Fourth of July Sale! BMC Trailfox Closeout! Rocky Mountain Instinct and Thunderbolt Closeout! Exclamation Points!!

Happy Fourth of July everybody!
Since the 4th lands on a Friday this year, we have decided to make it a nice long weekend and be closed on the 5th as well.  Here it is again in big type, for those not actually reading this...

WE WILL BE CLOSED THE 4TH AND 5TH OF JULY!!!

Besides, we plan on celebrating the 4th so thoroughly that you really wouldn't want us working on your bikes the next day anyway.  Personally, I think a 30 pack of American Flag Budwisers is in the plan, because what's more American than that?

In other news, if you live in Albuquerque, you may have noticed it's kind of crazy hot out lately. And you may have also heard that our local forests will be closed as of Monday June 30th.  So, we have decided it is time to put some mountain bikes on sale.  Lets call it the...

FIRST ANNUAL BIKEWORKS FOURTH OF JULY 4 DAY SUPER SALE!

There are a few different models that we still have good stock on, and my ADD is kicking in, as they've been in the shop for a few months now and I want to sell them so I can look at something new.

Firstly, we have the BMC Trailfox.  We stocked to models this year, the carbon TF02 XT and the alloy TF03 SLX.   

The Trailfox is a 150mm travel 29er.  It is big, and fast.  It was built for BMC's pro Enduro team to tackle the Enduro World Cup with. You would never guess that is has 150mm travel while climbing, it pedals firmly and efficiently.  And then it descends like a DH bike.  

The TF02 features a carbon front triangle and alloy rear, a straight XT build kit, a Reverb Stealth dropper post, and a Fox 34 Talas fork, amongst other features.  Originally $6499, we are taking $1500 off and blowing them out for $4999.  We have a new Small and Medium new in stock. We also have a Large "demo" that Lucero hasn't let anybody else ride.  It has some parts swapped out on it, and you will have to talk to him about price if you are interested.

And the slightly more budget friendly TF03 with SLX build, features a full alloy frame for long term durability and peace of mind.  This bike still gets an awesome Easton cockpit, fool proof DT Swiss wheels, the Fox 34 CTD fork, and a straight SLX drivetrain.  Originally $3999, we are knocking a cool $1000 off, putting it at $2999. We have these currently in Small, Medium and Large.  

From Rocky Mountain, we have the Thunderbolt 750

The Thunderbolt is a new model for Rocky for 2014, with 120mm travel and 27.5 wheels.  A very playful "aggressive XC" bike, this one seems to have the Goldilocks amount of travel for most of our local rides.  A rugged alloy frame with Rocky's fool proof ABC pivot sytem and a build kit that strikes the perfect balance between performance and price, this is a workhorse of a bike that will happily go about its business for years without complaint.

Originally $3299, we have a new Medium and Large at 20% off, now $2639.  We also have this bike available for demo in Small, Medium, and Large.  The demo bikes will be for sale when the new models are gone, and price will vary based on condition.

We also have the Instinct 950

The Instinct is a 130mm travel 29er with Rocky's super adjustable geometry Ride 9 system.  It is a versatile bike that can tackle anything from big mountain endurance assualts to racy cross country riding.

Originally $3099.99, we are taking 20% off, so you can grab it now for $2479. We currently have one in Medium and one in Large. 

Lastly we have one Instinct 950 MSL Carbon demo bike still available for both demo and sale.  

Originally $3999, we have the one demo bike available in large for sale at a cool $1000 off, putting it at $2999 for one lucky person.

Thats it for now, but keep your eyes peeled as we will be combing through the rest of our inventory and picking out other models the put on sale.  You can expect 20% discounts in general.  So come on by this week and check out some deals!

Closed for the Weekend!

Hey! We are out this weekend! Closed Saturday 5/17 and Sunday 5/18.
Come join Lucero on Sunday for the Santa Fe Century!
See you Monday, have a good weekend!

Ladies Night @ Bikeworks! And Rocky Mountain and Liv/Giant Demo Day!

Hey Everybody!
We've got some events coming up.

On Thursday May 1st, we will be having a ladies night at the shop, from 6 to 8pm.

