully close in size to the axle of the Maverick hub.  Sure enough, it wasn't the exact size, but the fork clamped onto the frame with minimal adjustment.  Being a bunch of giant bike nerds, we found it endlessly entertaining.

If you are one of the many people planning on racing the San Ysidro Dirty Century next weekend, keep an eye out for Donovan. He'll be out there sporting a Bikeworks jersey, and probably putting the hurt on a few people.  As I understand it, there is a 74 person limit, and 68 people are now registered, if not more.  Quite the popular event.

Well, I'm going snowboarding in Taos tomorrow.  Just a one day trip, as much as I'd like to stay and eat fancy meals and ride for a few days, it's just not in the plans. So if you were planning on coming to the shop tomorrow and admiring my general awesomeness and stunning good looks, you'll just have to wait til Thursday, or make do with Danny and Tony for the day. 

Super, thanks.

-Lucero

Dawn 'til Dusk Registration Forms are here!

Yesterday we received our Dawn 'til Dusk registration forms, so come on by and sign yourself up!

You can fill out the form and pay us here at the shop.  The race is $70 a person, and $50 if you were signed up last year.  You can pay by cash or check only. 

Everyone 18 and under are free!  So all you young-uns have no excuses.

Registration closes on March 31st.

Solo class has a 125 racer cap this year, so if you want to race solo, sign up sooner than later.

For more info:  www.dawntilduskrace.net

You can also register online, at the Gallup Chamber of Commerce, or at REI Albuquerque,  but my guess is Bikeworks is the only place you can get a free beer while you register. 

Hope to see everybody out there! It's a great event that we are excited to be helping sponsor!

2009 Red Bull Burner

Late breaking news:

registration for the Red Bull Burner for '09 is now up. Follow the following:

http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=9353

Better hurry. There are a limited number of spots available.

Bikeworks is signed up, and Tony says he is bringing it! Oh, it is going to be broughten!

Closed Saturday

We will be closed Saturday, Sept 12th (this Saturday, the one coming up really soon, like the day after tomorrow).

Senior Swinton is gettin' hitched, so we figured that would be a pretty good excuse to close shop.

Sorry for any inconvenience. We will also be closed on Sunday and Monday, as per our usual hours. So you know what that means..... Three days off in a row for Dan and Tony. HA!

Thanks, I will return with pics of Danny in a tux, which will very likely be the first and last time any of us see Danny in a tux.

Racing Plans

Just thought we'd give a heads up on some racing activity over the next couple of weeks, in case anybody wants to join us for some suffering.

Sunday is the Bonanza Creek road race (aka Prison Loop) outside of Santa Fe. Info Here. Danny is a big fan of this race, as it suits his style (fast with a rolly course, no gigantic climbs). Which is really not my style at all, but we'll both be there, and hope to see some customers.

The following weekend is the Frazier Mtn. Madness XC race and hill climb in Taos. Info Here. I am also planning on making it to that one. Been having fun getting out to the NMORS series races. I've never raced this race, but have always heard good things. The course is just 17.5 miles long, which is about the number of miles I felt good for during last weekends 32 miles of punishment up at Sandia, before overheating and cramping and running out of water. However, it is at very high altitude, and I understand a few of the climbs are extremely steep, so I'm sure there will be plenty of suffering.

Then the weekend after that, August 2nd, is the Santa Fe Hillclimb. Info Here.
Not sure if I'll be making it to that one, but it also promises to be fun in that "I've been climbing for an hour now, my lungs are burning and my legs are screaming. Why did I pay to come do this?" sort of way. I'm hoping to be there.

In shop news, Tony is off on his Whistler epic as of last night. We won't be seeing him again until the beginning of August, when he will return with tales of huge hucks, rediculous days of downhilling, and foam pit jumping antics.

And that's about it. I'm excited about todays stage of the tour, should be a good one. Probably will be watching the replay coverage that starts at 10am. So if you come in before noon, and know how it plays out from the live coverage, do me a favor and don't say anything. Anybody that spoils it for me will be required to buy me lunch, or a breakfast burrito, depending on the time of day.

Racing is fun. Lets do it again!

We all took the weekend off, closed up shop, and headed up to Angel Fire to participate in the Chile Challenge race.
It was sweet. We all love out little bike shop, but it certainly is nice to get away once in a while. Got back yesterday feeling rejuvenated and sassy.
Danny and I raced the Cross Country, and we had several other friends out there representing Bikeworks in the Mountain Cross, Downhill, and Super D events. It was a good time all around.

