Maximum Extreme Awesomeness!

If you read How to avoid the bummer life, then you probably saw this clip:



Which really isn't funny unless you've seen this first:



I find both strangely entertaining.

So I'm thinking top of copper for tomorrow nights ride. As usual, 7:00pm is a realistic start time. Please join us.

And next wednesday, we are going to head out to Placitas to change things up. I'm hoping to leave the shop very close to 6:00. We will meet Juan y Pam, our Placitonian compadres, and they will show us all the wonders that are to be seen in Placitas. It's great riding out there, as our friend Chris puts it "it's like the foothills were ten years ago", which I translate to as "better than the foothills are now."

So be awesome, and join us.

Also, if anybody has been brain dj'd by either Charles in Charge theme song, or "On A Boat" I would really appreciate knowing it. It gives me great satisfaction.

Taints a Blazin'

Did a rather long fixed gear ride yesterday with Charles in Charge and Dr.Dave.



If only I could actually ride with Scott Baio. How sweet would that be?

The issue with long fixie rides is that you tend to spend a large amount of the time riding in the saddle, really just grinding away. Road bikes allow you to kind of shift positions around, stand up and coast, and generally get some grundle relief. But the fixie, not so much. I think it is really those long descents that make the difference, where you are just planted firmly on the saddle, spinning as fast as you can.
I rode from my place, pretty close to the shop, out to Corrales, and met Charlie and Dr.Dave. Then we took some odd route out through Rio Rancho to Unser Blvd, and rode that out into the middle of nowhere, past Mariposa and the Armory, and connected with 550. Then back into Bernalillo, out to the Jemez Dam just for good measure, and then back into 'Burque on the "low road." It was a good ride, but the bacon strip was screaming by the end. I was day dreaming about one of those obscenely nose-padded TT saddles by the end.

I've only really ventured into the heart of Rio Rancho a couple of times (is that a silly thing to say, is the "heart" of Rio Rancho an oxymoron?) I have to say, I find it weird to come across all those suburbs that are really just planted out there in the middle of nowhere. And that Mariposa development is even more in the middle of nowhere.

From the sound of it, Danny did a rather hard fixie ride yesterday as well. Except he was out with a couple of buddies with gears,and managed to end his ride coming down 9 mile hill back into town. That doesn't sound fun at all, but we'd expect nothing less from Danny.

Tony got back early this morning from a successful weekend of racing, with just enough time to get a couple hours sleep before coming into work. He pulled it off pretty well, it wasn't until this afternoon that I found out he hadn't gotten to bed until 5:30am, and I couldn't tell.
Tony finished 8th in the Pro Class, and our man Spangler finished second in his class, which I believe is Cat 2. Good work fellas.
Tony also added to the productivity of his weekend by procuring the ugliest pair of Adidas ever made. If you ever see him wearing them, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Lots of excitement in the shop today as a result of Tony's racing weekend and the first local road race of the season, Hillsborough, having been yesterday. We started sorting out the calender and deciding who would get to race which weekends. Hopefully with a little planning we can manage to have some fun during our busy summer season. Can't let our customers have all the fun, now can we?
I'm planning putting together a calender that will be view-able from the site that will let everyone know which races we're planning on attending, and correspondingly, what days this summer we plan on being closed.
We know, it's a pain having your favorite bike shop being closed on a Saturday in the middle of summer, but as I said, we can't let you guys have all the fun.

Friday the 13th, Bikeshop Style

After ten years of bike shop laboring, there's certain things that just really crush my spirit these days; fixing Wal-mart bikes, boxing bikes for shipping, f-ing with BMX style cranks, to name a few. Today was special, as most of those special soul destroying bike shop tasks seemed to roll in, one after another.

I was thinking Danny or I must have done something horrible to destroy our bike karma, but then I realized that today is Friday the 13th, so I'm going to go ahead and blame it on that

I shouldn't complain, but I'm still going to.
It's a good thing we have Tony, because if he was not around Bikeworks would be also known as "Two sourpuss crusty mechanics named Dan, who are probably going to give you dirty looks if you ask them to do anything less than their favorite thing in the world."

