There have been many rumblings and speculations about what I am up to exactly. Well, now I can officially tell you. I am leaving VT.

It all started about 2 years ago, when my life underwent a pretty radical change. My 3 week road trip of the southwest awakened me to the fact that I was in fact, completely miserable where I was, both mentally and geographically. However owning a business, and more importantly, being a parent made “just picking up and leaving” very unlikely. So, for a long time, I waited. Patience is a Jedi trait I lack, but is definitely one I have been working on.

Well, it seems as if my patience has paid off. The business is no longer a factor, I have gotten rid of all but a few remaining items of inventory, and have placed B29 in carbonite, until such time as it might be needed again.

The parent part, well, that is ongoing, but negotiations have been made and long term plans set in motion. The subject has been broached with the little guy, who was both excited for the new opportunity for a new life in a new place, and sad that he would miss his friends that he has known since he was a baby. It was a very hard thing to do, break a little kids heart, but I know he’ll be OK. These next few months will be difficult, but the best things in life are seldom easy. These last few months have certainly been hard on me, but I have chosen to think of them as the universe’s way of purging all the unnecessary crap out of my life. Kind of like jettisoning the garbage before making the jump to hyperspace. 

On February 25th, I put the Green Mountain state in my rear view mirror, and point towards the Rocky Mountains. This isn’t the bummer ending of Empire, rather a new beginning in the wake of life altering change. Plus I hear there is some good mountainbiking out there…

More updates to follow, stay tuned…

Yeah, I know. I’ve been busy. For those that don’t know, I’m currently working 2 jobs right now. I’m still doing a little bit of Bike29, and doing a little bit of Ellsworth Handcrafted Bicycles. Yes, that is what my sudden trips to the west coast have been all about, although I wish I could say it was because I won the lottery and have been taking lavish mini vacations. I guess in a way, I have, because I did get to do a couple of cool things on this last trip besides learn a new operating system and drink lots of really awesome tequila.

I flew to San Diego (German for a…) just before Thanksgiving. My mission, to pick up a bunch of bikes and a big assed truck, and drive back east. It seems that every time I fly these days, there is some form of unplanned and unappreciated delay, and my last flight out was no different. Thanks to a certain airline, I missed my connecting flight and had to spent a bonus night in Philly. The plus side, the bar staff and patrons of the near airport hotel bar were extremely entertaining.

After finally getting to San Diego, I ended up getting delayed again due to the truck needing a couple of things fixed, and a cap installed. It wasnt as bad as I thought it was going to be, but hanging out in South Town for about 4 hours was not that much fun. Once I was finished up, it was time to load on up and head out. Driving. In this.

Kitty!

It’s awesome. His name is Moby (after the great white whale) but I call him Big Kitty. His diesel motor purrs, and like a kitty, if he decides to do his own thing, you gotta pay attention to get him back on track. I like him. Its fun peering down into the cabs of other full size trucks as you pass them…

my bike has those too!

So my first stop was Tucson. Damn. I hate that town. I took a little time out of my day to ride Fantasy Island after a dealer visit. I decided to ride a 26″ bike just for hahas. I took out the Moment, a 160mm travel all mountain sort of a bike. The bike was a medium, so I was sort of all over the place, but it was the only bike I had with me that was already built up. It felt weird to ride a small wheeled bike on terrain I was so used to riding a 29er singlespeed on, but I figured why not. It reminded me that I really like 29″ wheels for a reason. Its been super dry in Tucson, and the trails were very loose, I got bogged down by the sandy conditions where big wheels would normally carry me through (maybe…). Fantasy Island is the sort of place where you dont need all that suspension, it’s kinda flat and not technical at all. But it is super fun, and it requires ninja like maneuvers to ride quickly lest you have a run in with the cholla. The Moment was fun in that it was very agreeable to sudden direction changes. Actually, the bike is very playful despite the huge amount of travel on both ends of the bike. One day I’ll ride one my size on more appropriate terrain. I spent almost 2 hours tooling about the place, avoiding cows and learning where all the sweet spots were on setting up the suspension. I also managed to avoid any run ins with the local vegetation.

a peaceful Moment in Tucson

The next day was Thanksgiving, and I spent 7 hrs driving east to Albuquerque, but I’ll tell you more about that next time.

… at the Cirlce K

woah

The last couple of days have been filled with all sorts of goings on. I can tell you that there are some big things cooking behind the scenes at B29, some rather important things. I’ll be able to talk about them soon.

I did manage to squeeze in a ride on Kermit on the record breakingly warm day we had on Monday. 71° was such a pleasant temperature to go bombing around w/ T-Vo at Saxon Hill in Essex. No arm warmers or bulky jackets necessary. I’m always amazed at how fun this network of trails is, and baffled that I only ever seem to ride them once a year – right at the end of the season. Probably because my local Stowe trails are so much easier to access.

With hunting season upon us, there are only a few areas that are “safe” to ride. Although, this is VT, I’ve seen flannel and guns on these safe areas more than once. Generally, they are just passing through, but it’s still unnerving. I tend to avoid the woods all together this time of year. Hunting season is relatively short, and since I’ve been riding my bike in the woods since March, I’m totally OK with sharing.

