Interbike 2011

We flew out to Interbike on Wednesday morning.  Namrita and Rich  were on our flight......and only about a million rows in front of us.   We didn't see them after we landed, since it took us roughly FOREVER to get off the plane, as we were in the very last row.

The last row is full of awesomeness, ya know.

 

We caught the bus to the road that the expo center was on and grabbed some burritos for lunch.  Then it was time for work. 

We got to put our hands on and compare products for the shop and we met all of our amazing Cycle Youth Devo Team sponsors and got to see the latest products and discuss our goals for the next year.   

Thomson has been a long time sponsor of everything the Lindner's do.  Dave is a great guy and his passion for cycling is contagious.  His son Christian was working at the booth, too.  We love Christian and it was really great to catch up on what he is doing and generally give him a hard time just like in the good ol' days of Georgia Cyclocross. (you know, when we would throw the cross stakes at him to improve his reflexes.......)

Christian, Jansen, Shey, Andy and Dave Parrett.

We also got a chance to thank Rich and Stan for their support.  We not only were thrilled to be able to race on Stan's wheels, but our guys really enjoyed putting on the Stan's No Tubes clinics at the local races.  (we even made videos of the clinics for fun, it was awesome!)

Rich and Stan with the Cycle Youth guys.

Stan discussing his wheels with Andy and Jansen.

Bruce Dickman is a rep for ProGold Lubricants and is doing an excellent job!  Brad and Bruce we able to send Cycle Youth a great package of their products and we are totally hooked on their degreaser and bike wash products now, as well as their lubricants.

Jansen gets the scoop on the new Speed Play pedals.  He uses the Frogs now and loves them, but was drooling over the new stuff, too.

Drew hammed it up, as usual.  Drew knows racing and is an excellent product rep for our area. 

Eddie was working at the Topeak booth and gave us the low down on the hand pump that Jansen needs.  We don't get a chance to catch up with Eddie and Namrita often, so it was cool to see them and get a few minutes to talk to Eddie.  He crushed the TransGeorgia ride and probably has the webbed toes to show it!!!

In hindsight, we should have made more appointments with suppliers and sponsors early in the morning.  We will know better next year, but all in all, the guys got a ton of work done!

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Fall is HERE!! ...and Collegiate Racing!!

Everett entered the collegiate xc mtb race on Sunday at IHP and we were super stoked about watching him race.  So our schedule was as follows:



Saturday morning:  Cyclocross practice. On the ride to practice, I came across the collegiate guys racing their time trial on the granite side of the course.  They rode it backwards and it was GREAT!!  So, I said "hi" to our additional children, then headed off to practice.   We had another great showing and Doug put the hurt of the entire field.  (dam* that superman!)

Then another bit of riding before heading over to see the guys race the short track.

Zack, Wes and Tanner led the entire short track and came in one, two, three.

It's hard to believe this is Brad's senior year!  Drake, also tranferred to Union and is loving it.  Wes, Drake and Brad.

After the short track, I rode home and we all got ready to head in to Atl. for the championship roller derby bout.  It was  Toxic Shocks vs. Sake Tuyas and they a tough bunch!  The Sake Tuyas mascot was streaking around the venue...

It was a very close bout, but the Sake Tuyas pulled it out in the end.  Yeah!

We had popsicles and fries, but this gouping of snacks seems to be the most popular......

At the half time break, they had the roller brats come out for a bout.  There was a younger group and an older group.  They were awesome!

We all enjoyed the evening.

As we left the temple, (yes the bouts are held at the Yarab Shrine on Ponce...interesting) we noticed the Krispy Kreme "fresh" sign was on, so........yummmy!! 

Sunday:  Everett's race started at 9am, so we had to roll out of bed early and he didn't have time for breakfast.   So, with the power of half a Payday bar and some Heed, he lined up at the start.  

Jansen Jafer Shey  It was Jafer's birthday and he came out to watch the race and ride with Jansen.  He is even wearing his super cool Lindner ball cap!

