Check out the website! It’s going to be a fantastic event, and I hope you can join us.

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It was a frosty afternoon, just below freezing with no wind, so I decided to take Winston out for a mountain bike ride.  I’ve been working on a sweet little loop in the woods at the end of our cul-de-sac, and it’s mostly finished.  Three weeks ago the whole area flooded, so much of my loop was covered with debris.  Slowly I’ve been uncovering the hardpack below, moving deadfall, and trying to navigate between the giant mud bogs that were created when the Green Brook jumped its banks.  The ground has been frozen, so I’ve been able to ride once or twice each week, covering the same loop so many times that the trail is getting pretty well defined.  It’s great to be able to shoot out the door for a quick hour in the morning before work and never be more than a mile from home.  The whole loop is about 1.5 miles, with a nice mix of singletrack, some small drops, a little bit of rock, and a few dirt jumps.
Border Collies are amazing dogs, lightning fast for a short burst, but they also have the endurance to run for miles.  When Winston goes with me on these rides, he’s a whirling dervish of energy - I’m not sure how he can sustain it as long as he does.  Today we rode for a little more than an hour.  The temperature rose above freezing, and within a few minutes everything was wet and muddy, including me and Winston.  Then suddenly, my rear derailleur shattered, and we came to a grinding halt.  Fortunately, we were only 200 yards from the house, so it wasn’t a long hike out.

I’ve owned the DBR V-6 Team for 12 years without so much as a flat tire, riding it all over the Rockies and Cascades and east coast singletrack.  But bike technology has improved in so many ways - shifting, suspension, carbon frame construction, disc brakes, and pretty much everything else.  I’ve tried selling the V-6 a couple of times, but I can’t get enough for it to justify parting with it.  It’s a gorgeous machine.  But since I’m departing the bike business, I’ve been stocking up on equipment, and today I finally gave in and ordered a replacement.  After racing the Specialized Epic Expert Carbon at Leadville last summer, I swore I would get another one in the proper size (the old one was one size too small, and my back paid the price.)  I think the 2010 version is one of the best looking bikes ever built, and a fantastic replacement for the V-6 Team.

Can’t wait to get out and play!  (Neither can Winston.)

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Yesterday I did one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do.  I gave Jay my notice.  After eight years, I’m leaving Jay’s Cycle.  I have had a great time there, and still enjoy every day, working side by side with some of my closest friends.  So many of my friends are people who I met through the shop; as cyclists we have a common understanding and similar sensibilities, and those friendships were strengthened by sharing some suffering out on the road.  Don’t worry, those bonds won’t go away.  If anything, I’m going to have more time to ride, so I’ll likely see you all pretty often.

Most of all, I’m proud of what we’ve done with the business over the last 8 years.  We’ve built a staff of intelligent, articulate, easygoing, and confident people with a very professional attitude.  Customers get a higher level of service than they could have imagined, and they enjoy the time they spend there.  We gave back to the community with a number of charity events:  The LBI Ride to benefit the ARC of Union County, the Pan-Mass Charity Auction to benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Research Center, and my cross country trip to raise money for cancer research.  And we have built a community of riders, more than just a club, that ride with respect and spread the word about cycling.  It’s been amazing to be at the center of all that, and to enjoy the resulting success.

What’s next?  On February 22 I will be moving into the role of General Manager of the Sneaker Factory stores.  I’m really excited about the move, as it presents a whole new set of challenges, yet I have a wealth of experience to bring to the job.  Mike Conforti, the owner and a close friend of mine, has done a wonderful job improving the business since buying it 4 years ago, and I plan to help him take it further.  We’re eager to get started.

EnduranceGuru.com is going to keep cruising along.  So many of you that I’ve worked with are going strong, having fun, and kicking butt on their various adventures and challenges.  Business is good, and growing.  There are a lot of great things in store this season, and I hope you come along for the ride . . . or run!

