Quick

Sweating my _______ off



New fav wagon ford road, crushed up gravel



Shadiest bridge in illinois



Cars actually drive over this

Today was one of the days where you get on the bike and wonder is it worth it? Is it worth sweating this much, barely being able to breath the air is so humid, worth getting horribly dehydrated your body is losing so many electorlytes? Was over 90 degrees and humid today, made it out in between storms and went for a quick 35 miles, took wagon ford road which is awesome and has some scary cool bridge with a couple nice climbs. The road sounded like I was riding on bubble wrap because the oil on the road was bubbling up it was so hot. Water alone does not help on these rides ad you need serious electrolytes even on a short ride like this one. When it is as hot as it is today, be safe and drink at least two bottles an hour while riding. Stay smart and stay safe on the roads.

- JB

Shiverous

Crazy bar setup



crazy brake setup



crazy frame module



crazy sleek carbon fiber work



crazy mean darth vader front end

The SHIV has arrived, S-works baby....not much else to say, this thing is RIDICULOUS....

Buy a Shiv....from Wheel Fast.... I will build it for you... and even wipe off the drool...

- JB

Stuff

The Big Sweat



Floating bikes



Floating bikes #2



Wednesday night ride



Wednesday night ride (half of the group is behind me, decent turn out)

Been making some improvements and rearranging the shop which is pretty awesome. For some strange reason we have had some slow saturdays and weekdays at the shop in the middle of June, kind of a mystery to me. So, we hung some bikes from the ceiling to fill our tiny shop a little better and make use of some dead space. The weather has been extremely hot and humid with lots of little thunderstorms coming through the middle and northern parts of Illinois. The wednesday night rides have been getting awesome turn outs and been really fun. Getting some new people out on bikes as well and enjoying the sport is very exciting to me. Still riding a lot and planning on doing a hilly century with the Ferg Nasty this Sunday pending how his collar bone break feels. Stay dry and cool out there Illinois.

- JB

Random

New shelves



Another view



Glass



Awesome

Some random odds and ends. Been riding a bunch lately...about 2500 miles for the year so far. After persisting on some more organization at the shop we had our main man Bob build us some shelves from cedar. Not only does this warm the shop up a bit with some nice wood (yea i said it) but classes it up and helps with organization. We are working on some more cedar shelves for our helmets and shoes and some more reorganization of the shop. Also, we had an awesome Swwwinnnn come in and look at the cable routing....DONT BUY BIKES AT DEPARTMENT STORES ahhhhhh. Ok, have a wonderful week.

- JB

day of sun

The four horsemen



Club ride



Refuel in virden

Met the four horsemen out this morning at 6 am including the Haltermaniac, Rob Landers, Caruso-son (japanese accent), and Gene (Simmons?). We cruised and chatted. The Haltermaniac and I time trialed our way to meet the club ride leaving at 8 am and started the ride with those guys. Humidity was high, average speed was low. A gentle cruise to Loami and back to Virden and Auburn and eventually home led me with a grand total of around 90 miles. Some sprints on the way back were pretty fun and the legs felt good. Total of 260 miles for the week, going to take a rest day or two this coming week to recharge and relax. Stay cool on the roads and pedal hard!

- JB

Gone

Got rid of all the junk bikes in the back of the shop. What a breath of fresh air. However, if we need a cheap 1" keyed spacer with canti stop we might have to get creative instead of scraping it off of some junk bike....oh well. Spring cleaning!

Solo 120

Sunrise



Random pillars that were cool



"And theres always something there to remind me...."



Pana, mile 60



Gross gnats all over my body



Beard



Enlarge this photo. These are swarms of gnats all down the road....GROSS. I got covered.



Road grit, gnats, dirt....worse then when i was mountain biking.



