I miss my bicycles

I stare at them sitting in my basement as I work on the house. They call out to me, begging to be ridden. Tires so low on air you’d think they have been sitting all winter, dust on the top tubes. Oh the sadness.

I rode my mountain bike a total of 3 times this summer. My road bike probably 10 times. That is just plain god awful. I can make excuses all day about how I was working on the house, working, drinking too much beer, but I really regret not riding more. I’ve had a bum knee for about a year and a half now(Thank you 24 solo races) and it still bothers me enough to keep me from racing, but I can at least ride here and there. Damn, I miss riding a bicycle. When I’m on a bike I truly feel free from everything. I don’t think about anything going on in my life besides riding.

I’m most happy when I’m on my mountain bike. Oh the sexiness that is my 2006 Specialized S-works carbon hardtail. Tricked out and made for speed. Thats right I’m still on a hardtail. My dad always looks at me funny after I finish a race. I usually throw the bike to the ground because I can barely stand up do to ridiculous back pain. Thats OK, a small price to pay for simplicity I think. The excitement and even a little fear that I might get hurt today. Its all good though once I hit the trail. Barreling into that corner pushing the limits of my tires. Riding down some gnarly descent that once I hit the bottom I think “damn” that was cool. Getting away from the stress that is everyday life. Not having to deal with idiotic drivers, loud annoying people on their stupid walkie talkie phones, bills. No, the only issues I have are dealing with a deer passing by, hearing birds chirp away, or figuring out if I should take this line or that.

I’ve developed more love for the road bike over the past few years. More so after I installed Campagnolo parts. My lord those levers are damn comfy. I tell myself that at the beginning of every road ride. COMFORTABLE. I’ve got big plans for my road bike next summer. After moving stores and getting the most excellent opportunity to build and ride a Seven road bikes with regularity, I WANT ONE. Oh in the worst way. I think for what I do on my road bike its the perfect fit and can’t wait to go ape shit with my check book and build up a really cool bike. I really can’t wait for the 2010 riding season. And god willing, doing some racing.

 

 

My first house

I’m finally back to civilization. Well, at least the electronic side that is. Internet and cable finally hooked up in the house, and I think I’ll start writing again. 

Before I put a bid in on the house I bought a friend of my said it best. “Buying a house is exciting and terrifying all at the same time”. Boy was he right. Its funny how quickly life can change for someone. This time a year ago, I wasn’t even thinking about buying a house. I think I was out in Wisconsin on a weekend mounting biking trip on epic trails, worrying about how I’m going to get through the weekend before I completely drain my bank account. It was close, I needed an abundance of beer but had to go on the cheap. Mmmm Budweiser. Life was pretty good. Living in Uptown enjoying the scenery. Thats when things started changing. We got word that our landlord is gonna move into our apt. in the house that he owns and we had 6 months. Of course we procrastinated and waited probably until a couple months left to start looking. We had a 3rd person in with us at this point and our search efforts were pretty half assed. It got to the point where we all were like “Welp, looks like I’m moving back home with the rents for awhile”. My dad started throwing out the “house” word. At first I was like, yea right. Not a chance. At that time I had no idea about the first time homebuyers credit.  After discussing that and how he’d help out with some finances initially I went to a Loan Officer. After finding out I was approved by myself I was getting pretty stoked about this whole thing. The hunt was on.

Lets get one thing straight, I was approved for a small sum. I was looking at foreclosed houses. For the majority of the houses one word. Sad. Houses that could have been very nice destroyed on the inside. This one house had like 5 pay phones in the garage. I didn’t look at a lot, actually my house was one I looked at on the first day. Probably just over a dozen homes. Some should have been condemned. I kept coming back to the same house. Looked at it 3 times. I remember sitting on the couch crunching numbers over and over again. Sweaty palms right before I made the call to my agent to put in the bid. I made the call, and the next day I started the process of signing my life away. Talk about a mountain of paperwork. I can’t stand signing documents. I loathe it. I remember starting that and my real estate agent looked at me funny. “Thats your signature?” I felt like an idiot. Since then I’ve gotten a little better at it, but still hate it. The offer was put in and the waiting game began.It was probably 3 weeks before I heard from the seller. Final price was settled and sale was approved. Locked in my interest rate a couple weeks later and headed to closing. Now, I’ve heard horror stories at closing including my parents first home. Thanks mom for that lovely story right before my closing. But, all in all it went very smooth. 45 minutes and the keys were mine. I like to think I had an awesome team working for me, and they made the experience very smooth. 