Sometimes, there is December dirt, but I’m prepared if there isn’t. I have the Trundleraptor ready to go…

It seems as if it were only yesterday that I was hovering over my computer, furiously trying to come up with a submission for the Green Mountain Showdown. I had run into MTBVT head honcho Ryan at Interbike, where he gently twisted my arm into participating. It wasnt that hard, as this was after 5, and I was on my way back from the tequila hour at one of the booths.

Of course, I put it off until the very last minute.

Which is sort of funny, cinsidering. Anyway, one of the hardest things about it was coming up with the right “tone”. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and I tend to be a bit overly self conscious in these situations. I had an idea, but no point of reference. I agonized for days on how I was going to execute it, what content was going to be in it, was it going to be mixed media, what music to use etc to the point where I almost went batshit. Oh, and I had to make it run in a time format that wouldn’t send people towards the door. Had I not procrastinated so hard, it might have been better.

So what we have here, is my submission. I ended up just going with a photo slideshow set to music. You’ve seen some of these images on this blog before. I wanted to come up with a little something that not only showcased  my pictures, but was also a sort of photo diary of the last 18 months of my life.

As we all know, my last 18 months have been rife with change, some of it not so good. These are images from my escape. I never stopped riding my bike, for a long time it was the only place where I felt like things were OK. It took me places I can only partially tell you about with pictures. The music I selected tells another part of the story. No one creates soundscapes like Ennio. Plus I’m a big sucker for Spaghetti Westerns. It’s a story of the big open spaces I’ve navigated through on my bike, both mentally and physically.

Unfortunately, the night the Showdown was to take place, it decided to rain cats, dogs, geese and chickens sideways. This pushed back the start of the event, and I was ultimately bumped from the line up. I was a little bit miffed, but stuff like this happens, sometimes you just have to roll with it. There were some really good submissions, and it was good to see so many people turn out in spite of the deluge. The best part about it, was that I got a little bit of validation in my efforts. My submission was different, but at least as good as some of the others.

This has me thinking about the next Showdown…

It’s amazing how little effort it takes to fuel the stoke.

I’ve spent the last couple of days in my storage unit, after spending entirely way too long trying to print out shipping labels at my kitchen table. What was I doing? Putting labels on boxes. Being busy never felt so good. Even if my efforts took 5 times as long due to an “IT” issue.

the first carload

I also made a bit more room in ye old “warehouse” by passing on a couple of items that I had built for the shop: my old workbench and my craptable. I call it a craptable, but really it’s where the bench vise, bench grinder and several hundred steerer tube ends used to live. It’s a sturdy little sucker. I was able to bequeath these items to my good buddy Joe (of Joe’s Trail), who also helped me stuff boxes. Without his help, I would still probably be there shipping orders in the snow.

hazy shade of winter

Oh, yeah, it has snowed. Several inches fell up high, and we’ve had a dusting to 1″ on the valley floors which means that winter will very soon be upon us. That didn’t stop me from getting in a ride in the Loops. While many of the locals were out hiking the snow capped mountains in search of their first ski turns of the season, Seamy and I had the woods to ourselves.

snowy singletrack

keepin it METAL

Now I don’t know if the ambient air temperature had anything to do with it (28°!) but I had a real hard time getting my bike to move. I felt weak like kitten, a far cry from the strong like bull I felt on my last ride. It probably had more to do with the fact that my last ride was well over a week ago. Or maybe I need a lighter bike…

I am touched by the overwhelming amount of support via orders I received Friday and Saturday. Until my recent slash and burn tactics, all this stuff had been sitting in storage getting dusty. I’ve been feeling a lot like a haggard survivor in the Walking Dead lately, and getting rid of this inventory has given me some more bullets so I can live to fight another day. For that, I am extremely grateful. Thanks to everyone.

staying one step ahead...

I’m gonna level with y’all. I was dead certain that I was rapidly approaching the end. I have a hard time not doing things. It makes me crazy. Unless otherwise focusing on things like spokelengths, various hub/rim combos, tire pressure, sag, blah blah blah blah blah, my mind becomes a centrifuge that will keep spinning until it accelerates to the point where it breaks and flies off into an unpredicted direction. It could put someone’s eye out.

It’s not like I haven’t been looking for work. Nothing awesome has turned up yet, but the feelers are out there. I’ve had some interviews, some rejections, and lots of no replies. And you know what? I’ve been here before. In fact, it was about 7 years ago I was in the very same predicament: jobless, broke, and no options looking good. The landscape has changed, but the game is the same. Maybe some of the parameters might be better, or worse, depending on how you look at them, but I’ve been here before. And I lived to tell the tale.

Bike29 was just a simple idea that became so much more than I knew what to do with sometimes. Occasionally it got out of hand. It’s run me into the ground more than once, that’s for sure. But every time it’s done that, I’ve been able to walk out of the smoking crater. This last time was very hard, because everything was a stake.  Guess it still is. But dammit, I feel myself getting up. Maybe not as quickly, and definitely a lot more banged up than I have ever been, I’m getting up just the same.