If you want to check out results, they can be found here:

Angel Fire Results

In fact, we had so much fun not working, we're going to close up shop this weekend and do it again! This weekend is the Pajarito Punishment race, at the Pajarito Ski area outside of Los Alamos.
Check it out:
http://nmmtb.org/#

The Cross Country race is on Saturday, which Danny and I will participate in, and the Downhill race is on Sunday. We are a major sponsor of the DH race. Tony has been busy getting all kinds of sweet prizes to give away, and we will be raffling off a frame from Transition to one lucky racer.

So, we encourage you to come up and play with us. It's a beautiful mountain, even if you aren't inclined to race, and is a great place to spend the day outside.

In other news, Charlie once again has a new toy:



Perhaps his best looking bike yet. This is a Maverick / Spot collaboration. One of only three Maverick hardtails around. Originally this bike was a one of a kind project for Interbike

http://bikemag.com/gallery/interbike_08_9er/

But Charlie and one other lucky Maverick fanatic bike shop owner convinced the guys at Maverick to make them one. And the original ended up in the hands of Dale, of Dales Pale Ale.

Who's bike is this? Oh, it says so on the headtube:

It says "Charlie" on the right, and "LE 29er #3" on the left.

The frame is made to work with the belt drive, but Charlie isn't going to use the belt for now. Why you ask? Because as he puts it, he "has a Chubby for Chub hubs."


We will be lacing these hubs up to some Edge Composite carbon mountain rims for ol' Chucky, and it will be ridiculous. Unfortunately for now, the Chubs are only available in freewheel configurations, which means no belt drive, but we have been told cassette hubs will be available later this year, in both geared and SS versions.

In other bike porn, we have recieved our first Carbide SL frame from Tomac:


With 90mm of rear wheel travel, this carbon fiber wonder weighs just over 4.5lbs on our scale in a size large, with the rear shock. It's a beautiful frame, and just plain satisfying to hold in your hands. This bike has been getting some serious attention from the press lately:

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/tomac-carbide-sl-2009.html

Speaking of Tomac, there were a few pros out in Angel Fire this weekend showing off what the Type X is good for; going crazy fast. Taking 1st and 2nd place in the mens Pro XC, and 3rd and 4th in the Short Track XC, the Type X frame is quickly showing itself to be an extremely capable race machine.

http://tomacfan.blogspot.com/

And last but not least, a bad ass old Yeti ARC frame converted to accept a belt drive.






That's it, back to fixing bikes. Thanks for reading.

I'm Special!

Yesterday was the Santa Fe Century, which I attended for the first time.
Word on the street was that a group of racer types were heading out at 7am, and being friends with many of those guys, our plan was to head out with them.
So Danny picked me up at 5:30, then we picked up our buddy Frey, and off to Fanta Se.
After several cups of pre-race in-car coffee, I had some serious "business" to take care of by the time we got to the Start / Finish area. We arrived with about half an hour before our planned start time. With a long row of Port-a-pottys within site, my plan was to get dressed, fill waterbottles etc, then hit the port-a-potty right before we left. So I'm all dressed and ready, roll up behind the toilets, lean my bike against the last one in the row, and walk around to the front right as a door is opening. I grab the door to walk in only to hear a chorus of hollering behind me. "HEY BUDDY, THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!" I look behind me to find a line, probably 40 yards long, of anxious cyclists giving me the stink eye.
There was several port-a-pottys on hand, but the line was significant, and some quick calculations told me that waiting in line was not an option. So I rolled off, away from the starting group of my buddies, right as somebody yelled "one minute 'til".
I eventually found the accommodations I was looking for, and as I expected, nobody was in sight by the time I was back on my bike. So off I went, through Santa Fe, pedaling as hard as I could from the start in desperate hopes of making up a gap of who knows how many minutes on the group of fast guys that I had little hopes of hanging with in the first place.
Banging through Santa Fe was fun, as I met up with our friends the Mazzolla's, who were hauling ass on their tandem. So I drafted off them for a while, until some madman on a Cervelo P4 came flying by, and then I hopped onto his wheel. He pulled me along for the majority of the way to Madrid, until I couldn't take the pace anymore and finally popped. I can't imagine doing 100miles on a TT bike, but for some reason I don't think this guy was much phased by the idea.
So I'm plodding along, with the occasional fast guy or tandem to draft off, but mostly just riding on my own. After a while there weren't that many people around, I had kind of put myself into no-mans land with my start time and the pace I was riding. Then in all my awesome special-ness, I missed the turn to heartbreak hill. My excuse is there were two guys in front of me who I was following, and it turns out they weren't doing the century course. But honestly, it's pretty special to miss a turn on a ride when there are a few thousand other people riding with you that day. I must have had my head down or something, but for whatever reason I blew right past that left hand turn.