Speaking of Tony, he is off racing this weekend in Boulder City NV again. Don't even remember what the race was called, and I most likely won't have any awesome pictures to share with you because they won't bring me any back, so we'll just stop talking about that now.

My favorite new thing this week?
I'm linking it below, but consider this fair warning, it has lots of naurghty language. I was going to put in the edited version, as I try to keep things PG since this is a business site, and not truly my personal blog of nonsense, but it is just so much funnier with all the cussing, and quite honestly, if you are the type to be really offended by foul language then you probably aren't the type of person who thinks Bikeworks is the raddest bike shop ever.




It's incredibly stupid, just the way I like it.

It has been a long week.

Yet another post about Weds night rides

Just wanted to let it be known that I (lucero) fully intend to ride tomorrow night.
It will be fun to get out before it is totally dark for a change, and maybe we will get to see a sweet sunset from the trail.
I think if you are reading this, and you are in ABQ, you should join us.

Also, I think it is time to start switching up locations a bit for wednesday nights. We will stick with North foothills /top of Montgomery for tomorrow night, but next week we are totally going to do something more exotic, like perhaps far north foothills, south foothills, or even Cedro if its dry.

I have also decided to personally call out Kip the Malone Pony for tomorrow night. Kip, if you don't show up, an angel will lose its' wings, and a baby bunny rabbit will die a horrible death, and other things of the sort.
For those of you who aren't Kip, you should check out his website, which I cleverly linked above. He is a wicked mad awesome skilled photographer, and his website has cool photos on it, as you would expect.
Dang Kip, I totally plugged your site on my site, you totally owe me a beer now. You can bring it when you show up tomorrow night.

SS in S.Fe

Well, I lied about getting out to the east mtns this weekend. I ended up going to Santa Fe instead for a little time at my vacation home that I keep up there. It's really nice having a vacation home in Santa Fe. I'm really generous, so I let my parents live there, and keep all their stuff there, and even decorate it, and pay the mortgage, but it is still my vacation home.

Anyway, I rode for a couple hours at the Dale Ball trails, which were perfect on Sunday. The muddy spots had just completely dried, and the dirt had enough moisture in it still to provide superhero traction like we don't often get in NM.
Of course we woke up to snow covering everything Monday morning, so the trail conditions might not be good for a while again.

Papa Lucero and I were both riding our Spot Singlespeeds. While Pops has been running the belt drive for several months now, this was my first ride with the belt drive. I had swapped it out for a traditional chain drivetrain when I first got the bike, as I was using it specifically for racing Old Pueblo and wanted more gear ratio options than are currently available. But with the race over, I happily got the belt back on there, and enjoyed the slightly easier gear ratio that it provides.

I was amazed with the difference I felt riding the bike with a belt vs. a chain, with all other parts staying the same. I was very surprised with how much smoother the drivetrain ran. I knew it was smooth, but I had only ridden one around our parking lot before. When I was out on the trail actually cranking on the pedals, I could really tell a difference.
The other thing that I noticed, which surprised me, was that I was suddenly aware of how much free play my rear hub has in between engagement points. (It's an American Classic hub, I knew that it didn't have the fastest engagement when I bought it, but I didn't care because of its incredibly low weight.) My theory is that with the super efficient and snappy feeling belt in place, the engagement of the hub is more noticeable. Very fun stuff.

I haven't had any Spot Longboards with the belt drive in the shop for a little while now, but I have another on the way, being shipped with Charlie's next new bike, a Ti US Made Spot 29er, with a custom Spot steel rigid fork, and canti bosses, that Charlie has some obscure plan to make a commuter of some sort out of. Not exactly sure what his detailed plans for the bike are, but I'm sure it's going to be cool. I'll post pics.

I also finally signed up for Dawn 'til Dusk on Sunday. I'm going to be racing the Mens Duo Masters 80+ with Old Man Lucero. The category stipulates that the combined age of the two racers must be 80 or higher. Papa Bear is 54, I'm 26, and it's on! There will be a large number of Bikeworks friends and family out there for the event, and I strongly encourage anybody who is considering the race to come join us. The course is a great one, and the event is exactly what bike racing should be all about. The entry fee even includes a post race dinner served at the post race party. Good stuff.