I spent about 2 months working on the house before I moved in. Every free moment of my life was here. Mt. biking? Whats that? I think I forgot how to pedal two wheels. New windows, paint on every wall and ceiling, re-finished hardwood floors, new cabinet hardware, tiling. And thats just the upstairs!! It was a lot of work, but well worth it. Buying a house has been the best thing I’ve done with my life to date. Throw on Unce Sam basically giving me free money, why not? There were moments of uncertainty and fear. I think that goes for most people that buy their first home. But for the most part, its been great. I love my house, and love Menards. I can’t wait to expand the brewing project even more.

 

Back at it!!

I had this urge tonight while at work to start writing on this page again. I didn’t really think I would, but I can’t stay away. This thing is fun. Now that the home buying process is done, major repairs on my house are finished, and I’ve moved in I’ll be back soon. So for the 4-5 of you that actually read this dribble, stay tuned. Cheers!!

 

Busy times

We got our hop rhizomes in the mail and are now in planters awaiting transplanting into the yard at the new house. 2 Chinook rhizomes and 2 Goldings. They’re about twice the size now, that pic is about a week old.  Blogging? Who’s got time for that these days? I sure as hell haven’t. All of my free time in the past month has been spent looking at houses. Yes, I’ve decided to purchase a home. Its come up very fast. Long story short, my current roommate and I were looking at apartments because we were given 6 months to be out of our current place, which is the end of May. A couple months ago I jokinly said to my pops about an investment opportunity with me. “How about going in on a house with me.” We both laughed and I forgot about it. Well I guess he took it seriously and came back to me a month ago with a plan. After some discussion, I was approved and looking at houses within a week of him telling me he’d help me out. Now, here I am with an accepted offer and just waiting on finalizing some terms with the lender. WOAH!! I have only been on my bike twice in the past month. I haven’t even had time to continue on with all grain equipment purchases. Everything right now devoted to the house. My thoughts of going to school for brewing are on hold too. Will I continue on this site? I’ll try. I’m moving home with the ‘rents for about a month then off to the new house where I won’t have internet access for awhile. Thanks for reading, hopefully I’ll find some time again in the future for more worthless dribble you all can read. Cheers!!

 

Farewell Sampson

A relaxed, but curious Sampson

I remember growing up we would always ask our parents if we could get a dog. I would say we finally gave up when we hit middle school. It was quite funny. My dad just sounded like a broken record. A simple “NO” every time the question was brought up. He doesn’t like dogs. At least to my knowledge he doesn’t. We would hound him all the time. This question probably came up once a month. We never had a chance, but I guess it became a force of habit to ask every once in awhile to annoy dad.  My mom grew up with a dachshund. She always liked dogs, and I bet we could have convinced her to let us get one had our dad not intervened. Because of that I could never understand the connection people got with their dogs. I mean its just a dog right?

When my old roommate bought his first house, I moved in with him and shortly after that he asked if it would be cool to get a dog. Nobody objected and a couple weeks later Sampson showed up at our door. He was about 2 years old when Chris got him. I think from a family friend up in St. Francis or something like that. A Lab/Shepherd mix. Basically he looked like a chocolate lab with the tail of a German Shepherd. I knew nothing about dogs when he showed up. I couldn’t understand why he howled so much when the doorbell rang. Why did he just pee on that chair? Why does he obsess over small furry critters? Oh yea, I was late for work plenty of times from those mornings. He was a slut for attention but it was great. I remember those mornings where I would be laying in bed and Sam would put his head on my bed and stare at me waiting to get up. Those late nights hanging out in the backyard burning things, drinking Mickey’s hand grenades and chillin’ with the pup(he howled at fireworks). I learned a lot about dogs with Sampson and ultimately I was convinced when I moved out that I would someday have a dog of my own.

Early last week I guess he started having liver problems. I got a call from Chris around Friday and it didn’t sound good. Liver failure. Bad news. Nothing that could be done. I guess they said it was hereditary and it couldn’t have been avoided. Jeez, he’s barely 5 years old. It came one so quick. Just two weeks ago I was wrestling with him at Kubi’s. Just sad. They were able to put him on some meds for the weekend but last night Chris had to put him asleep. I was fortunate enough to stop by there Saturday morning to hang out with Sam for an hour or so and say my goodbyes. He wasn’t moving at all, couldn’t walk. However when I showed up his tail wagged just a little bit as I came into his view. That was pretty cool. I never thought I would have that kind of a connection with an animal. Everyone that came across to meet Sampson always said the same thing. A super mellow, kind, loving dog that liked everyone. Well everyone except for my buddy Paul whom Sampson liked to bite. Farewell Sam.