I continue to hammer along in my own little world, kind of wondering how I managed to find such a large gap between other riders. But I convince myself that it was just weird timing on my part, until I roll into Cedar Crest.
Having only ridden that area of North 14 once before, I wasn't quite sure where the turn to heartbreak hill was, but I knew it was north of Cedar Crest. So I roll into the gas station at the base of the crest road, fill up my water bottles, and then ask some fellow cyclists how far north the turn to heartbreak hill might be, you know, to get a measurement of my stupidity. I'm told it's about 12 miles away.
So I'm standing at the gas station, debating if I should just give up and ride home to Albuquerque, or turn around, trek the 12 miles back, and get back on course and try to finish the century, only now it would be a century and a quarter.
Eventually I decide to turn around and try and finish. Mostly because I didn't really want to deal with my friend teasing me about doing the Santa Fe century and ending up in the wrong city at the end of the day. I figured if I turned around, maybe I could just not tell anybody that I missed the turn.
So eventually I find my way back on course. Coming back it seems pretty ridiculous to have missed the turn, except that I'm pretty sure no signs were posted, as there had been every turn before that.
Basically from there my experience was much like the couple thousand other people that did the ride that day. It's a great course. It's really fun to be on the road with that many other cyclists. I met a few new people, ran into a few customers and friends, and hopefully hundreds of other riders noticed me riding along in my pretty new Bikeworks jersey (and wind vest and matching arm warmers at the beginning of the day when it was cold).
I finally finished the ride a little bit after 2pm. Danny finished a little bit after noon. I eventually learned that had I not missed the turn, I would have caught Danny and co at the rest stop at the bottom of heartbreak hill, as they waited there to regroup and I was only minutes behind at that point. Nothing like adding insult to injury.
In the end, everything worked out though. I'm glad I went ahead and finished the ride. Pretty sure that is the biggest day I've ever had on a road bike. And even though I could have claimed a mechanical for my serious delay, and avoided the embarrassment of being the guy who missed the turn, I couldn't help but share my stupidity with others. I guess I'm just special.

More Bike Event Action!

Tomorrow, Tuesday May 12th, kicks off the Tuesday Night Crit series here in Albuquerque. The first of the races start at 5:30pm, and it takes place at Balloon Fiesta Park. Check out the flyer:

http://www.nmcycling.org/flyers/2009/2009_TNC_flyer.pdf

My understanding is that there will be different local shops out there every week. We will be out there tomorrow, planning on bringing our grill and beer. There seems to be some effort this year to create a more festive atmosphere at the races, which I am excited about. We will be out again on June 9th, and I believe at least one other time than that. Danny and I are planning on racing as many as possible, including tomorrow night. I encourage everybody to try and make it out.

Then this Sunday, as many people already know, is the Santa Fe Century. Definitely a classic and very well attended event. Looks like Danny and I will be out there, and hope to see some friendly faces.

May Racing: The Chile Challenge and The Pajarito Punishment

We've got a couple of cool events coming up.
Memorial Day weekend, running from Friday May 22 thru Monday May 25, the Chile Challenge is taking place in Angel Fire. Always a fun event, the Chile Challenge is the only race in the Mountain States Cup Series that takes place in New Mexico. Check out the website:

http://www.racemsc.com/events/chilechallenge.html

This year the race is a UCI points race for Downhill and 4X, which basically means there will be some badasses showing up, and there will be some good spectating to be had.
The list of sponsors is awesome as well. With Oskar Blues showing up giving away copious amounts of Dales Pale Ale, the best beer ever to come out of a can, Maverick sponsoring the Super D race, and our friends at Tomac showing up, there will be plenty of sweet bikes to oggle and cool people to chillax with.
The Downhill course is a former World Cup course, the XC is notoriously brutal, 4X is always entertaining, and the Super D is supposedely more "D" than "super." With a little short track XC racing thrown in, it is bound to be a great weekend.

