Grand Opening Friday! This Friday!

Stop on by! We'll have some music, some food, some soda. If you would like beer, bring your own. I can't serve. It all starts around 5pm.

Family fun. That's what biking should be about, right? I started this shop to be a family oriented type of place, and haven't quite gotten there yet. This will soon change though. The last Friday of every warm month is now dedicated to a family fun night. Anyone with kids, bikes, trailers, trail-a-bikes, kiddie karriers and a hankerin' for a good time is welcome to come along.

The plan is to start at the shop, ride as a slow, fun group to a park in town, stop, set up camp and proceed to have fun. Kids playing. Parents playing. Food cooking. Eating said food. And then playing more. Lets do it!

Hey, you know, if its fun enough, we just might do it more often, who knows? I'd like to know who'd be interested in this. Please drop a line here, k?

New artists at the shop! Greg Cheesboro is a potter from Viroqua. His work has both an inspiring beauty, and a sense of functionality to it. I'll post pictures when ever we get good light in the store. His wife, Anna Rodriquez also supplied us with some great felt wallets in wonderfully vibrant colors. Hillary Berg is also bringing some works over today. We're really excited to have her works in. Again, I'll have some pics up soon.

On to bike talk - the TransIowa was this past weekend. Locals know how - WET - things were. Surprisingly, the roads over in IA were nearly bone dry by the time the start gun blasted. I figure 40 mph winds helped that out. The roads may have been dry, the streams and rivers certainly weren't. Guitar Ted is going to be reviewing the whole race in the coming days. If you're curious about this event, and how it worked from the promoters eyes, read his blog! I did some scouting for photography on Saturday afternoon and found that the Turkey River really doesn't like to be kept in its banks when its draining up to 8" of rain from the previous few days. Some of the B roads were well under water.

So like I said, I was taking pictures for Mark. I only got like three. I was slated to take shots on Sunday, on the final portion of the course. Unfortunately, with sooo much water being on the course, or crossing the course, too many re-route had to be done on the fly, adding confusion to an already slightly confusing race. Mark and David finally broke when they found a road with no easy routes to re-route to, was completely washed out. At the bottom of a steeeep hill. They called the race at about 1 am, and finished in Edgeville instead of Decorah.

So where are the pics? Uh. I don't know. They're digital dust. In transfering them from my camera to the 'puter, they were lost. I'm bummed.

I did manage to save shots from the Decorah time trials though! Since I wasn't 'working', I figured that Lisa and the girls would like to get out of dodge for a day. I proposed going to Decorah at about 7 when we woke up. By 8:30 were packed and out the door. All the rain that affected the TI, also hit the Decorah trails too. Surprisingly, they were in fantastic shape. Some sections were indeed wet, but not so bad as to be unridable. The weather must've scared off a whole metric ton of people though. This race usually has over 120 riders. 88 showed up this year. Better for me! I did pretty well, I think. 4th in my age group (34-35), and 22nd overall. Ryan did well too, getting 2nd in his age class and something like 28th over all. All the old LaCrosse homies did well too(they all beat me - which is not so unusual). On to pictures(I know thats why you come here!)


Prior to the start - the LaCross guys, Ryan, and I headed to get start times.


On trail - some guy riding a Salsa El Mariachi past the car and the most awesomeest trail head house I've seen to date.


Trail gnome, waiting to attack an unsuspecting rider ambling by.


The awesomest house.


Me, a half hour into the race, after passing four guys already(we set out at 1 minute intervals).


And me about an hour later, mostly shot, but happy with results.

In the mug: Birchwood Blend from Peace Coffee. Mmm, good! They support cycling, support them!