 

SBCU 2009

2009 S-Works Epic

I recently returned from my latest trip for work. I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to take a yearly trip with my fellow service managers at Eriks. The past two years we went out to Colorado Springs for Sram’s STU(Sram Technical University). Last year plus STU we got to partake in the Bill Woodul Race mechanics clinic. For someone that wants to be a race mechanic this is the first step. This year we got to go out to Specialized Bikes for their SBCU program. This past October they added a technical clinic to their list of classes. Specialized Technical Masters Course. I have never been to California before so I was pretty stoked to spend part of my winter in a warm climate for the first time in my life. Specialized has a beautiful facility. Very well kept. Top notch. The tech clinic was roughly 4 days. The first day was a lot of Theory. Explanations on carbon fiber, integrated suspension and its advantages, spring rates, and rider experience. The second and third days were in the lab. We briefly looked at Roval wheels. The new Command Post. Then we dove into suspension. The rest of the second day was pulling apart the rear AFR shocks. The third day was all forks. We pulled apart the E150 fork, and the E100 Future Shock fork. All in all, the course was very good. However I could tell it is still in its early stages, and it can only get better. Brennan Marquez did a great job. We got to meet the engineers behind the front and rear shocks. Even the well known Mike “Mic” McAndrews. A pioneer in the suspension world who helped invent the BRAIN shock on Specialized bikes. The last day was spent out on the trail testing out the suspension and seeing how it performs in different conditions.

   The weather out there was perfect. I think we were in the 60’s all week. I guess it had been raining a ton there the past week and some of us were worried we weren’t going to get to ride. I rained overnight most nights, but was dry during the day. Luckily we were able to ride that last day. And it was an epic ride. THE best mt. bike ride of my life. I rode the 2009 S-Works Epic. It was outfitted with the Fast Trak LK(low knob) tires. I was a bit concerned with this because of the muddy conditions we were hearing about, plus “AT” the rear shock engineer looked at my tires and gave me a funny look. Uh Oh, I thought. The bike was flawless. Climbs like a banshee. As fast if not faster then my S-Works Carbon hardtail. The tires were the most surprising. No issues at all. And it was MUDDY. Ya see, we Minnesotans don’t get the opportunity to ride in the mud because our trails close if there is the slightest hint of mud. We took full advantage. It was some of the gnarliest shit I’ve ever ridden on. I followed a guys line who was riding an S-Works Enduro down a really aggressive, steep rocky section. I’m sure I had that “OH SHIT” look on my face. But the bike came through with flying colors. A great 3+ hours of riding had us all spent. Some frosty Sierra Nevada Pale Ales, then pizza was a great way to end our week out there. 

   As much as I love these trips and am grateful for them, every year I debate on going. I don’t like flying. No, there are parts of flying I don’t like. You always hear that you’re more likely to die in a car accident then a plane crash. Thats just by the numbers. Take a car crash vs. a plane crash. Thats how I look at it. Secondly I hate turbulence. Can’t stand it. On our way back we hit some wicked shit over the Rocky Mountains. Worst I’ve ever experienced. I prefer window seats, but looking at that wing flop all over the place, while the plane is swaying back and forth and changing altitudes makes me feel like the pilot has no control. Taking off and landing are pretty cool. Gimme just that, and put me out for the rest of it. The whole time this is going on this guy sitting behind me is snoring his ass off. How? Not sure, maybe he’s got some good drugs. We’ll see what happens next year. Maybe I won’t go?  I tell this myself every year, and end up going. It was pretty cool to be laying in green grass one moment, then just 4 hours later walking in 8 degree weather and fresh POW. Oh yes, and In-N-Out Burger is worth all the hype. 

 

Purple Palace Update

The Brewery

    We’ve got a couple new beers coming up here. In this photo we’ve got a Hefeweizen and a Nut Brown Ale in the carboy’s. The Hefeweizen(on the left) was kegged this past Thursday. The Nut Brown will be kegged in a couple of weeks. The Hefeweizen came out with an ABV of 5.5%. Right on target. A Hefeweizen is an unfiltered “wheat” beer. “Hefe” means with yeast which can attribute to its cloudy look. They usually come out with a gold color and cloudy. Hints of banana’s and sometimes even bubble gum are evident. Ours came out a little darker then we thought and maybe a bit too much sediment. Although I think the darker color makes the beer seem much more cloudy then it really is. I also think the darker color comes with the use of Malt Extract. I gave it a shot a couple of days into carbonation. Not bad. The first sip had a definite taste of what a wheat beer should be. A few more days of carbonation and it should be great.

