Bike Porn

The last couple months I have been helping out the Project One department at work...mainly just customer service and placing orders. For those that don't know, Project One is Trek's custom painting program, where customers can select whatever paint scheme and crazy colors they want their bike to be.

They recently came out with some new paint schemes, and I was informed that they needed "sample" frames to test these new schemes on. So I graciously gave them one of mine to play around with. Here are the results.

XO-1 frame before (matte black)

XO-1 frame after (Cool Fire)

The pictures just don't do it justice. It's amazing in person. The crazy thing is that nothing on P1 paintjobs are decals or stickers ... everything is hand-painted. Those guys are super talented.

In other news, Tonia and Trent are paying us a visit this weekend. Should be good times, as usual. They take off Sunday morning, and then I am heading over to Franklin (just an hour away) for a WORS mtb race.

What should Dad do in his retirement?

My dad recently retired after working 30+ (or was it 35+??) years at American Crystal Sugar in EGF. Now he is trying to decide what to do with his time. I thought I would setup a handy poll so that we could help him out with his decision. So cast your vote below.

Enjoy your retirement Dad!


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All Hail the Return to Racing

Hello everyone. Heather and I had a pretty relaxing weekend...got all the trim work done in the sunroom and dining room. Looks good. My finish nailer rules, speeds up the process nicely! Maybe Heather will update her blog with pics of that, and some more info about this whole baby thing. :)

On Saturday I went for a road ride and got caught in a crazy windy hailstorm. It sucked (and hurt). When I got home Heather took pics of my arms and legs...the hail made my skin look like I got stung by a bunch of bees or something. Not a pleasant experience.

Vontoux had some weird rash thing on his skin, so Heather put some stuff on it to help. But he would keep trying to lick it off, so she put one of my old t-shirts on him to prevent that. He looks pretty stylish in his classic Rock Shox shirt!

This weekend Eric, Katie, and Hayden are paying us a visit in WI. We have some fun stuff planned, and we are going to work on fixing up our basement stairs. I am also planning on heading over to Whitewater for a road race on Saturday. It feels like its been forever since I raced last...

My New Baby!

I didn't do the WORS race last Sunday. I didn't feel like going, plus I was busy playing with my new toy:

That's right, I am now the proud owner of a 08 Honda Nighthawk. :)
I got it for commuting to work due to the 75mpg that it averages. And for fun, of course. It's just a little 250cc bike, so I won't ever take it on the interstate or anything, but it will be perfect for commuting and local errands.

This is what I do at all the stop lights.

I did my 20 mile TT loop for the first time this year a couple days ago. I shaved 2min 3sec off my previous PR! That's insane.

Speaking of babies, Heather is pregnant.

Lake Fun

We made it back from North Dakota in one piece, despite lengthy detours around I-94 in WI due to the flooding. The interstate was closed for over 40 miles right out of Madison, so on the journey to ND on Friday we had to take a bunch of backroads before getting on I-90 through Rochester and then up to the Cities. It added about 2 hours to our already long trip. On the way back, the interstate was finally open again (even though the signs kept saying that it was closed...good thing we actually kept driving to find out the truth).

On Friday night we hung out with T&T (and Jordan & Mario) before embarking on the Garmin-led drive to Union Lake early Saturday morning. It was a nice day at the lake...we took a leisurely loop around the lake on dad's new pontoon, played some ladder golf, and had a delicious feast of steaks, burgers, and pasta. We took off for home on Sunday (with a quick stop in the Cities to visit A&D). It was a fun trip, but like always, felt much too short. I need to take a month off from work or something...I wonder if they would mind? :)

Enjoying myself on the lake.

Check out these happy campers! :D
Tonia and I both fit in the "changing room".

Trent, on the other hand, looks more suspicious...and naked.

This weekend I am planning on racing another WORS race in Suamico...it's a marathon mtb race, so it will be 36 miles or something like that. Hopefully it's dried up from all the recent rain and hopefully I don't bonk because of the race distance.