As we have a habit of doing from time to time, we are going to close up shop so that we can go enjoy the festivities in Angel Fire. We are going to be closed that Saturday (May 23rd) and Monday (May 25th). So if you don't think you can get through the weekend without seeing us, you'll just have to go up to Angel Fire with us.

Then, the following weekend is the Pajarito Punishment, at the Pajarito Ski Area in Los Alamos. This year, there will be the XC race on Saturday, followed by a Downhill race on Sunday. Check out the sites:

Pajarito Punishment XC Race
Pajarito Punishment DH Race

Rumor has it that Bikeworks and Transition are going to be raffling off a frame for all DH racers that enter. Another rumor has it that there will be schwag from Troy Lee, 661, Magura, Commencal, Tomac, and Bikeworks given away at the DH race as well as beer from Marble Brewery. And further rumors will have you believe that the course is going to be rad, as it is being designed with the help of local pro Chris Boice, and local Bikeworks racer Vince Sanchez. Everbody who knows Chris and Vince knows that they can put together a good trail.

There will be a trail building day this saturday, 5/9, meeting at 10am in the lodge to help get the trail set in.

And that pretty much covers what we're excited about right now at Bikeworks.

Single Speed World Championships and other assorted awesomeness.

Don't know if you're familiar with the Single Speed World Championships, but if not, here's a quick synopsis: Each year the winner gets to choose the location of the next years event, and is basically in charge of all the details. The most consistent thing from year to year seems to be that the winners get commemorative tatoos. If I remember correctly, a few years ago there was the bike race, but the winner was actually decided with a go-kart race. That's my kind of racing. It's hard to take too seriously, and at the same time, it's an incredibly difficult race.
Last year was in Napa Valley, and registration was online and filled up in a matter of hours. This year it's in Durango, registration was via a mail in coloring contest, and I got in!
Check out the start list:
sswc09 Start List
Right there on page twelve, listed just below Senor y Senora Turgeon, you will find Dan Lucero. Booya! I'm rather excited.
I have to say thanks to the Turgeons, without whom I might very well have not made it in. See, I learned about the coloring contest a day or two after they announced it, and proceeded to procrastinate until very near the deadline, which was the 23rd of January. With only 500 spots available to men (all women who entered made it in), I learned a few days ago that the start list was already dangerously long, and that it was basically being filled on a first come first serve basis, not necessarily on the quality of the coloring jobs.
Luckily for me, Mr. Turgeon offered to hand deliver my app, as he is friends with the person you send them in to. This way I was guaranteed on time delivery, and as an added bonus, I was able to affix a 6 pack of hoppy delicious bribery to my application.
The plan seemed to pay off, and I am excited.
You will see some interesting names on the list, including Ned Overend, Joe Murray, Adam Craig, Travis Brown, and our own Richaround Rodriguez. Some legs will certainly be ripped off with the firepower found on that list, and Richaround and I will be there, huffing and puffing along miles behind as the dust settles.

In other news, we had us a good time on Wednesday, with a much larger showing of participants than we've ever rounded up for one of our monday adventures. We will play again this Wednesday, assuming it's not raining, as it might be, if you believe the weather people.
I was riding for the first time on my new race wheels on my Spot, a set of Stans 355 rims, laced up to an American Classic single speed QR hub in back, and a WTB Laserdisc Lite in front, with Revolution spokes. The wheels set came in at 1520 grams, which is lighter than most every road wheelset I've ever owned. To go with it, I put some Stans tires on there, running tubeless, and all said and done I shaved 3 lbs off my bike.
The wheels had a drastic effect on the bike. The lack of rotating inertia completely changed the way it handled. The tires weren't the grippiest things in the world, but not unmanageable. Not sure if I'll use them for Old Pueblo though, as I expect to be extremely tired at some point, and a more predictable tire might be a wise choice.
I'm going to write up a review on these wheels for posting over at BikeFix, probably after Old Pueblo and some significant abuse.
If you haven't checked out Bikefix lately, you should do so. Most recently Charlie has written a manifesto about tubeless tires. It's an impressive rant, and may seem excessive unless you've spent a significant amount of time in a bike shop in this part of the country in the past few years, dealing with non-believers and their flat tires. Or unless you happen to ride with people who won't use tubeless tires, and then you've spent hours watching flats be fixed while standing on the side of the trial, rather than riding, on a beautiful sunny day. I've fixed one flat while running tubeless in the past four years or so, that's all I have to say.