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After seeing the forecast for Saturday’s weather, I was pretty excited to get out on the road.  Temps were supposed to hit the 40s, and it would be sunny with little wind.  Not bad.  I got to bed early and set the alarm with plenty of time to spare.  But things rarely go exactly according to plan, do they?  I dashed around trying to find my gloves and my new shoe covers, and finally got out the door at 9:32, leaving me 28 minutes to spin the 8 miles to Westfield for Don’s Old School Saturday Ride.  Somehow, I managed to get caught at every single traffic light between home and Jay’s Cycle, and I arrived just a couple minutes after the group had left.  The guys didn’t know what route they had taken, which was just as well because I needed a break to warm up my frozen hands.

I headed back out the door and went exploring.  I wanted to check out possible routes for a charity ride I’m planning with my friend Sarino to benefit the Streetlight Mission in Elizabeth. We’re hoping to start the ride in Scotch Plains at Evangel Church, but the challenge is finding safe and scenic routes from there that avoid traffic congestion, imposing hills, and ugly industrial areas.  Unfortunately, on this trip I found plenty of traffic and ugly industrial zones, although no hills at all.  I’ll have to get creative with the route planning, and I promise it will be an interesting route.  Come ride with us on June 26th.  I’ll keep you posted with details as plans progress.

After another hour of messing around in the South Plainfield area, my hands were frozen again, so I headed home.  The temps had never made it past 36 degrees, and there was plenty of wind, but it was still worth it.  It was great to get out and breathe some fresh air and get the legs turning circles.  I was trying out some new gear for the first time, and I’m pleased:

• Castelli Spunto jacket - super warm and windproof.  I was toasty warm with just a baselayer underneath.  Probably too warm - I could have worn a lighter baselayer and been extremely comfortable.  My favorite jacket ever!
• Castelli Cardio Bibtights - warm and reasonably windproof, although they’re a very snug fit.  Their XL is any other company’s medium.
• Castelli Pioggia shoe covers - perfect for today, totally windproof, light, breathable, and lined with just the right amount of fleece.  My feet were extremely comfortable.
• Specialized Romin SL saddle - excellent!  I really like it.  Amazingly comfortable even on the first ride.  And it lives up to its billing as the most ergonomically designed saddle ever.

After I got back home and warmed up my hands again, I took a quick spin on my new TT bike.  This has been my project over the last month, piecing together my dream machine.  Finally this week I got the 3T Mistral aerobar I had been waiting for, and I was able to put it all together.  S-Works Transition carbon frame, S-Works carbon crankset, SRAM Force deraillers, SRAM Red shifters and brake levers, TRP time-trial aero brakes, Roval Rapide SL 45 aero wheels, Vittoria Open Corsa EVO CX tires, and an old Koobi TT saddle that I inherited from Otto after one of his bike renovations.  It felt amazing to blast around the block.  Fast, and almost scary.  The bike is blazing quick, and once I get the fit totally dialed it will be incredible.  I’m looking forward to racing some time trials and triathlons on it this year.

Check out the profile of this bike - narrow is aero!

Anyone interested in a well maintained 2005 Specialized Transition with brand new Vuelta Carbon Pro wheels and new Michelin tires?  It’s an awesome machine, but I won’t be needing it anymore.

If you’re interested, send me an e-mail.  I’ll take $1,000 for it, and I’ll include a complete fitting.  It’s a 56 cm frame, great for anyone 5′9″ to 6′ tall.

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I was sad to miss Don’s Old School Saturday Ride this morning, but I couldn’t force myself to brave the 26 degree temp with the chill of a gusty 20 mph wind subtracted from that.  Too many frigid winters spent training outdoors have done their damage, and the circulation in my hands is terrible.  As a result, my fingers freeze in spite of every precaution.  I don’t mind the cold so much, but the risk is too great.  So days like today relegate me to the basement.

My training studio is pretty simple:  my 17-year-old CycleOps Fluid trainer, a riser block, an ancient Panasonic 17″ tv, a vcr (I still haven’t invested in a dvd player for the studio), a pile of videos, my rollers leaning in the corner, and either my TT bike or my CX bike with road slicks locked in position.  A de-humidifier and a fan keep things bearable.