    We’ve had constant problems with carbonation levels. Our Porter was under carbonated and flat. Most of our other beers seem over charged and come out very foamy. We’ve tried force carbonation. Jack up the pressure, roll the keg around on the ground for 5 minutes, and in theory it should be good to go within a couple days. Its been a constant battle for us. We have now kegged I think around 10 batches of beer, and only two came out ok. Those were our Witbier and our Belgian Tripel. I was doing some research and I found a great way to get proper carbonation levels. VOLUMES!! I learned of a way to determine proper setup by finding out how many volumes of CO2 that type of beer would use. There are charts that give you a volume going by serving temperature and CO2 pressure. Correlate that with what volume that type of beer has and bingo. 

    ALL GRAIN IS COMING!! We were talking today about what we need to buy. I was scouring the internet last night looking up some stuff. There are some great videos on YouTube about home brewing. We’re looking to go on the cheap. I’m just waiting for my money from Uncle Sam. I’m using almost all of it on all grain equipment. That and a counterflow filler for bottling kegged beer. The thing I am most excited about all grain brewing is creating our own recipes. We’ve got an IPA recipe we put together for extract brewing, and I can’t wait to tweak it to make it taste more authentic. In the meantime we’ll stick to extract brewing and we will be brewing a Witbier this week and should be ready around Easter. 

 

Americans and beer

I was at my friends house tonight watching the Wild lose to the Flames in OT and we got to the discussion of our fathers and the beer they drink. He mentioned the dirty thirties of Strohs his dad buys. I mentioned that my dad just up until a few years ago wasn’t a beer drinker. This was over a tasty bottle of Boulevard Brewing Long Strange Tripel. It got me thinking. I think its safe to say that we as Americans aren’t known as beer connesseurs. Look at all the beer commercials that are out there right now. Beers known for “easy drinking” and “low on carbs”. I love the Coors Light vented wide mouth can. According to Coors it provides people to enjoy the “Worlds most refreshing beer.” Worlds most refreshing beer my ass. My roommate had a good slogan for them. “Coors light, FASTER!!.” Seriously. All that promotes is binge drinking. Which is what Coors Light is made for in the first place. The only company giving us hope is Sam Adams. It gives those who aren’t beer lovers a small window into the craft beer world. What separates craft brewers from macro brewers? Passion. 

My friend had said how he is slowly showing his father what good tasting beer is really about. He’s opened him up to Leinenkugels and some Summit beers. My dad is starting to see the light. My brother has spent a lot of time in Germany and Austria and one popular style of beer from that area is the Hefeweizen. He’s embraced it. And he’s starting to open up to others. My youngest brother is only 21 and he can’t get enough of Surly Furious. Even my mom likes some styles of beer. I haven’t exactly pin-pointed her style but I think its Belgian styles.  She really likes New Belgium Abbey.  She hates IPA’s though. I once gave here a sip of an IPA as a joke because I knew she’d hate it. Her lips puckered up and she said it “tastes like grass”. Hilarious. Ya know what this is though? Progress. Small steps. Beer goes back to the times before Christ. Europeans have been brewing beer since the early 11oo’s. Even earlier. We as Americans are years behind. Prohibition put a big dent on our progress. Curses to the bastards who came up with that stupid law. But we are moving in the right direction. 

I love spreading the word about beer. Each style comes with a story. Do people really know the meaning behind Oktoberfest? What does the term “Lager” really mean? Why do Belgian Ales have such a storied history? Why do they call it India Pale Ale? I think teaching people the story behind a style of beer makes them appreciate it that much more. Crack that beer bottle open, give it a nice pour, check out the color up against the light, give it a good whiff, then take a sip and think about all the time and effort into what you are drinking. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t. But at least appreciate what went into it. I can only hope we get to the days of spending our Sundays enjoying a wonderfully tasty snifter of beer after church over a bland watered down cup of coffee.

 

Recovery Act? More like Spending spree

I’ve gotta put in my 2 Cents on this whole stimulus package. Dubbed the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The whole idea behind this is to get the economy rolling again. Create jobs and get us out of this recession. Its has a price anywhere from 800-900 billion dollars. There was a couple weeks where people were talking 1 trillion. Good lord. Thats a lot of money to be throwing around. Problem is, most of it is just spending. Just a bunch of money being thrown around to please everyones personal agendas and to please lobbyists. What? Wasn’t Obama going to be rid of that? I guess not. Just read about some of the things involved in the plan. The frickin’ thing is over 600 pages and I’m not about to read the whole thing, but I’ve heard some of the ideas from radio, internet, or newspaper. Sounds like a lot of spending. Stupid things like buying government employees hybrid cars.  Money for the filming industry to buy film(Dead serious). Modernizing government buildings and so on. Silly things like this that don’t belong in a “Recovery Act.” Everyone is lobbying to get their piece of the pie. Its not going to stimulate much of anything. Create jobs? Not really. Just more debt for future generations. There are some good things about the plan, just not enough. The cons outweigh the pros big time.  

