bike, bike, bike

A couple weeks ago I had the chance to visit Wisconsin as part of my continuing education on bikes. Is this a great country, or what? A group of us traveled from Overland Park to Des Moines, where we picked up some bikes to demo on a "hybrid" ride that week. Then we headed to Madison for a few days. We got to hear from several reps from different bike, bike accessories, and bike clothing manufacturers, as well as some Scheels bike experts on how to help our customers enjoy biking as much as we do.

Despite recent snow and chilly temps, we road on some paved trails around the lakes in downtown Madison. And we took a bus ride to Waterloo to tour the Trek factory. They don't show you everything on the tour, but I did get to see where my Project One Madone was painted Chi Red.

I did enjoy this picture of Trek founder, Dick Berg and his son on Independence Pass.

Then we took a box lunch, got back on the bus, and rode to Milwaukee to visit Ray's MTB indoor bike park. To be honest, my strategy going in was "survive and advance", like most teams in the NCAA tournament. But despite a handful of spills, I ended up having a great time. I rode around on the easiest two routes for a while before discovering the "pump track". It was a short track with banked turns, and small humps in the straightaways. A lack of speed going high on the banked turns would leave your wheels sliding right out from under you. But if you used your bike correctly, it was something like a roller coaster powered by you.

After dropping bikes off in Des Moines we got home late Friday night. Four of us got together Saturday for a short road ride. And I've been exhausted to some degree ever since. I'm glad the weekend is here to rest up for another busy week at Scheels.