Lets see, what else is new around the shop? Danny and I are gearing up for 24 Hours in Old Pueblo. We're racing duo, on singlespeeds. The race is coming up quick. It looks like we've managed to latch ourselves onto some friends who camp in style, which we're very excited about, because if it was just Danny and I we'd probably be sleeping in the back of a car and living completely on Clif Bars.
Danny got himself a new fixie, and we have a couple of new toys in the shop lately, like a Van Dessel Ramble Tamble frame. I'll get some pics up soon of the new goodies hanging around the place.

I guess that's it for now.

A successful day in the foothills.

Sunday turned out to be a very fun and successful and tiring day.

Our morning started out by building a few demo bikes that were still in boxes, and had been driven to town the night before by our wonderful rep Cindy. Our bike building was severly hindered by the fact that Tony was playing his newest dvd, Nitro Circus 5, which proved to be the single hardest thing to ignore that has ever been put on a TV.
So we got to the foothills about 10:30, a little later than we had thought, but it didn't appear that anybody was too upset about it.

We then proceeded to set up the pop-ups and the flags, and then just watched the people come rolling in.



We got very busy for most of the day, with about 25 or 30 bikes being sent out for test rides during the course of the day. Not bad considering we had about 10 demo bikes.

Lucky for us Tony's parents, Tony Sr. and Rosemary, were on hand to make sure everybody was fed and happy.


Tony Sr. is a grilling machine. He basically had that thing loaded from noon till 5:30 or so when it got dark and we packed up.

The weather was perfect, unbelievably good luck for an outdoor event scheduled for the middle of November. I'm starting to think we might just go ahead and skip winter this year, and just hold onto fall until spring arrives.

Eventually the sun started to get low, the temperature began to drop (surprisingly quickly), and the crowd started to thin. We had a wonderful sunset to pack up with, and before I knew it, everything was loaded up and the day was over.


It was a fantastic day. It was really satisfying for us to have so many of our friends, family, and customers come out to congratulate us on getting through the first year of a new business.
At one point during the day Cindy told me that it was really cool how much family there was hanging out. I said something like "yeah, those are my parents over here, and Tony's parents over there..." and she said "no, I mean everybody. All these people love you guys, they're all like family." I thought that was pretty cool.

Thanks everybody for coming out and helping us celebrate.

One Year in Business: Suck that Economy!

We officially opened for business on November 15th, 2007. I believe that first day we sold one pair of knee warmers, or maybe some booties, and they might have been returned a couple days later.

But anyways, the fact remains, we've been open nearly a year, and everybody knows that the first year of a new business is extremely difficult, particularly when the world's economic foundations seem to be crumbling under our feet. So, we feel we deserve a celebration, which is planned as follows:

Date: November 16th
Time: From reasonably late in the morning, til the sun goes down
Where: Elena Gallegos Picnic Ground, group shelter
What: Pure amazingness, what else?

Here's the plan, we've rented the group shelter at the Elena Gallegos Picnic ground. We plan on occupying that shelter for the majority of the day. We plan on having copious amounts of food and beverage. Maybe a couch, maybe even a big screen to watch football on, if we can scrounge up a generator. Maybe some big propane heaters if its a cold day. Maybe a 20 piece mariachi band and a line of chorus girls, and a blimp flying overhead with a Bikeworks banner, and some circus elephants giving rides around the parking lot. Definitely free food and drinks though.

Furthermore, our lovely new Giant rep will be present with her demo fleet of 2009 Giants, for the people to enjoy. So you can cruise up, hop on a shiny new bike of your liking, take it for a spin of your preference, come back, and chillax with us, and start thinking about how you are going to trick your wife into letting you buy yet another bike.

So basically, you would be foolish not to come.

In other Giant Demo bike related news, we've got some Giant demo bikes in the shop these days. I've been meaning to put up a post all week with lots of fun pictures of all our new Giants that arrived, both for sale and demo, but it just doesn't seem to have happened. But they are there, pictures or not, and they are glorious.

Tomorrow, Tony will be riding the backside DH trails on our new Giant Glory DH demo. This bike is, how do you say, ah yes, bad to the bone, and I suggest you ride it. I know this may be short notice, as it's Saturday night, and he'll be up there starting Sunday morning, but maybe this can be a lesson to you that it's always a good idea to check this website each night before you go to bed, because sometimes really seriously awesome things go on that you need to know about.

Also, my lovely wife would like you to know that we scored some rad baby shoes at Savers today for $3.99, and basically, things are good. But don't go getting all greedy and buying up all the baby shoes at Savers, because that wouldn't be nice for the rest of us.

