1st Unofficial Bike 29/ Five Hills Ride

Finally, Dirt.
Many of us have been chomping at the bit for some singletrack.
Spring here can be iffy, but the lack of snow this winter has blessed us with trail conditions that are usually found in June.
These shots are taken at the Town Loops in Stowe. The trails feature lots of roots, rocks, mud, bumps, berms, drops, ledges, knife edges, all within a small area. You ride can be as easy or difficult as you want it to be, and you can ride for as little or as long as you have time for.
These trails are maintained by the Stowe Mountain Bike Club, who we will be working with closely this year.


We're approaching 70 degrees by mid morning. We are also experiencing "leaf out", so all the growing things are waking up too.
It's hard to describe how good it smells in the woods right now, but it really makes the whole experience.

















DA got to rips some berms on his SIR 9. Whoever said that 29ers cant corner is probably just too afraid to tip and lean it right into the corner.
I'd like to thank Shaun for taking the pictures. We would have taken shots of him, but he was riding a 26" bike. He also missed out, because right after the picture below was taken, I fell off the bridge into the knee deep swampy goop that's below these bridges. Thankfully, the memory card was full.

A lame post...

I'm watching the Red Sox
go into the 12th inning... This is a guilty pleasure, I have always loved baseball. I love wiffle ball more, but we are having a hard time finding opponents to play our unbeatable team.
Sorry for the lack of posting, but I've been making sure the bike shop is exactly what it needs to be, and making sure it doesn't look like a vacant crack house
By the way, what is that exactly? It seems like I'm always forgetting to order something.
I have many 29ers on the floor. I'll have even more when Fisher gets their act together. Word is getting out locally that I am the 29er store, which is awesome. A couple of folks have found their way into my lair looking for the 29er goodness.
Considering that I haven't yet done any local advertising, I count every visit as blessing.

Improvement

Today was a great day at the shop. We went from being overwhelmed with boxes of stuff we need to sell to having a clean and organized bike shop. I wonder how long it will last...
This weekend was also new for the family, normally we all go to visit the grandparents at Easter, but this time I had to stay and man the shop. Traditionally this is the weekend the wife and I get our first ride of the year in, down in Jim Thorpe PA. The trails are very tame by VT standards, but you can get a decent long ride in, plus it involves some "orienteering". We always have a blast.
Not this year though...
I spent today making the store clean and organized, so when the next batch of product hits, we can look like crap again.
New bikes coming soon.
(of course they are 29ers!)

In business

OK, so I haven't posted in a while. The bikes came, I ran out of room not once but twice, and had to rethink the layout of the entire store. Plus, 31 bikes needed to be built. So enough of the excuses...
The weather is turning for the better. We got a pretty good ride in tonight, despite the rain that wouldn't wait for us to finish. Last fall, a good friend of mine had the silly idea that he was going to resurrect his Schwinn Homegrown into a 2 speed. We laughed, but he actually did it, and we dragged him out for his first ride of the year. He was sad, but I think it was because he was riding a bike with tiny little wheels. Another one in our group had his first 29er experience tonight. I put 3 people out for a test ride on a Fisher Cobia at the store this weekend. I love seeing the smiles when they come back in. It's just going to be a matter of time before we have a local 29er movement.
It's on.

And just like that...

...winter is back.

At the same time we got 6" of wet heavy snow, I got 30 bikes. Looks like I'll be able to get them all built before they can be ridden outside. The first shipment of Fishers, Lemonds and Kleins is here.