After lifting weights and running a few miles with Jenn and Winston yesterday, my hamstrings were a bit tight, so I was content to warm up slowly, letting the capillaries dilate, the pores open, and the lungs to expand.  I put on my favorite video, Stars and Watercarriers, a classic Jorgen Leth film that documents the 1972 Giro d’Italia.  As I warm up, I move upward through the gears, falling into rhythm with Merckx and Shoenmacher on the screen as they lead the peloton up the Cima Coppi, relentlessly pushing the pace until the best climbers in the world have fallen off their wheels, an only Merckx can continue to accelerate.  Before I know it, an hour has gone, my waterbottle is empty, and a puddle of sweat is on the floor beneath me.

This is the start of my 2010 season.  It feels pretty good.

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A line from a Pomegranates song that I heard today on WOXY, the worlds greatest radio station.  Made me want to lay down a few words.  It’s a damp, post-snowstorm afternoon, a pre-New-Years-Eve-party free afternoon.  Winston snuck up onto the sofa next to me, giving me that sideways glance that says “Hey, I’m just going to push my luck and see whether you kick me off or not.” He’ll be snoring dog snores in a moment.
One of the things I love about the quiet that settles over the bike business after Christmas is that suddenly I have time to read.  Sort of.  I have a dozen or more things that I should be doing, including several training plans for clients.  Or sitting on the trainer, cranking myself up to another level of fitness, less sloth-like but still midwinter slow.  For Christmas Dad gave me a copy of Colum McCann’s amazing novel, Let the Great World Spin.  I’m only a few chapters into it, already immersed, and knowing why it won a National Book Award.

“I should have known that the sea was written in him, that there would be some sort of leaving”.  The book is full of gorgeously crafted sentences, lyrical and rhythmic, pulling you along.  Read it.

Reading great prose and poetry fills me with the urge to write, and that’s an urge I wish I had more often.  Writing can be tough work.  Sometimes it’s pretty hard to say something unique, interesting, or meaningful.  I’m grateful to those of you who follow this blog and keep checking in, even though my entries come along rather sporadically.

A writer I admire is Bill Strickland, whose blog is always throwing me inspiring pieces of poetry and images projected from his creative imagination.  He’s a kindred spirit, a guy who knows of the love of two wheels and finds eloquent words for that elegant universe.  I’ll read one of his postings, a tidbit like this one, and my head will spin into a world of ideas and energy, and I end up staying up all night trying to craft it all into verbal sculpture.

It’s easy to get into a thoughtful mood as daylight fades into the last night of a decade.  It has been an interesting year, crazy, sad, exhausting, gorgeous, victorious, titillating, monumental, exhilarating . . . and another twenty adjectives that represent one hundred more stories, more than can be told here.  I’m sure 2010 will bring more; that’s called living.

I’ll just try to keep it all worth reading about.  I hope your New Year is amazing.

-Geoff

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The first big snowstorm of the season just arrived, and it looks like it’s going to be messy.  Jenn and I took Winston out for a run earlier, finishing up just ahead of the first snowflakes.  I felt pretty miserable - my fingers were frozen, my throat felt raw, and the wind chill was biting into me like a thousand X-acto knives.  Winston and I peeled off after 4 measly miles, while Jenn went on to have one of her best runs in a long time.  (That usually happens to her the morning after drinking beer, for some reason.  After the Philly Beer Fest she cruised through a fast 15-miler in Fairmount Park).

We spent last evening with Jeff and Craige at their apartment in Jersey City, enjoying an excellent meal and some great beers.  We started with a bottle of the Woodcut cask-aged ale, which is sweet and spicy and complex and delicious.  We opened a bottle from a small brewer in Wevelgem, Belgium that was extremely good, and then a bottle of stout that had been aged in bourbon barrels - very tasty.  Paired with some delicious aged cheeses, it was all quite amazing.  It was great to catch up with Jeff and Craige, whose recent travels have taken them to Singapore and Japan.  It’s always cool enjoying good brew with good friends.