Look what happened with all that TARP money. It was used to buy up all those bad assets and get banks lending again. Only problem is the banks are just sitting on the money. Or worse, they’ve spent it frivolously. Why? Because there basically were not rules with that money and they don’t want to start lending again. Just a hand out and good luck. Now when they are asked what they did with it, they won’t say. You mean to tell me all that taxpayer money that was given out and nobody put some clauses in that? Now there is talk of being sure to investigate into wether or not the money was used properly. On top of that we find out that they overpaid by $78 Billion dollars? What the hell? Did anyone spend some time on this? Or did they just come up with a nice round number that they thought would be enough. I can envision the conversation Paulson must have had when coming up with this? “What do you think guys? $700 Billion sound good? Lets flip a coin.” Haha, I doubt that, but I’ve heard the number they came up with from that was just thrown out there. No calculating done. What a childish way to spend our tax dollars. They didn’t even spend it all before they left office. Just handed it off to let Obama deal with it. Oh the nonsense that is our government. 

 I’d like to believe that change is coming. Granted, President Obama hasn’t even been in office a month, was voted into a hell of a mess, and years of bad policies. I do believe Obama will end up doing some good and better him than McCain. But it seems to be turing out like the old saying “politics as usual”.

 

Cycling industry trends

It is quite an interesting time to be working in the cycling industry. Technology rules all and with that new products seem to come out every other day. This years top item will likely be fazed out in a year or two. Its becoming harder and harder to keep up with things. Its almost as if you need to spend every free minute of your time scouring the internet to read up on new products. Our biggest parts distributor’s current catalog is a whopping 1600 pages! Thats not including the new products they will see weekly throughout the year. There are sometimes 20-30 different options for one part or accessory. Do I need bar tape from 20 or so different manufacturers each with numerous styles to choose from? How many choices for BMX chain wheels does a kid really need? Chains! Cripes, the options for chains are crazy. Something else that I’ve noticed that bugs me are the prices on some of these items. I was perusing through our new 2009 parts catalog and some prices really came out at me. How about $400 for a Bottom Bracket. Two cups, two bearings with a weight range probably around 60-100 grams for $400! How about cranksets that are now pricing up to $1500. For two crank arms and a chain ring. $10,000 complete bikes, $160 set of derailleur pulleys, $450 derailleurs and so on. Even mid level prices have shot up. You could blame rise in prices for raw materials. You could blame the cost of researching and designing these products. Whatever the cause, I guess there’s still some crazy bastards that don’t have the luxury of being sponsored that can afford these things.  I struggle myself keeping up with my bikes and their parts even with a discount.  I often ask myself why a company comes out with a product that for most riders would break the bank. Does the performance and reliability out gain the price? Am I going to notice the extra $100 I spent on that rear derailleur? I think in most cases thats a no. When it comes to a part I pick out for my bike the first thing I consider is longevity. I like my parts to last a long time. I take care of them well, and keep tabs on them. Why fix it if it ‘aint broke right? And with the eye gauging prices I saw coming for 2009 I’m glad I abide by this. 

Another trend I see sprouting up around the industry is companies creating their own integrated designs on parts. New “standards” from different frame manufacturers. Everyone is now coming out with their own proprietary headtube sizes, bottom bracket sizes, suspension products, on and on. I guess Cannondale really was on to something years ago when they started their SI designs.  I know this is a business and everyone is working on the next best thing. Come ride our product. Companies will say that the system as a whole works better. I’ve always been skeptical of this approach with bikes, even in my early days of wrenching learning what SI stood for. One thing I don’t like about this is the customer is usually limited to one option for that area. If I’m gonna spend well over $3000 for a bike, those are some critical areas that I would want so free reign as to what I want. I feel like its a way of the company to force the customer into spending more money through them. What if some company comes out with some new groundbreaking suspension design or a new type of crankset? Should I have to get an entire new bike to ride it? I don’t think so. Am I too bold to say its creating a monopoly over everyone else? Not entirely, but who’s to stop it? I guess in a way I wish things were more simplistic. Things seem to be getting more complicated. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for people that don’t work in the industry to keep up. I’ve had people ask me “Why are you still riding that bike?” or “You really should go full suspension, hardtails are dead”. Why not? I like what I ride, and it still works great. Besides, I can’t afford an entire new bike these days.