Caroline from Liv/Giant (the women's specific division of Giant Bicycles) will be giving a basic bike repair clinic.  She will cover changing flats, and safety checking a bike, and other skills like that.
There will be beer (of course), and some sort of delicious mixed beverage likely containing gin (thanks to our friend Sara, who makes the best gin and tonic in town), and delicious snacky treats.
The event is free, and Caroline will be bringing schwag for attendees.
It will be a fun event, with the chance to learn a little something new, and perhaps meet some cool new people and future riding buddies.

On Saturday May 3rd we will have both Rocky Mountain and  Liv/Giant's demo rigs here.  We will be set up at the Coyote Trailhead in Tijeras from 9am to 3pm (ish).

Caroline will be running the Liv/Giant rig, and will have a selection of both road and mountain bikes, all women specific.
Road models will include the Avail, the Envie, and the Invite.

(The Liv/Giant Envie Advanced 1, the worlds first women's specific aero road bike.)

The mountain bikes are all 27.5 wheels, and there are both hardtails and full suspension. Demo models include the Obsess, the Lust, and the Intrigue.

(The Lust Advanced 2, one of our best selling bikes this year so far.)

At the shop we have been selling the new Lust, 100mm travel full suspension model  like crazy this year.  We have been seriously surprised at how popular they are, and we just received our 3rd re-stocking order in this week.

Rocky Mountain will have a selection primarily of their full suspension mountain bikes, including:

 the Element (100mm 29er),

the Instinct (130mm 29er)

the Altitude (150mm 27.5er),

and the new Thunderbolt (120mm 27.5er).  

There will also be some of the super light and fun Vertex carbon hardtail 29ers on hand.

So if you want to find out what all the fuss about 27.5 is about, or can't decide between 29 and 27.5, or just want to come and discover how badass Rocky Mountain bikes are, please stop by!

The event is free, but please bring a drivers license and credit card.  Also, please bring your own pedals if possible.

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you soon!

Devinci Atlas Carbon Custom Build, 23.5 Pounds!

We recently decided that the Devinci Atlas Carbon frameset sitting on our wall needed to be built. And it needed to be light, with XX1, and a new Rock Shox SID, and ENVE bits, etc.

So we built it, and it is awesome.  With some Stan's ZTR Crest wheels, the bike weighed in at 23.5 lbs with Albuquerque worthy Continental Protection tires and plenty of sealant.

We chose the sweet new SID RCT3 with 120mm travel to compliment the 110mm of rear suspension. We have been enjoying the SID, it's plush and weighs just 3.48 pounds on our scale.

We feel like with the amount of travel, playful geometry and super light weight, this bike will be a fantastic 12 and 24 hour racer, but with the right geometry to be your fast trail bike as well.

We have it priced at $5,750, which we feel is a pretty good deal when you compare it to Devinci's Atlas Carbon SL which is priced at $6,300 and isn't as well spec'd.

So there you have it. Come by and take a gander, before Lucero takes it home.

Race Report: 12 Hours of Old El Paso with the Doctors

Last Friday afternoon I (Lucero) found myself headed to El Paso to check out the12 Hours of Old El Paso race for the first time. I had heard good things about the race, and I hadn't ridden a bike in the Franklin mountains in over ten years, when I raced the Coyote Classic "back in the day".  This time I was traveling with Dave and Brad, a couple of my favorite Doctors.

The entire drive down was windy, and it just got windier as we got closer to El Paso.  By about 10pm on Friday night the wind was blowing so hard we could feel our hotel getting pushed around a little, and I started wondering if the window in our room was going to break.

I took a lousy photo of the flag outside our room, that was getting abused by the wind. It's a lousy photo, but here it is anyway...

(I assure you, that flag was hanging on for dear life)

Fortunately Saturday morning came with just light winds and scattered clouds, with a high in the 60's, it was pretty nice weather for riding.

After breakfast we were detoured thanks to the NM Sports Online website, which had Google Map directions linked to the race for somewhere in the middle of the Franklin State park, and about half an hour from the actual location of the race.

Eventually we were able to figure out the actual location, and signed into the race about ten minutes before the start.  This made me really appreciate the unusually late 10am to 10pm format for this race.  Not being an early morning person, I thought 10am was a great time to start an all day ride.

