Been off so long, can't remember what day it is.

Chatting with Danny yesterday, he mentioned that he had managed to forget what day of the week it was, and that made him happy. I think that is a good sign of a successful vacation. And a well needed one at that, since it only took a few days to get there.
"Hello brain, I won't be needing you for a few days, so I'm just going to go ahead and leave you at the shop on my work bench."

It's been a nice little break for the three of us. Thanks to all our understanding customers for putting up with our unconventional business hours (or lack thereof).

I did manage to get a couple of rides in during my time off, inbetween serious sessions of eating, drinking, and slouching like a teenager in front of the T.V. (I was at my parents place most the time). One ride in La Tierra (Santa Fe) with my Pops, on singlespeeds, for a couple of hours. And then again today (monday) in the foothills with Charlie.

Charlie and I rode some of the "far north" foothills, the connector from the Tram House to the La Luz road, and then some trails in the hills north of there. We rode for a few hours, in the foothills, primarily on trails that I had never done before. And they were good, and legal, and in the foothills. It was sweet. These "new" miles will come in handy this winter when the east mountains are snowed in and I'm putting in way too many days in on the foothills.

There were scenic views:


I rode Charlie's O.G. Maverick, his 10 year old ML7. That bike still rocks.


There were even some pucker moments on the trail:




And the weather was as good as you could possibly ask for:

I really like living in Albuquerque.

Bikeworks Holiday Hours

Never one to pass up an opportunity to not work.....

We will be closed:

Thanksgiving (Thursday) November 26

Friday November 27

Saturday November 28

and Sunday / Monday, the 29th & 30th (as usual).

That would be five days off in a row, HA!

I will be checking email periodically while we are closed, in an attempt to be somewhat helpful to our customers while slacking for 5 days.

We will return on Tuesday December 1st for normal hours, all full of vim and vigor.

Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for being our customers!

Roller Races are Go!

Thanks to our friend Elliot, we are up and running at the shop with the roller races. The requisite computer knowledge to make it all go was miles above our heads, so we outsourced with great results.
Saturday was pretty much derailed due to our distraction from the races.
I just spent a few minutes looking through YouTube trying to find a cool video of some roller racing, as I didn't take any pics or anything on Saturday. I have come to the conclusion that roller races are a blast to participate in, and absolutely horrible to watch on video.
You will just have to come by the shop and see how fun it is for yourself. We are using the fork mounts for the rollers, so there really isn't any skill involved, therefore nobody has an excuse to keep from playing.
After a little more time getting the whole "system" sorted with the hardware and the computer and the bikes and all, we'll start working on booking the shenanigans at a brewery or bar.

Cross bikes, mtn bikes, computers and beer...

Did another cross race last weekend, and there's plenty more to come this weekend:

http://nmcycling.org/flyers/2009/TijerasNightCyclocross20091021.pdf

The Tijeras Night Cross race is supposed to be one of the best of the year around here, according to some reliable sources.

Played hooky yesterday and did a fantastic Otero / Cedro all day Mtb. ride. It was very good times. Except for a few short muddy sections, the trails were dry and generally in fantastic shape.

I did manage to get a little too excited at one point, and thoroughly slap myself onto the ground. It appeared as though a smaller rock dislodged under my tire, resulting in the highest speed endo I can ever remember having. Fortunately I landed in-between rocky sections and on relatively soft dirt. Had the wind knocked out of me, seems that I hit my head (sunglasses came off), but only minor scratches really. I think I got lucky. Strangely, I remember thinking shortly before I wrecked "who was it that just told me about wrecking on this trail?..... wow, I'm going fast, I sure am glad Charlie had a helmet to loan me.. WHAM!". I guess I should have been thinking about where I was going.

I have no choice but to entirely blame Charlie for this crash:

Once again, I found that I completely love my Maverick ML8. It has enough travel to get you into trouble, but it also will get you out of trouble when you get in over your head (usually). Sometimes though, better judgement takes over no matter the bike you are on, and you decide just to stay on the ground:

In the end, I think we did about 25 miles, and it was fantastic. I've been hearing there might be some weather rolling in, so there's a good chance that was my last ride in the east mountains until the spring. So glad we made it out, I definitely didn't ride out there enough this year.

Every time I go ride in the Sandias or in the East Mountains, I get so happy that I live in Albuquerque. We have so many miles of unbelievable singletrack within 20 minutes of the city, it's just ridiculous (don't tell anybody, the lack of trail traffic is a blessing too).

In shop news, our Roller Sprints electronic hardware and rollers arrived today. Unfortunately, the software that accompanies the electronics we bought is proving to be a little over Danny and my heads, as far as all that is required to get the thing wired up and talking to the computer.

You see, my level of computer sophistication has me very comfortable with software that requires you to click one button to download, then a second button to install and run. On occasion there is a little box that must be checked saying you agree to something or rather, and maybe the option to choose "standard" or "custom" installs (always go with "standard", duh).

This software, however, had us downloading all sorts of different files, pieces of code, strange code editing software, and all other sorts of shenanigans from different places. I was uncomfortably remembering things I kind of learned in college 8 years ago when I took that one programming class that was required:

"hmmm, 'putty', 'Linux', thats sounds familiar. I think we're looking at the actual program code. This isn't good Danny, maybe we should wait 'til tomorrow and just call the guy."

The sparse instructions quickly left us hanging, and with the distinct impression that whoever wrote the instructions severely overestimated our level of computer-dork speak. We're gonna get on the phone tomorrow, and hopefully force somebody to walk us through it slowly and painfully one step at a time.

And if that works out, we will be up and pedaling our asses off while going nowhere by the end of the day.

If it doesn't work, I will be calling out to all our computer savvy friends and customers to come by and make it go for us. We fix bikes, you fix computers, that's the way it should be.

Once it's up and running, we plan to set about getting a schedule of venues at which to hold roller racing events. All venues will be place where alcohol is served, hopefully. There has been a lot of excitement from everybody we've talked to so far. We'll keep you posted.

Hmmm, it's 10pm. Is that too late for one more beer?

We got out for a long ride yesterday. I thought I'd share a few pictures for you. Some of you folks in the colder parts of the country might get jealous about our weather- and you should. Move here and enjoy it with us. By the way Dan wrecked in grand fashion. He said he was OK and finished the ride strong, but the next day he was a bit sore along the entire length of his right side. Be nice to him.