PowerTap and Garmin

I finally got a Garmin 500 on my bike to use with the rental PowerTap wheel. Love all the data it provides. Owning a bike store has really cut into the amount of time I can ride, but I don't know if I can do LOTOJA three years in a row with no training. So I will see if I can use the power information to get ready for LOTOJA.

First 29er ride

Epic Biking just got a new demo XtC 29 1 in. The big wheels are great for rolling over things. I made the hard corner in the bike park. I have only done it twice before and this was by far the smoothest time. Also on the hill just before the water tank, where the rocks usually grab the front wheel and stop me, I just rolled right on up. Nice bike.

Eagle Mountain Bike Park

I have been working on creating a google map of the Mountain Ranch Bike Park in Eagle Mountain. I was planning on taking my bike out and getting some more gps data. However it has been raining all night, and it is just too much work to get the bike clean after riding in these conditions. So I think I will just walk a couple of trails with the GPS.

Anyway here is the map.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=105197178069041208077.0004681131257dfe8fddb&hl=en&ie=UTF8&z=15

Join our Tour de Cure Team

Epic Biking will be staffing a rest stop at the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure on June 13. We would like to invite anyone who would like to help us in this good cause. You can join our team at http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR/TourdeCure/TDC530148030?pg=team&fr_id=5629&team_id=354888 or you if you would like to volunteer to help at the rest stop come into the store and talk to me, Dan.

Fire and Ice

Yesterday's ride to work was a mix of hot and cold. I left my Louis Garneau Vulcano gloves in the store and so I had to wear some walmart gloves. So my fingers were freezing. When I got to the Silver Lake subdivision I decided to try and come the rest of the way on the old rail road bed. Climbing an icy hill is a great technical challenge and very strenuous. So now my core is overheated but my fingers are still frozen.

Taking the train bed was a great choice. Trying to power through snow drifts, keeping speed up so you don't break through the ice, and keeping balance through tire ruts makes what would be an easy ride a real challenge.

I started to get lazy and ride on the side of the hill to avoid snow drifts. Then I came to a patch of tumble weeds and a snow bank. I wimped out and went through the tumble weeds, and carried a good sized one the rest of the way to the store.

I should have dropped off the train bed early but instead continued through Coyote Creek Ranch. The problem there is they have this quagmire of mud and horse manure that I have to go through. Thinking it was frozen I tried to ride on the frozen, um... stuff, it didn't work, I broke through the ice and coated my tires in the stuff. Then comes a nice downhill that flings all of the stuff off the tires. Well anyway today I made the wiser choice not to go through Coyote Creek and now my bike doesn't smell like the name of the Kona bike that is in the repair stand, "stinky".