Whirlwind trip to Santa Cruz

We packed the bus up Sunday after work and took off for a night of camping in Santa Cruz at New Brighton State Beach.  Jimmy Neutron, A1, Melinda (A1's wife), Claire, and I all piled into the Hub Bus and hoped for the best.  The next morning, after a breakfast of pancakes, we headed out on the Eureka Canyon loop.  A1 and Melinda were on their Cannondale tandem, Jim on his cross bike, and Claire and I were on our trusty Burley tandem.  The day before it had rained, but the weather was perfect for our ride.  Jim took off on the climb up Eureka Canyon, and when we met him at the top he had a huge smile on his face and was very excited about how great the climb felt.  It is a pretty gentle climb that goes on for around 10 or 12 miles.  After riding the ridge for a while, we got to drop back down to Santa Cruz We all agreed that the ride down Old San Jose Road was one of the best descents we had ever done.  After a quick stop at Pleasure Pizza for a couple of slices we headed home.

Claire has decided that we should be doing a classic ride every Monday.  Last week it was Pope Valley/Ink Grade, this week was the Eureka Canyon Loop, and I can't remember what comes next.  It is fun taking the employees out and showing them some of the loops we have been doing for years and years.

Biting off more than I can chew

Well, we got out for some rides on our "days off".  First on Monday, the day the shop is closed, after going in for six hours to try to catch up on things and place some big parts orders, Claire and I got out to Annadel for a nice little ride.  I rode my 1FG up RoughGo, which seemed a lot harder than it used to be.  Either I am getting older or the trail is getting bumpier.

On Tuesday, another day off, we spent about three hours in the morning putting together our big bike order with Giant.  After that we packed up our tandem and drove to Windsor where we parked and went out on a nice 40 miler.  The weather was perfect, and we stopped at the Jim Town store for some chocolate pudding and a couple of Bubble Ups.

On Wednesday, I got up with the great idea of riding over the geysers.  It has been quite a while since I have been out that way, and I was anticipating a good ride.  I figured 60 miles or so, Claire thought a little longer.  Anyway, it turned out to be 85 miles with a good headwind from Cloverdale home, which was the last 25 miles.  I had run out of water after going over the geysers, but wasn't worried since I was riding through Cloverdale.  I only had enough money for a bottle of water OR a bag of potato chips, so I just drank out of a hose and enjoyed the potato chips.  Needless to say, I was knackered by the time I got home, but it was a good knackered.

The Link

The Link is what Giant calls there annual dealer meeting. Their top 10% of dealers are invited, which we have been for the last three years. We are in our second full day here, and after a morning of seminars, we have gotten another chance for some demo riding. Today, at A1's request, I took out a 2011 Giant Trance X1. I have to agree with A1 on this bike. It climbs, it descends, and it is quick in the technical stuff. I sort of had two different rides on this bike. First I went off by myself and climbed to the top of the mountain. I rode the exact same route as I did yesterday on the Anthem X 29er. I felt like I was able to climb faster, and the technical switchbacks were definitely easier to negotiate. When I got to the top, there was a pretty good lightning storm going on, so they had shut down the lift. I had planned on meeting Claire up there, but she had gotten stuck at the bottom. I chose to ride down to meet her, and got a pretty good drenching on the way. The ground was perfect with the dust being packed down by the rain. The thrill of hearing the lightning and thunder happening almost simultaneously added to the excitement. At the bottom Claire and I took a couple of minutes to walk through the product gallery which featured all of the 2011 bikes and accessories. Here is a link to my ride.

When they opened back up the lifts, we were one of the first back on. Claire was riding a Reign X and was very impressed with Giant's brand new seat post which raised and lowered with the push of a lever on her bars. Our first run down was pretty uneventful, except for Claire getting a little sideways in a couple of corners. She managed to keep the rubber side down and we both finished with big smiles on our faces and raced back to the ski lift. We got another ride up and headed out for some very cool single track around the other side of the mountain. Well, we got a little lost, thank you very much, but managed to finally make it back only about an hour after the demo stuff was supposed to end. Both of us were a little bit on the dirty side, but we were in great spirits at the end and ready for a sit down dinner with a bunch of other dealers.
Here is a link to our ride.

Demo ride on Giant Anthem X 29er

I got the chance to take out an Anthem X 29er today for a very good test ride. I will post some pictures later on. I rode the chair lift up first and then rode the bike up second and then met Claire for two more chair lift rides. I really pushed myself on the climb, which felt great. The bike climbs great and it sure felt like it had more than 4 inches of travel on the down hills.

Utah

Well, Claire and I are here in Park City, Utah checking out the 2011 Giant Bicycle line. We arrived yesterday and are looking forward to some informative meetings and some demo rides.

Here is a picture of the plane they sent to pick us up.




- Posted by Chaz

Lake Tahoe

Well, Claire and I went to Lake Tahoe last week for four days of camping.  We camped at DL Bliss campground which is only a couple of miles away from Emerald Bay.  We spent our first day kayaking down to  Emerald Bay and out to the Tea House on Fannette Island.  We picnicked on the way back, and I even jumped in the water and swam for a bit while Claire towed my kayak.

The next morning I got up and climbed the 500 feet out of our campground to Hwy. 89 for a clockwise ride around the lake.  I had planned on taking it pretty easy, but I ran into a fellow who was getting ready for the district road race championships, and we traded turns pulling for a while.  George, that was his name, pulled off for some coffee after about 30 miles, and I rode on by myself.  At the 42 mile mark, I heard and felt a nice little click in my drive train.  I had just broken my chain a couple of weeks earlier, and figured that I must have cracked another link.  Well, that wasn't the problem, it turned out that I had broken the spring inside my Crank Bros pedal.  That meant I couldn't clip in for the last 33 miles.  It wasn't bad if I concentrated on keeping my foot in place, but as soon as I stopped thinking about it, my foot would slip right off.  This was a little disconcerting, mainly when I was climbing up around Emerald Bay at the end of the ride.  Anyway, I survived and felt quite good even at the end.

On Thursday, Claire and I did a 15 mile hike from our campsite over to Vikingsholm and then up to Eagle Lake.  The hike was much tougher than the ride around Tahoe.  We both had some good blisters to show for it, but we were lucky enough to have some homebrew waiting back at the campsite for us.

Younger Chaz

B B and B

Well, yesterday was a triple B day. I made three loaves of bread, I transferred 10 gallons of beer from the primary to the secondary fermentors, and Claire and I went out and did a great 30 mile bike ride over Coleman Valley and down the coast.