The three of us had registered solo, and we pretty much stuck together the entire race, starting each lap at the same time.  It is a fun way to do an endurance race when you aren't there to try and win.

The view from our "camp" looked like this...

The Franklins are pretty rugged mountains.  The terrain was fairly similar to our foothills trails here in Albuquerque, but I have been told that this race pretty much used all the easiest trails around.  With the lack of trees, and mean sharp rocks everywhere, I can imagine some pretty gnarly trails around there.

The course was listed as 9.5 miles, but they decided to tack on some extra and it ended up 11 miles long.  It was a fun course, 75% or so singletrack.  Almost all the climbing was done on sandy two track roads.  There were only a couple miles or so of smooth twisty trail throughout the course, the rest of it was all pretty rough over small rocks.  I was definitely happy to have rear suspension for the race, it was not a course I would have wanted to do more than a couple of laps of on a hardtail.

I was riding my new Giant Trance Advanced SX 27.5. 

I have been riding this bike since October, and I am completely enthralled with it.  The build spec on it is fantastic, and the only component that I have changed is the saddle.  It's pretty rare that I will leave a bike stock out of the box, having become rather picky after 15 years of working in bike shops, but I didn't even swap out the stem or grips on this one, it just fit so well.
The course was definitely manageable on a shorter travel bike, but there were a few spots where the long travel and aggressive tires payed off.

The stock saddle is a Fizik Gobi, which has never fit me well. So I decided to try something new and I got the Sq Labs 611 saddle that we started carrying recently.

A German company owned by physicians, this saddle has a "stepped" design that perches you up on your sit bones and reduces contact with the other "soft tissue" areas, or the "scranus" if you will.

I rode the saddle for about an hour before taking it to the race for a real trial by fire.  And I was extremely pleased to find that after over 6 hours and 66 miles of riding, the saddle was perfectly comfortable and I wasn't thinking about it at all.  The shape really does seem to minimize contact area with the saddle, which I like.  I also found that on very steep climbs, when you scooted toward the nose that is was still supportive and the stepped up area in back gave you something to kind of push against.

The saddle comes in four different widths, I was using the 14cm wide model, and I have no plans to take it off my bike anytime soon.

SQLabs 611 Saddle Web page 

Back to the race, we were riding together and enjoying ourselves.  The laps took about an hour each, and we were taking pretty leisurely pit stops between each lap.  My pit stops consisted of refilling my one water bottle of Tailwind, checking over my bike to see if anything rattled loose, and stretching.

We started selling Tailwind about a year ago.  It is an all in one drink mix that is designed to be the only thing you need for hydration and nutrition during an endurance event.  It is easy to mix, easy to drink, and it really seems to work.

http://www.tailwindnutrition.com/

Having a simple plan for nutrition is extremely nice once you start getting tired and simple things get difficult. I had a pretty big Denny's breakfast, and then just drank a bottle with about 2 scoops of Tailwind per lap.  After lap 3 I smelled some burgers grilling and suddenly I wanted to eat.  So I had a handful of Triscuits and a Hammer Bar. But on lap 4 I felt terrible. So I went back to just Tailwind.  At the end of the race I wasn't hungry, and I hadn't come even close to bonking or having leg cramps, and I always have trouble with leg cramps.
Granted, this wasn't a 24 hour race, and I wasn't pushing the pace.  But considering my complete lack of fitness going in, I'm really impressed with how good I felt just drinking Tailwind, and I plan on doing the same thing for my next race.
Apparently a lot of our customers have had similar experiences, because we can't hardly keep the stuff on the shelf.  Every flavor seems popular, and every time we re-order we seem to increase our order size by 50%.

Dave and Brad are also fans of the Tailwind, but they were supplementing with more other foods, such as bananas and baked potatoes.

The weather held out, and we had a great time putting in laps under the February Texas sun.

We finished lap 5, and decided to head out for a final 6th lap as the sun was setting.  I think we all had enough in us to do 7 laps, but it would have been spent entirely out of the fun zone and in the suffering zone, which is a hard place to convince myself to go lately.  And there were beers waiting.

So we finished up lap 6 at around 7pm, promptly packed up the car, and headed out in search of a hot shower and a good restaurant.

It was a great weekend, and I hope to make it out again next year.