This storm looks like it’s going to bury us, so I don’t expect to be putting any miles on the bike this week.  Thank god for spin class - our buddy Manny now teaches back to back classes at Lifetime Fitness, and I can get there in time to catch 1.5 of them.  I did my first one of the winter just last week, and felt great.  I expected to be dying, but cruised through it pretty easily.  Even though I hate winter training, I am excited about this coming year.  My new tri bike is on order, and I have most of what I need to build up a new road bike.  SRAM Red, 3T bars and stem, Roval Rapide 45sl wheels, and a Specialized Romin SL saddle.   I cleared out the garage in the last couple of months, selling both my Roubaix Pro and Tarmac Pro on eBay, and I’ll be selling my old Transition soon, too, and another set of wheels.  For now I’m logging miles on my cx bike.  But I’m looking forward to the coming year, and I feel like finally I’m injury free, have a good base of endurance, and I have the means to stay in decent condition for the next few snowy months.  That’s a good feeling.

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Two years ago last month I was finishing up my cross-country ride.  I can’t quite explain the transformative powers of 3 weeks on the road.  But 3,000 miles in 21 days was more than just a minor blip on the radar.  It was an existentialist experience that has helped define who I am.

It’s funny, when I was in college studying literature, art, philosophy, and theology, I was continually engaging in existentialist criticism and analysis.  Existentialism asks us of our living experience:  WHY?  The idea of it all is that action defines identity; “to do is to be”.  But really humans are not so simple.  Why did I ride across the country?  I still can’t give you a clear reason for that.  I had a huge wanderlust that needed to be worked out.  In the process, I gained a clearer picture of who I am.  Isn’t that what adventures are all about?

Lately I’ve been following the blog of my new friend Victoria Merriman as she rides across the USA from Boston to Santa Monica.  Right now she’s on the roads I traveled in 2007, albeit heading the opposite direction.  Still, the pavement is no better, and the wind is in her face too.  The views are pretty much the same.  She writes very eloquently about her adventure, and she has a beautiful humility and appreciation for the experience.  Take some time and read back through her blog, and you’ll get a dose of the subtle side of adventure.

Keep those pedals turning, Victoria.  The west coast is just a few days away.

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Something pretty cool happened today.  I saw an e-mail promotion from Canyon Cyclesports, a new distributor in Ashland, Oregon, for some closeout Vuelta carbon wheels.  I needed some wheels for my tri bike, so I called up to place an order.  The guy who answered simply said “Hi, this is Ron”.  I had to ask him to make sure I had called the right place.  But immediately his voice sounded familiar.  After a few seconds of conversation, it clicked.

The voice belonged to Ron Blocher, my boss at Diamondback, a dozen years ago.  Ron is simply the best manager I’ve ever had.  He’s been in the bike industry for 30+ years, and knows virtually everyone.  He was a fantastic mentor, helping me as a new sales rep find innovative ways to resurrect a fading territory (Ohio and Northern Kentucky).  He always had creative ways of making sales, and he really taught me well.  Over the 2-1/2 years I worked under him, up until the point where Diamondback was purchased by Derby (Raleigh) and subsequently dismantled, we rebuilt a ragged and miserable territory into the strongest piece of the Diamondback pie, producing 12% of sales for the brand.  To put that into perspective, there were 31 other territories.  It was a lot of fun, and a very busy and exciting time.

One thing that I always respected about Ron is that he operates without ego.  It’s a difficult thing to do.  When you’re trying to help a customer and make a sale, the focus is on them, not you.  You can’t get emotional, and you can’t take offense when it doesn’t go smoothly.  You have to have empathy, have to achieve understanding of your customer’s point of view.  Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes not.  I try to do that every day, and I teach that to our staff.  I think that philosophy is a huge part of the success of Jay’s Cycle in the last few years.

It was great to re-connect.  Ron, best of luck to you with the new venture!

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I met up with some of my lunatic friends this morning for a damp, chilly ride from Westfield to Verona and back.  A great time was had by all.  Turkey calories were well-earned.

Have a terrific Thanksgiving!

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