Our other Giant demos for the shop include a Large Reign 0, which is a 6" travel model, and soon we'll have a Med Trance X1, which is a 5" travel model, and Julian said if you ask nicely he will let you try out his Lil' Giant, which is the dopest tricycle you have ever seen.

Now I got to go. Stay cool.

Survived another Interbike

Well, we made it to Vegas and back, our whirlwind 48 hour trip went pretty well.
Flying out at 7am Weds morning, got in last night at about 1am.
Did a little partying for our one night there, no need to go into details though.
Actually, we're all pretty tame and lame. Went to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner, which remains my single favorite thing to do in Vegas. It's really nice that Interbike coincides with Oktoberfest. It is not nice, however, for the ol' liver.
We also made it to the New World Disorder premier. I don't remember which # they are up to, but it's pretty high. The movie was really good, the premier party and the club at which it was located left something to be desired, but we had a good time.

The show seemed to be pretty productive. Our experience was quite a bit different than last year, when Danny and I wandered around trying to get brands, getting generally ignored and blown off, mostly because we didn't actually have a shop yet.
This year, we're getting courted by reps from different brands, and people actually seem to care about meeting with us, you know, because, I don't know if y'all have heard, but, we're kind of a big deal around here.

I think the coolest bike I saw at the show was the 11th anniversary limited edition Surly 1x1.
The bike had 24" Large Marge rims (same width as the found on the Pugsley, I believe) with 3-something inch wide slicks on it. I don't know why, but I saw that bike, and instantly wanted to own it. Not many other bikes at the show had that effect on me.

Back at the shop this morning, all three of us operating at about 60%. I think we were all hoping for a nice and slow day, but that wasn't to be. We pretty much had everybody we know who rides bikes drop by to say hi at one point or another. It's really nice to be so busy, I just wish sometimes I could be in charge of what days we are busy, and what days are slow.
And as Danny's lovely special lady friend would say, "do you want me to call the wambulance?"

A lot of guys were getting ready to head up to Pajarito tomorrow for their last hoorah of the summer, which is reportedly going to include a collection of breweries, bands, and of course some lift assisted mountain biking.
Tony will be there, doing what Tony does best. If Danny and I weren't working, we'd be there to, and if you're not working, I'd strongly suggest that's were you get to.
It's going to be a good time.

That's about all I'm good for. Hasta la taco.

Red Bull Burner: 12 Hours of Downhill fun!

We'd been hearing about a 12 hour race that was going to happen in Angel Fire in September. Hadn't seen anything official, but Tony said it was going on, so we had faith (Tony seems to know these types of things).

Today we received posters and some more info on the event. It's definitely going on, and we're definitely going to be there. Tony is planning on racing it solo, and the shop is going to be closed that day so we can all be up there. Perhaps Danny and I will do a little racing too. Or we might just hang out and fix bikes and build wheels for Tony, as it will surely be an abusive day for equipment.

Rumor has it that there will be some big names at the event, such as the Atherton siblings. This event may be a qualifier of sorts for other Red Bull DH events, so it is reasonable to expect some pros showing up. $5,000 cash is a pretty good reason to show up too.

We've also been hearing the Angel Fire has a new DH course built recently, dubbed "B Line". I guess the owners of Chili Pepper, who have a shop now in Angel Fire, have been putting in the man hours behind the shovel to add some new fun on the face of the mountain.

Anybody who showed up for the World Cup in 2005 knows that Angel Fire knows how to host an event properly, and this is guaranteed a good time.

In preparation, Tony will be in Pajarito this Saturday with the usual suspects, ripping up their new line that is supposed to be packed full of delicious doubles. Hopefully I'll be catching up with them Saturday night in Angel Fire so we can have a full day of riding on Sunday. Stop by the shop or give a shout if you want to catch up on either day.

Hope to see you out there.

Rocky Mountain Demo Update!

We've made a last minute change of plans.
We are relocating our Rocky Mtn. Bike-BQ to the Tuesday Night Crit, which starts tomorrow (May 6th) at the Baloon Fiesta Park.
Tuesday Night Crit info can be found here....
http://www.nmcycling.org/flyers/TNC_flyer.pdf

We think it will be fun, there should be a lot of bikers there, the crit is always a good time, and Danny and I wanted to race, so we decided to move our shenanegans to the crit.

We'll be bringing our BBQ and beverages, and tail-gating bike dork style.

Hope you all can make it.