Too Much to do!

It seems odd to me, that I've complained about not having enough time to do things for the past 4 weeks now. Thanksgiving break, I had 5 large projects to work on. The following week, dead week, those 5 projects were due as well as a couple presentations. Then finals week...which I was happy to be done with on Thursday capped off with the team meeting/party. Then got busy on my job, expecting to work 70hrs this week.
The whole time we had all these team orders to compile and send in, with all kinds of questions about colors, options, sizes, prices...between the 7 odd orders, the total was more than $50,000-fun checks to write.
I didn't have time to join in on all the team skiing this past week. :(
I feel kinda bad, not having time for the girlfriend, but having to make time for the bikes, since they have deadlines. Sure am glad she doesn't.

Cannondale Factory Tour

Hey Guys, everyone post some pics from the tour, and your thoughts.

I had an great time, and I want to sincerely thank Zerbe for taking the time out of his day to show us kids around the factory. It was educational, fun, and super duper awesome.


Afterwards, we all shared lunch at the Jean Bonnet Tavern, and said goodbye to Zerbe and hit the road. I gotta say, I was stoked for the new frame, and now I simply can't contain myself.

I stole some pics from Liew but I won't steal his opportunity to post them!

PS check out the link to my blog to see how my KM looks with a suspension fork on it...no more rigid....for now at least.

Roost the Narr!

Sorry I couldn't post last night, but my interweb was non-functional.

The club ski trip was a super hot success! Liew, Bala, Amber, Jimmy, Lemma, and myself all hit the slopes early yesterday morning for Wisp's $7 birthday spectacular!

The crowd was actually pretty moderate considering the price, and the snow was very nice. Mostly packed powder everywhere, with the exception of one icey patch on squirrel cage. We spent the first part of the day on some greens and shaking some of the rust off, and then went and stretched our legs on the blues and blacks. The weather could not have been more perfect as it was sunny and in the upper 40's. Jimmy wasn't even wearing gloves by the end of the day.

Lemma even had a near cell phone/lift chair disaster as she went to answer her phone we all were able to witness it floating at almost slow motion speed towards the ground and we continued onward. Luckily she and Jimmy were able to ski down fast enough to save the day, and the phone!

The most improved skiier award goes to Mr. Chetmun Liew, for claiming to "suck" but going out and dominating the slopes with his killer carving capabilities....and yes I did just use some alliteration.

Hopefully we can all go again as a group. Sorry for those who couldn't come. We will catch you next time!

... pt.2

Somedays the air feels perfect, the wind seems to always be at your back, the hills pass with ease, the bike feels just right, and you feel faster than ever.

...today was one of those days.

It's amazing what a day of nice weather and empty roads can do for your body, mind, and motivation level. I wish these upper 60's days would stick around more in December, so I better start upping my carbon footprint.

-Chad

...

Some day's the air feels too cold, the wind feels too hard, the hill feels too steep, the bike feels to heavy, and you just feel too slow.

...today was one of those days.

Training motivation level = -2

Supposed to get warmer in the next two days, lets hope that brings motivation.

-Chad

OMG it is like....over!

Congrats to all for finishing another semester of excellence! Go and be quite merry on your break-ness!

Ride, ski, board, chill, watch tv, eat, read, hang, walk, run, drink, be safe, and of course, keep it sick.

Play nice and don't smoke.

Jake-ub

Chaos

You wanna see mass hysteria? Offer a SRAM Red BB30 for $150.
WVU Thread

Doing some exploring...

Today Ryan, Andrew, and I hooked with with Phil and Frank from Mon County bike club in hopes of exploring some new rides that we had not been on. Frank is apparently the Morgantown area road knowledge master (more so than my GPS, at least).

It was a balmy 20 degrees when we met this morning outside of the courthouse. The ride started promptly at 10, so Ryan and Andrew showed up at 10:08, just to bring some WVU cycling spirit to the ride. Our goal was to climb as much as possible, and descend as little as possible (Why wasn't Jimmy there? Must be cleaning the bike house for tomorrow's guest I suppose?).

Phil also had a great and innovative idea to stay warm! He grabbed one of his girlfriends menstruation pain reliever pads that heat your midsection and wore it for the entire ride.

Anyway, we started on Rt100 to Ft Martin, past the road to Taylortown and kept heading north to Mapletown. After Mapletown we descended into the river valley north of Ft. Martin. I bonked hard around this point and had to accept an ever so delicious, tasty and nutritious Clif bar from Phil. We headed south towards Dillner where we climbed Cemetery Hill Rd. in an attempt to get back to Ft. Martin and head to Taylortown. After a wrong turn back towards the river we swiftly corrected ourselves and re-climbed what we accidentally descended. We got back on course and headed to Taylortown. My gas tank ran empty and I sagged hard. The cold really got to my muscles and I felt super lactic soaked. I actually lost sight of everyone at one point coming down onto RT100 because even with my head cover my face was freezing and couldn't bare the wind of going fast down the descents. I finally met up with everyone on Rt100, where Frank told me to set the pace for everyone. This turned into Phil and I dropping Andrew, Frank, and Ryan. That also led to Frank dubbing me a sandbagger. Sometimes even when you're down and out you can still find some power for a nice run... sorry Phil. It worked out well when Andrew caught Phil and I right after coming under the train bridge and back into the river valley. I then quickly dropped from them as we started getting snowed on and were riding into an extremely fierce headwind.

Eventually Ryan and Frank picked me up and I proceeded to suck wheel all the way home. Ryan fell of hard at the end with lactic soak. We never again saw Phil, Andrew, or my bottle that I put on Phil's bike since I broke my bottle cage.

We ended up climbing 4,000ft total today. It was a hainus, cold, and also expensive ride, seeing as we did around 45 miles, and have to spend $200 more on cranks because we missed a crank auction we weren't aware of. If I knew that I was costing myself about $4.50 in savings per mile on a SRAM crank, I probably would have turned around sooner. Weirdly enough, as crappy as the weather was and as much as we climbed/hurt, I really did have fun today...

Go pedal

GPS:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7250403

-Chad