Las Vegas and How

Vegas is exhausting.
Interbike is insane.

I have seen every production bike and part made for the US consumers to look at. It took miles of walking and lots of talking, but I feel pretty complete. The two companies that are making perfect stuff for Denver, in my opinion are:
Serfas - lots of new stuff coming for commuters and cyclists in general. They are bringing out lights for seeing, new pumps that can take lots of abuse and easy to use gloves that will save the famous ulna nerve.
Giant - so many nice bikes that fit the front range. I'll detail them on the website as it gets updated.

We are working on getting more Serfas in as soon as possible.

Awful and funny story, made as short as possible:
Smooth Marble and Split Pea Soup by Scott T.

I got off the bus at my stop to go back to the Golden Nugget (FANNNNCCY!!) and watched a woman, who was about 80, slip and fall. She fell like a person having a chair pulled out from under them. I mean this lady fell hard. HARD! She landed right on her arm. I and a few others ran over to help her up. She was absolutely fine. But, she had slipped on someone's vomit. I still haven't laughed yet. Oh, there I go.

Helmets

Why I wear a helmet. By Scott T.

I owned a Surly Steamroller (59cm), in baked bean brown a few years ago. Everytime out was an adventure of some kind. I set out one evening at around dusk on my bike to go get groceries. By the way, I was living in Cary, NC at the time. (You can laugh if you want. It was a good place to catch my breath.) Anyways, I was riding in the middle of my lane on a 4 lane road. I wasn't going particularly fast or slow, just cruising. I'm very good about watching for people turning and ignoring, so street accidents are a rarity for me. A tow truck swerved abruptly. Crossed in front of me. I swerved abruptly toward it. Both of us turned left sharply. I missed the side of the tow truck by about 6 inches. It would have killed me. I almost puked immediately. I made it to the grocery store and stayed there for about 2 hours wandering around feeling the adrenaline. I bought a helmet the next day. I love helmets. I swear by helmets.

Wheel Builds

I get to build the most expensive *front* wheel I have ever built today. It is a disk brake compatible generator front hub from Schmidt (a German company that you can check out at Peter White Cycles) laced up to a Mavic X717 Disc Rim, black double butted DT spokes. Ironically, this is the matching wheel to the most expensive rear wheel I have built: Rohloff to X717. Total value of wheel set is approaching $2k. These wheels are completely off-road touring specific, and so far the customer loves them.

The lights that are to be used with the Schmidt hub are obscenely bright. One of my favorite stories about these lights is a customer/friend of mine who set up this system on a Heron for long rides. He set off for a night ride and went to Washington Park for a nice long spin. Everywhere we rode around, people acted like they were caught by the cops. They thought he was on a silect motorcycle. This guy is a retired officer, so he laughs everytime it gets brought up. Great stuff.

I'm a duck

It is raining this morning which means I'll be dressing a little smarter than normal. When it has been weird outside, like today, I've been wearing the lightest merino pieces I have and then wearing a hoody over them. I don't like looking techie when I am going on my commute. The weather in Denver is so up and down that I've been trying all sorts of combos to see what helps me regulate my temp the best. So far, it is merino with some sort of relatively breathable material over it.

I'm thinking about moving my Xtracycle over to this beautiful red Bridgestone MB-3 frameset I was given. It is a bit more my size(19"), plus I have a front rack like no other for the rigid fork. It is damn tough looking; it will hold 75lbs. easy. That means I can carry about 275 with my bike-truck. The only reason I don't want to is because I don't want to make it impossible for "shorter" people to ride it. I'm 6' and it is still totally functional. Maybe I need a fleet of these bad boys for people to borrow. I'll work on that.

Xtracycle and Good news

I used the xtracycle yesterday morning to move several hundred pounds of bricks to the shop. I was carrying about 100 lbs per trip. Under that kind of load, the bike does funny things. It feels like someone sitting on the back is swaying to a slow song that they really really like. Anyways, it was kind of depressing to see how small of an area 100 lbs of bricks will cover. Danny later came in with this truck and we moved the remaining 500ish pounds.

I love the Xtracycle. In a no pedaling race, I can get so aero that I can beat most anyone. I just sit on the wooden platform and go superman.

By the way, the Xtracycle is available for borrow if someone needs it for grocery shopping, moving, weddings, etc.

We heard more good news from Giant times 2. I can only tell one of them: we are listed on the giant website. When you search Denver, CO, Salvagetti Bicycle Workshop comes up first. Yeah! We don't have the bikes yet, but this is a good sign that they are on their way.

Cool off plus Interbike

It got damn cold. Glove cold.

We still have not received the Giants yet, though we did get the 2007 catalog. I see atleast 2 bikes that I *must* own. By the way my stomach dropped when I saw them, I am getting an OCR C1 (or C0). The debate is still out on which MTN bike I want, but the Reign X0 looks like my push-up-hills-cause-i'm-too-lazy-to-climb-but-not-too-lazy-to-decend bike. It might climb though. I'm not terribly skilled, having fun while riding is my strong point. Not too fast uphill, and I'm clum-zay going downhill. I will make up for my weakness through my purchase.

Interbike is a week away. I'm excited about seeing the new 29er stuff, specifically the tires and rims... the frames are all going to end up the same eventually. I will do my best to update the website (http://www.salvagetti.com) and here with new and interesting stuff. I get to play at the dirt demo on Tuesday and will be at the show for the rest of the time. I hope to nail down some great lines for 2007, but I'll have to wait to tell you exactly who it is.