Cool lilly along the trail

Went out early for the long one. Conditions were ideal for this long ride I have been planning for about three weeks. Good temperature, wind from the right direction, day off of work. I had to wrestle with some demons to get out of bed this morning instead of sleeping in. Many deer again questioned my motives at 6 a.m. and just stared at me. I headed straight east through Rochester to Decatur then south to Pana. Along the country roads I road through swarm after swarm of these gnasty ass gnats. Got covered head to toe with them and felt like my whole body was crawling...it was seriously an off-putting feeling. Refueled in Pana and took the Pana trail to Taylorville (which I had heard a lot about but never ridden). It was extremely exciting and took me in a complete straight line. The only thing keeping me sane was that I had a tail wind. I headed north to Edinburg and refueled and headed west through lake Sangchris to complete 100 miles. Then road the 20 mile wednesday night loop through Chatham. At mile 110 my tire blew and sounded like a gunshot went off. I pulled over in the shade and examined what happened. The complete sidewall of the tire had blown out and there was no saving or patching it. Literally, three minutes later my new best friend Gary pulled up and asked if I was ok and needed a ride. He was an old man heading into Chatham and hey guess what....so was I. So, we chatted, I thanked him and told him he was a godsend. Spent 90% of my remaining energy putting on the tightest GP4000 S tire I have ever installed and chatted with the boss for a few. Ten miles later I was back home with 120 miles for the day and the longest distance I have ever ridden, even though it was on the "cheater" bikes as Ari would say. Plenty of food and electrolytes meant no cramping and I feel fine this evening after eating the Clif Shot Roks containing 20 g of protein. Long day on the bike and I road with my Ipod which I dont normally do. I feel like this made the ride feel longer than it normally would because I was conscious to the lengths of some of the songs instead of putting my head down and going like I normally do. Really would love some company on the longer rides just to help pass the time, but for now I'll keep doing what I gotta do. Hope to keep pushing the distance up, up, and away. Cheers.

- JB

Machines

Great print that my brother got me for graduation. The Life Machines/Death Machines is on display at the bike shop amongst the other wall of fame photos including the Paris Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, an old print from le tour de france, and Bob's son Joe with Mark Cavendish. Spring cleaning/reorganization currently in progress at the shop.....exciting.

P.S. Great matting and framing by Brock Webb

- JB

Sunday Funday

Normally I'm a sunset kind of guy....this time its a sunrise....sort of



Some deer wondering what the hell I was doing so early in the a.m.



Auburn Roubaix



Haze

My journey this Sunday led me to Chatham where I met up with the Haltermaniac, Rob Landers, and Ray Caruso. Left the house at 5:30 am to meet up with the men at 6. Many lone deers were giving me looks like I was crazy to be up this early, but I told them to stop judging me and they continued to snack on the grass. We headed to the west side of springfield and made a loop back to Chatham. John and I continued on to Auburn where we encountered some cobbles which was pretty neat. John turned and I made my way out to Rochester and back for a total of 75 miles for the day, 200 for the week. Stay hydrated in the warm weather and pedal your bikes hard!

- JB

Calfee

Before



After

Some handy carbon fiber work from Craig Calfee. An employee of the shop, Bob, purchased his dream bike (Specialized SL3 module super light, ~ $5000 frameset) and ended up having a bad crash in a race. He sent it out to Calfee to have the bike repaired. The bike has a little more of a bulge where they wrapped the carbon fiber so he is sending it out again to be sanded down and reworked. Still pretty neat what you can do with the fibre carbone.

- JB

Visitor

This little guy was waiting for me on my water bottle when I came into work this week.

Loopin

Tues night sunset



Booze Cruise...i wish?



Road Glare



Chatham Loopin

Took Megan out for the 20 mile loop in Chatham. Headwinds were strong and we enjoyed a strong tailwind home. Wednesday night was the group ride from wheel fast and we had about 25 to 30 riders. A great turnout for the ride but faster than usual for the "slow/recovery" ride that the pace usually goes at. Some shaky riders but a good turnout and good to get the heart rate up. Hope for another 100-150 miles this week.

- JB

MTB

Dingle Single Track



Sweating my balls off



rest stop



Barreman



Filth



Smartcar wind up that made me laugh

Took a trip to Missour-ahh this weekend for camping and mountain biking. Ended up at the Berryman trail in Mark Twain National Forest. There seems to be tons of singletrack at this particular location. There is for sure a 24 mile loop of single track and looked to be about 40 to 50 miles of singletrack connecting different camp grounds. This trail was rated the best single track between the East and West Coasts in 1998. Granted this is a little out dated these trails were pretty cool. Lots of hills, climbs, downhills, and switch backs. There was gravel, roots, sand, mud...it had it all. The girlfriend and I only did about 10 miles of riding because of the windless conditions and 90+ temperatures. We were soaked in sweat and took a water gallon shower outside of Megan's car before the drive home. I want to come back here and camp and explore the full loop of trails and be a little better prepared for the trails. My hands were so sweaty during the ride I could hardly hold on to the Ergon grips during the down hill sections. I need to bring some gloves and definitely bring some bug spray. We pulled many ticks off of our bodies throughout the ride and on the ride home. Needless to say, it felt awesome to get out on the single speed and do some mountain riding, hope this is only the first of many mountain bike rides this year.

- JB