To be continued…

 

It has been a month since I handed the keys to the retail shop back to my landlords. Sadly, not much has happened, with the one exception of a quick trip out to my old stomping grounds in San Diego. That was a nice break.

The weather here of course made my threat of riding bikes almost impossible, and my quick trip has reduced the number of rides to a mere handful. Normally, I have Off-tober, but seeing as I wasn’t bound to occupy the shop, I thought I’d enjoy some of that freedom before the next thing presents itself. Oh well… The online store has managed to do a pretty decent business, despite me not really playing with it. And I still have a pretty decent inventory of stuff left over, and now it is time for some deals to be made.

If you head on over to the Bike29 Sale page, you will see some rather crazy deals. So take a look, tell a friend, get a bargain, so I don’t have to resort to doing something like this:

 

So as some of you might know, things in Waterbury have not been terribly rosy since our visit from Irene last summer. It effectively squashed the life out this little town, but what was fantastic and exciting to see was the community rallying to the aid of their neighbors. One year ago today I was sharing the bike shop with another business. It helped to share the burden of the lofty overhead while the town was rebuilding. Unfortunately, many of the people that used to work in town still haven’t come back. And it isn’t likely that the nearly 1500 employees of the State of VT will be back any time soon. Without the people, there was a huge hole in retail visits, a crippling blow to many of the small business in town, including mine.

While I managed to hold on through the summer, it was becoming increasingly more obvious that something had to be done. And unfortunately, that meant closing the bike shop. I started Five Hills Bikes almost 7 years ago, not knowing what would happen. I watching it grow out of it’s original space on Rt 100, and into Waterbury’s downtown where it has been for the last 5 years. I’ve spent every day working toward the success of the business. There were some bumps along the way, but also a lot of really good times. I’ve gotten to travel to some really cool places, meet some really fantastic people, and lets not forget all the awesome bikes I’ve owned along the way.

Bike 29 will keep on keeping on for the time being. The beauty of an online business, is that it isn’t 100% dependent on having a physical location. The current plan is to find a suitable spot to reopen the shop and keep doing the things I did well, but on a much smaller and more manageable scale. Until then though, I guess I’ll have to just ride my bike!

So that’s that. It was a great ride while it lasted. And I have to say that I have no regrets about any of it. It did feel pretty good to hand the keys back to my landlords today. But now I get to look forward to new adventures, which I will most likely share here. Having been at this for the last 7 years, I’ve developed somewhat of a writing habit, even though I’ve been pretty quiet lately. So with that, I’ll say see ya’ll down the trail.

 

So as some of you might have noticed, I was out of town all week. I hopped on a plane and went to Vegas for a few days. My trip happened to coincide with Interbike, the big bike show that I have chosen to sit out for the last few years.

I have historically disliked Las Vegas, and I did not relish the fact that I had 2 days of tradeshow capped off with a red-eye home to look forward to when I parked the car at the airport on Monday. I did tell myself that I was going to be open minded though, and decided to lighten up this trip. After all, I was going to meet up with a long time buddy of  mine from the days when I lived on the left coast.

I spent as little time at the convention center as possible, while getting as much work done as possible. Having a rental car at my disposal was one of the biggest assets I had going for me, so needless to say, I got around. I saw Hoover Dam. It was awesome. It boggles my mind that it was made out of concrete almost 80 years ago and it has zero signs of wear and tear. I mean, they cant even make a sidewalk of a bridge that holds up that long it seems…

I also found some nice spots off the beaten path. Frankie’s Tiki Room is my new favorite place. Something about rum drinks, surf music and darkness is pretty relaxing, despite the fact that from the outside, it looks sketchy as hell. I highly recommend a visit should you be in the area.

I’d also never been to Fremont St, the iconic Vegas strip of incandescent bulbs and dirty old casinos. Fabulous people watching opportunities are found here.

So here is an instagram photodump of all the non bike stuff I did while out there. I’ll be following it up with a bike related post soon enough. Enjoy!

After several years of not playing, I decided a few weeks ago that it might be time for me to go to the big dog and pony show. I am of course taking about Interbike.

Sin City

While the whole getting to the show is somewhat of an ordeal, the loss of a day to get there, the redeye back, the casions, the pure Vegasness of it all, I am actually looking forward to my trip. I think it might have been 3 or 4 years since I’ve been.

I’ll get to see a lot of my industry friends and colleagues I haven’t seen in a while. I’ve got some meetings lined up. I’ve got some futeristic plans, and some of the craziest schemes get cooked up at the show. So I’ll be gone all next week, but will hopefully have time to update from the road as my dance card allows. Part of me just wants to leave the laptop at home, and travel fast and light, and provide updates via the Book Face or the Twitters with my dumbPhone. Not sure what my approach is going to be, but in 1 week from today, I will be baking in the hot Nevada desert.

Oh yes, there will be cocktails.