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.

Swinton's Last Ride

We had a celebratory "Bachelor" ride for Danny yesterday, as he will soon be taken off the list of Albuquerque's most eligible redheaded bike nerd bachelors.

The ride was our local favorite, around the mountain (from town, out the low road to Bernalillo, through Placitas, up the dirt Las Huertas road, and back home through Cedar Crest and Tijeras).

There were seven of us in the end, J.F., Armijo, Guy, Brian, Brad, Danny and myself. Strangely, all seven of us forgot to bring water bottles, so we had to resort to drinking from flasks early on:

It was an overcast day though, so water didn't seem all that necessary.

We pit-stopped at the Placitas grocery store for some supplies.

And eventually a potty break was needed, or course:

We got to the steep climb out of Placitas all in one piece and feeling a little punchy:

But the dirt road took some victims.

Thanks to some brilliant team work from Brad, all attacks from John "the climbing specialist" Armijo were foiled, and Swinton found victory across the top of the dirt road climb. Or at least I assume he did, but honestly they were already out of my sight at that point.

Once we all emerged victoriously onto the Crest road, Danny decided that the suffering had only just begun, and pointed us up to climb the rest of the road. That turned out to be quite painful, and our group mostly came undone as we all struggled up the hill in our own personal battles against gravity.

I was quickly questioning my food decisions (sweet roll, beef jerky, Twix) and beverage decisions (whiskey, tequila, Rock Star, and a little water) of the day. By the time I reached the top, I knew I wasn't making it down without some food ( I was also questioning my decision not to bring any food), and took a pit stop in the little store at the top. I don't think a Coke in the can has ever tasted so good, nor have I ever drunk one so quickly.

The crew graciously waited for me to consume my sugar and allow my head to stop spinning, so that they could graciously drop me one at a time on the way down. My road descending abilities are truly atrocious. But as I watched Guy pass me, going at least 10mph faster and drafting off a minivan through a corner, almost instantly shooting out of sight, I made myself feel better by deciding that I would beat them all down a technical section of singletrack. Pffff, roadies.

The next stop was Ribbs, because nothing goes with big road rides better than red meat and pitchers of beer.

Clearly, Danny hadn't suffered nearly as much as me at this point:

The food and beer was plentiful and delicious:

The company and conversation was perfect:

We feasted, and then slowly and heavily climbed back on our bikes to work our way back into town.

Heading west across town on the bike path, I started noticing the shadows were getting long:

We had definitely been taking our sweet time, rolling back into Albuquerque probably somewhere around 5pm. I'm going to go ahead and blame our slow progress on all the flat tires.

It was getting late, but there was a couple more stops necessary:

Danny was presented with the literal ball and chain, constructed by J.F. I didn't pick it up, but it sure looked heavy.

Then he rode with it over to Guy's, where it was handcuffed to his wrist:

And then he had to ride the last leg of the journey, from campus area to downtown, holding this thing.

It was a great day.

Red Bull Burner 2009

News about this years of Red Bull's Burner for this year, but first this:

www.peopleofwalmart.com

Apparently I'm not the only one who often feels to be the most intelligent / attractive person in the store when I'm there.

Yeah, that looks about like our WalMart next door.

I have to thank my bro-ham Adrian for the link to that site. He lives in Sweden, so he must have been looking for a little something to remind him of home.

So, back to the Burner:


Red Bull is throwing down for the burner this year, putting it on their national calendar I believe. They are limiting it to 150 racers, registration will begin early next week. Check the website:

www.redbullburner.com

Tony and crew will be there to defend their 2008 Team champion title. Dans will be there to fix some busted ass downhill bikes for 12 hours (and drink beer). It will be good.

Adios

Vacation Time

It's time for a little time off for me (Lucero).

Heading out tomorrow afternoon for a few days in San Diego, to see what all the excitement is about with these "beaches" and this "ocean" I keep hearing about. I'll let you know if it's all that it's cracked up to be.

The interesting part may turn out to be flying with my 2 year old for the first time. I know people do it, but I'm a little nervous about it. Anybody have suggestions, a sedative perhaps? Maybe a bloody mary at the airport bar before takeoff.

I've got some new gear coming to the shop soon that I'm excited about. We're bringing in Wingnut bags:

wingnutgear.com

I picked up one of these bags (the Hyper 3.0) at the beginning of the summer, and it has since become my favorite and caused envy amongst Danny and Charlie.

So in a week or two, I'll have a full selection available. Why in a couple weeks? Well, they have to finish building the packs, since they are hand made in the USA, and you get to choose colors and such. My general impression is that they have much the same effect as an Ergon pack, with about a 100% simpler design. And, they have large pockets that are accessible while the pack is on, which is so convenient (and also, Wingnut came first, the packs are way lighter, and the pockets better organized).

If you have ever checked out our links section, you might have noticed a little blog called "How to Avoid the Bummer Life". And then you might have noticed that it no longer gets updated. It has been replaced:

http://www.allhailtheblackmarket.com/

which is where we came across this:



Which is amazing in its stupidity.

Also, we will be closed on Saturday September 12th. Why you ask? Well, come in the shop and ask Mr. Swinton.

Then, we will be closed again Tuesday Sept 22nd and Wednesday the 23rd, to attend the Interbike tradeshow in Vegas (assuming one of us gets around to buying some plane tickets). Don't worry though, we promise not to have any fun.

We will be open Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th of September, but I'm going to be in Durango racing in the Single Speed World Championships.

We will be open the Tuesday, Weds and Thursday of that same week, but Danny will be off doing something that has something to do with the Sept 12th thing.

And also, working backwards, we will be open Saturday the 5th, but Tony will be off attending some pre-wedding brou-ha-ha for some friends of his.

So basically what I'm getting at is September is going to be pretty nuts around Bikeworks.

Okay, time to pack my swim trunks. It's nearly time to unleash my farmers tan on the unsuspecting beach-goers of San Diego. Bwa ha ha ha.