Everett was worried about racing, as he has not done any intensity in the past year, but he held his own on the 24 mile sport course.  He stayed at a steady pace and had a great last lap, with lots of energy to spare.  Smart riding, no bonking.

He had a great ride and it was really cool having the three of us there to support him.

Ah, cold gatorade!  Well deserved, for sure!

Andy came out to watch the guys ride, too.....and work on his tan.

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Kari

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TNGA Day 3

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Shey just called from Mulberry Gap after having a large-yummy breakfast. (I love their breakfast!) He slept very well last night and is about to take a nap.

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He is extremely happy with his ride, so far. He didn't really bring stuff for riding in the rain, since this was to be a good-time ride, but once your are out there, you kind-of want to keep on riding, no matter what. So, I'm sure he wishes he had the right equipment now, as it rained hard up there this morning. 

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Eddie is seriously time trialing this ride and just reached the border. That is uber fast! What a great ride time. Right at two days flat for the final time. That is very impressive.  I think he and Namrita traveled to some of the 100 mile races this year and that sounds like the most fun training for a cross-state ride, ever! 

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I was reading an old Dirt Rag magazine last night and saw a picture of, what I assume, is the guy  I met in FL last year. He had a big green traveling van (that was free from stickers, but is now COVERED in them from his travels) and had just started traveling all over the U.S. riding trails.   In FL he was talking to some guys who plot routes and ride their mtb across most of the states in the U.S. Sounds like fun and the guys were very quiet and humble about their undertakings. I asked them if they had a website or blog, since I would love to read about their adventures, and they looked at me like I was crazy for thinking computers and mtbs mixed. Oh, well.   I mentioned this to some locals because the Trans GA ride was forming, and boy did I get in trouble for mentioning that someone else had ridden across this state on a mtb. Funny.   That does sound like a lot of fun, though.  Now, how to turn that into a career that supports a family of four........I'm workin' on it.........

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TNGA Day 2

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Shey texted this morning and was on his way to Aska/Stanley.  Hope he is enjoying this break from all the crazy work/teenage taxi/volunteering for the cycling community stuff he does!  He makes me tired just looking at his weekly schedule!

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The weather does not look good, so I hope he is aware of the heavy rain headed his way. 

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We didn't really discuss rain other than the fact that the weather channel is often wrong and he would probably stay in a happy dry spot even if it rained everywhere else......now that is positive thinking!!!

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I think Eddie will outrun the rain, which is a really great idea and excellent incentive to keep on bookin' it. I'm not sure what the others plan to do, as we all like to ride in the rain, but not for half a night and a full day.......some may decide to park by a laundromat dryer for  a bit.  : > )

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I really hope to do this ride and several other cross-state rides with Shey in a few years. But I have no regrets about watching others on Trackleaders. We thoroughly enjoy riding with the boys and wouldn't give that up for anything, but they are not into the ride- so-many-miles-every-day-for-a-week, kind of thing, (too much blacksmithing, robot building, animals to hang out with, etc) so we have so much fun with them now, then we'll hit the longer trails a little down the road! Man our life is really just THAT GOOD and it's quite humbling!!!! Great kids, great friends,  a family sport that we all love, the best road trip stories, ever!! Couldn't ask for better!!

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Bike Maintenance & Good Night Shey

Tonight, after snack time.....

It was bike maintenance time....and when Shey is not around I get to use a hammer!!!! Actually, I kinda started to run over my wheel with the car today and I bent the hell out of the skewer, hence the hammer. My single speed is almost ready to go (just needs air in the fork) and my Blue got some tlc, as well.

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Jansen was working on his robot while I worked on my bikes and Everett kept us company.

Now it is tea time and I just said "good night" to Shey's SPOT. It looks like he is having a great ride and has stopped for the night to have a good rest before doing his favorite thing again tomorrow!!! He said he was going to take a lot of time to rest, stretch and enjoy all the views, instead of blowing past them. What an awesome weekend for him. I sure miss that guy, though!

