Gravel Sunday

I made it out with a couple co-workers of mine and showed them a bit of a gravel loop I like to do north of town. It isn't anything too difficult, and there was a time constraint that I had to consider. Otherwise, I was going to lay on a bit tougher loop!

Ben And His Awesome Matched Kit/Bike

I'll introduce you to these fellas. On the orange 4300 Trek, we have Ben. He is the son of another of my co-workers, and is working the summer between college semesters. Ben rides for the University of Wisconsin Platteville cycling team. Their kit, which Ben is modeling for us here, won the best college cycling kit contest for last year.

There is a six shooter printed on the back that looks like it is coming out of one of the jersey pockets. Pretty cool.

Ben comes from a heavy road background. You can tell because he has his rise stem inverted and is in an aggressive position, which he stayed in the entire ride. Animal!

Oh yeah, check out his Ergon HE-2 gloves. He saw my pair and ended up getting some for himself, which he said he likes. I am a bad influence! Anyway, Ben needs to get himself a cyclo-cross bike. (I put this up for the benefit of Ben's mother, so she will know what to get him as an early Christmas gift)

I kid! I kid!

Jonathan: Lurking.....

Next we have Jonathan. He of the fixie side of cycling. Lately he has been smitten by the bicycle acquisition bug, and ended up getting a Cross Check, a Steamroller, a Karate Monkey, and a Fuji from about the early 80's.

So anyway, he pulled out the Cross Check for the ride with his new Salsa Cycles Cowbell bars on it. He is still playing with the positioning on them, but claims he likes them pretty well.

He first saw the handle bars when my Cowbell 2 came into the shop while I was on vacation. He said he knew he had to have a pair straight away. Once again.....me-bad influencer! Oh, I suppose eventually he'd have found them on his own, so I wouldn't put too much weight on that.

Jonathan was running these oddball Kenda, (I think), fatties. Looked interesting. They might make great gravel tires for the more brutal roads, like those found on the DK 200.

We went out north, then east. Ya know....it is weird. Every time I do this northern exit from town on gravel, the north wind is blowing. It did again yesterday too. Well, it makes for a very nice tail wind push back home, I will say that much!

Another Barn For Jason B

It was a glorious day on the gravel, and between getting out of, and back into town again, I spent about 2 and a half hours out on the bike. These younginz don't stop much, so it was a workout.

It was almost as if the air was being run through an A/C unit yesterday in comparison to the GTDRI last weekend. It felt great to be out on the bike, and my legs were going good. I think I've gotten over that ride from last week. Finally! It was a brute though, so no wonder.

We saw some sights and then headed back towards Waterloo to get Ben back in time for something or another he had to get to in the afternoon. It was a great way to cap off a busy, busy weekend for me, and I spent the rest of the day relaxing with my family at home.

Hopefully ya'all had a great weekend as well. School starts here today, and college starts soon, and well.....Fall is just around the corner! My favorite time of year for mountain biking!