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:
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.
This is a Commencal Skin, full carbon 26" hardtail. Built with Sram XX Gruppo, and Edge rims on American Classic hubs with DT Swiss Aero spokes. Also, we took a 150mm DT Swiss fork with a 15mm thru axle, and shrank it down to 130mm. Also, he is trying out Hope's newest lightest Race something or rather brakes, which have an unbelievable amount of machining on them and seem pretty sweet.
The bike came out at just over 21 pounds, with some fairly heavy tires on it (700 something gram UST WTB's). With some lighter tires, it'll be under 21 lbs easily. Not the lightest carbon hardtail in the world. However, we have no concerns with putting a 200lb powerhouse like Charlie on this bike, so all things considered, it's pretty freaking light.
A staunch believer in the "more bikes is better" mantra, Charlies other other new bike rolled in the door the same day I was building his Commencal:
A few weeks ago Lynksey put a notice up on their website that they now had a Lefty compatible Pro 29 frame available, complete with BB30 bottom bracket. Well, it was just ridiculous enough to get Charlie to bite. It came in yesterday. The lefty is their second lightest one made, at just under 3 lbs, it's all carbon-y and lopsided looking and stuff.
We haven't quite settled on how this is going to be built, or if it's even going to have gears or be a single speed (the frame is equally adept at both). I say "we" because clearly this isn't up to Charlie, but more of a group decision.
German makers of ridiculous bike parts Tune recently unveiled a Lefty compatible hub, that weighs just 86 grams. It currently has my vote for this bike. Of course, he would have to get their new rear hub to match:
This rear hub has one moving part, has magnets in the freehub body (instead of spring, I think), and weighs just 150 grams. How much does it cost? No idea. But it sure looks radtarded to me.
Busy day at the shop. Drinking beer and watching the Lobos play. At least the beer is good, because the game is disgusting.
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.
So it was beautiful out yesterday, which didn't do me much good as I was stuck in the shop.
Then it was very nice looking early this morning, when I was awake, but didn't want to be awake (the toddler decides when it's time to get up, as many of you know).
Then, about the time of morning that I start thinking about going for a ride, it was suddenly snowing and very crappy looking out.
Then, a couple hours later, bam! Sun is out again. I quickly got my things together, went and picked up Paul, and headed for the south foothills.
I was a little surprised at how few people were out there today. I was expecting there to be a swarm headed up to the trails as soon as the sun popped out, but it was actually pretty low traffic. Paul and I got in a typical South foothills loop, which is getting a little repetitious after such a long winter, but it was particularly satisfying because it felt like we had cheated the weather. Not long into our ride we could see some serious clouds looming over the West Side. And not long after that, the clouds had made their way to us. We finished our ride, got in the battlewagon, and were pulling out of the parking lot just as raindrops began to fall and the wind really began to howl.
HA! Take that you stupid never-ending winter! You give me 3 hours of sunshine, and I will make the most of it. I was pretty proud of myself.
As we drove away, I had this song in my head....
BRAIN DJ! BOOYA!
I would like you to notice that the above video has a 5 star rating, with 4,706 votes, and has been viewed 2,514,471 times in the past couple years. What does that mean? I'm thinking it's time for Sir Mix Alot's comeback and world tour, personally.
This song has a tendency to come on one of the Pandora stations we often listen to at the shop. And when it does, it has a tendency to be awesome and get stuck in my head for at least the rest of the day.
The only downside? No Albuquerque shout out.
So I haven't been posting as much lately. Mostly because of Mario Kart. I have been playing the hell out of some Mario Kart lately, and my "posting on the website" time and my playing Mario Kart time are the same time of the night. Sometimes you have to make priorities.
For at least the past week I've been meaning to get some nice pictures posted of the shop, now that it is all put back together a pretty. It really is an amazing difference. However, I have not taken those pictures.
If you haven't been by yet, you should come by and give us lots of compliments about how awesome it looks, because that makes us happy.
And while you are there, you should help us drink out beer. Last week we picked up a keg of Marble Brewery's Triple IPA. It is a big mean beautiful beer, and incredibly strong, which means it will probably take us a while to get through the whole thing. So do Dan and Dan's livers a favor and come drink a couple with us.
One of our regulars just dropped off two external hard drives, both full of music. Nearly a terabyte of music, he said. That's approximately a bazillion songs. That is going to be fun for a while.
It seems like most everybody who rides a mountain bike headed up to Sedona this weekend for some good times. Apparently the Sedona "Spring Fling" mountain bike gathering is a regular thing, although to the best of my knowledge I've never really heard of it before. Perhaps I'm just not cool enough to get invited along.
Have you all heard about the 24 Hours in the Enchanted Forest Race yet? http://www.24enchantedforest.com/
New Mexico finally has it's own 24 hour race! It's looking like the plan is a casual, 4 or 5 person Bikeworks Team. My goals will be a successful first camping trip with my wife, son, and new baby (coming in May), and a camp fire with beer flowing for the entire race. I think that sounds good.
Well, I'm trying to think of what other awesomeness has happened lately, but mostly I just want to put the computer away and get on with some serious Mario Karting.
Well, it's been a long week.
Last Thursday we boxed up the entire store, and moved everything from the east half of the store onto the west half of the store.
It was less than fun.
Then the contractor and crew moved in at 7am Friday and started working. Our friend Greg Joseph, of Joseph Homes did the work for us. We have been nothing short of absolutely impressed with his work. We gave him vague instructions like " a wall over there, a shelf over here", and what we got came out looking far better than we had been imagining. And also he is a mountain biker, so you know he's cool. Check out his website:
The last of the construction crew was out of the shop by Tuesday morning. And then we began re-assembling the store.
Tuesday was a long day. Tony picked me up at 6:30am at my house, and dropped me off that night at 10:30pm.
We are thrilled with how the shop is looking though. The last picture above is from Tuesday night. I don't have any from yesterday or today, but things just keep looking better.
We have drastically increased our storage space, and are making much better use of the little space we have.
Stop by and check it out when you get a moment. Hopefully tomorrow we will have the last of the boxes off the sales floor. Then I'll take some more pictures and post them.
Thanks everybody for being so patient with yet another weird weekend closure for us, and the longer delay in repair turnaround etc.