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Dragon Con by Bike

We got up late on Saturday, but decided to head on into the Dragon Con parade, anyway. I absolutely LOVE parades. In Texas we had parades for everything and it was really cool.

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We parked at Molly's house in Decatur and rode our bikes downtown to the parade. (waaay better than trying to drive and find parking) I didn't expect the parade to be so big. It was pretty aweseome....like a huge Halloween parade! I was smiling the whole time!

Some of the Vulcan clan attended.

This was one of the many impressive floats. I also liked that there were so many ghost buster cars!

Rock dude!

The spectators were quite colorful. People kept looking at our cycling kits and trying to decide what we were.......

One of the Steam Punk floats. The Steam Punk costumes were really great.

A fire truck needed to cut across the parade to go out on a call and the crowd quickly parted, which was cool.

The parade was cool, but so were many of the dressed up spectators.

This was one of the cool cardboard box guys. They had a young (like middle school) drum line walking with them....and drums in a parade trump EVERYTHING!!

Chewie and Jabba's, uh, head.....on a stick.....

More star wars guys...Han Solo is frozen on the back of this trailer.

Dr. Who's police box and....

mini-police box

There were tons of storm troopers, Dr. Who's, Vulcans, Darth Vaders, Bobba Fetts, Steam Punk, Rainbow unicorn things, really just about anything you could think of was in this parade.  AND in the MIDDLE of it ALL was the most AMAZING sight......GUMBY!!!  THAT GUY ROCKS!!!

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After, we walked around to look at some more of the costumes.

Fairies and woodsmen/women were everywhere.

These guys were around the corner when we were leaving and posed for us.

Then we headed back to Decatur and .....

Parked our bikes......

and ate at Farm Burger

Lookin' European....

They mixed up Jansen's order and he got a side of BONE MARROW....awesome! (we'll just save that yummy marrow for later, man)

But we DID order root beer floats and....

a sangria popsicle.

The burgers were amazing. This is Molly's favorite burger joint and she was right on the money, for sure.

Then I ran across the street to Dancing Goats Coffee and picked up a couple bags of beans for Shey.

While the boys waited...

and I poured the two free cups of coffee (you get one with each bag of beans) into my water bottle to make iced coffee tomorrow. Yeah for me!!

Aimee loves this place and we stopped in here after a quick browse through Heliotrope. The clothes and jewelry in here are the bomb. I love the bracelet Aim got me from here and everything else in the store was just as appealing!

It was crowded in downtown Decatur, because of a festival, so we didn't stay long, but I did like this guy!

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Trans Georgia Day 1

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Shey called us at about 3pm today and is at Moccasin State Park. He is having a great ride, played in the creek and is about to take a nap. He may ride on to Helen this afternoon, or he may hang out and enjoy the views somewhere along the way. This is his long holiday vacation and so far it sounds like it was a very good choice!!

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TNGA 2011

IT'S 108 DEGREES IN ATLANTA!!!

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That is Shey's first call- in from the drive up to the start of the Trans Georgia. That is HOT and I hope the guys/gals see some cooler temps this weekend!

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Shey packed up his bike and some gear and is headed up to ride the Trans Georgia ride this weekend.

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He decided to use any gear he could find from around the house and really get down to enjoying himself in the woods for a few days.    He's totally laid back about the riding in the mountains and I am the one that is totally excited about living vicariously through his SPOT on the track leaders sight.

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Brad Kee (one of the first unsupported riders, along with Matt, to finish last year) has already started his ITT and the rest of the riders will start Saturday.  It looks like there will be 20-25 at the mass start this year.

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A few of the guys took a wrong turn early on in the ride last year, so I wish them better luck this year!. Good Luck guys!

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 I imagine Eddie has some yummy beer stashed at Mulberry Gap this year....smart man! 

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Best of luck to everyone and we will be watching.

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