Lisa vs. Tree

This ain't nothin'. Jerry knows how to smash fingers.

My apologies

to the State of Texas. It was sunny and in the 80's for the past week and now that we're here it's only going to be in the 50's and rain. That's very typical for us when anyone from our family comes down to visit my Dad. Yesterday was decent (85 deg) but today it's cloudy, spitting rain and 51 deg. Oh well. It started raining right when we left for our ride but thankfully it stopped after 15 minutes or so. There are 2 separate trail systems within easy riding distance from my Dad's house, so we started out at Squabble Creek. It was our first ride on our new bikes and they were amazing!!! I've been fortunate in that every new bike I get seems to be better than the last. However, this years Epic absolutely blew me away! I don't know what they did different but it worked. Acceleration is so quick coming out of the corners, I was grinning ear to ear the whole time. Lisa was riding so dang fast I was working to stay with her right up to the point where she drilled a tree. We were still rippin' along pretty good after that as well but the taste of the tree (not literally) ratcheted the intensity down just a bit. We had to ride on a pretty major road to get to the other trailhead and, of course, I got us lost but we made it. Good times for sure. Hopefully it won't be our last MTB ride here this year as a few more days like this would be all kinds of awesome.

Coming together

The fenders are on for good now.

Last day I'll be at the shop for over a week, hopefully I don't suffer from some sort of withdrawl. Motor is supposed to show up next week. That should fill up the big empty space beneath the hood quite well. I'm anxious to hear how the Flowmaster's sound with the 331 c.i. stroker motor at full tilt! BAWAAAAAAHHHHHH! It'll probably cost $5 every time my foot hits the floor.

A big day

No pic's but it was a big day for us. They actually sprayed color on the car today! I was giddy. Lisa even made the trip over to check it out since we still haven't packed for vacation yet,we leave on Friday night and she may not have a chance to get there again this week. The color is flippin' sweet. Maybe y'all won't agree and that's fine. Get your own car.

Land of the Lost

I like finding new roads. Today I got to ride a lot of them. I started out from the shop in Spring Green and rode towards Richland Center in a round about way. Met up with some random guy with huge bushy muttonchops and he gave me some advice on routes. That got me into 'Center and the Kwik Trip for some Dr. Pepper. It wasn't as good as the stuff in Loganville but it was still pretty good.
After that the ride became interesting. I had no idea where I was for about an hour and a half. It was awesome!
When I saw this road I was really drawn to it.
Once I got here I knew right where I was. Nowhere I had been before.

I saw a lot of Amish folks around but couldn't find a buggy to draft. Oh well, it probably would've dropped me anyway. I eventually came to find Loganville and if you've ridden with me at all you know that's where you find the Top Shelf Dr. Pepper. I had my daily limit already so I kept going but my bike kept trying to veer that way. Met up with Lisa and the Girls at the American Legion in North Freedom for the best fish fry around. Plus ice cream. Booyah.

nice

Because I checked the radar before my ride I knew that the rain that was falling was really some sort of manufactured reality I happened to ride into. Luckily I was dressed for -50 deg instead of the +50 it really was. I have issues with remembering how to dress as the seasons change. One time a few years back I "overheated" due to overdressing, stopped a little too late to jacket off and passed out in the ditch! I remember waking up and seeing blue sky, wondering why I was laying down. Neat, huh?

Another Christmas

We made the trip to S-Works Central and picked up our bikes this weekend. AMAZING! We can't wait to ride 'em. Thank you to Mark and Chris for building them for us. Mine even has the reflectors on it so I didn't have to put them on myself when I got home. Safety first, danger second I always say sometimes. So sweet to have the carbon wheels this year. Balinggg! Another special thank you goes out to Bottle Ninja Tim for passing his knowledge of handups and Africa on to our children. We all (well, everyone but Lisa) had a nice ride yesterday. Thankfully it's Lisa's rest week this week. It's getting ugly.

It's getting towards busy season

Bikes are itchin' to be built. Hopefully that happens next weekend as we leave for Texas in a mere 3 weeks. Watch for temps near Dallas to be in the 80's the week of March 21'st and then rapidly drop off into the low 40's the following week with a quick rebound the first week of April. Pretty typical when anyone from Wisco go visit my Dad. Maybe we'll have better weather while we visit if he moves The Carolina's.

Seems like such a shame they did such a nice job on the panel replacement and how perfect the floors are and now none of it's visible under the Dynamat. This picture represents about 3 hours of work to get about 3/4 of the trunk area done. Should really cut down on road noise, though. The hole is where the gas tank goes, in case you were wondering.

Yeah, I'm still pulling Trainer Duty

But isn't everyone? Nothing too exciting about that. So, I tend to focus on our Mustang as that's far more interesting to me. Here are a few more pic's of it. The Cobra front apron is pretty cool.

The inside is all painted black. Soon to be covered in Dynamat to help keep the noise down inside. That should help keep some of the noise out of the passenger compartment.

How sweet are these Ring Brothers billet hood hinges? Lisa saw this picture and she was super excited to see them on there. I didn't even know she knew what hood hinges were! She has really good (eg. EXPENSIVE) taste. The wheels she liked were only $1300 a piece.

So after a bunch of re-engineering I got the rear end in the car last weekend. Still waiting for the center section of the 9" to be rebuilt and the new gears installed. Hopefully this week I'll get the offset of my wheels figured out so I can order them or try to find another style that we like and will fit better. I tell you what, picking out wheels and a paint color has become as difficult as picking out names for our kids!

The 2010 Optima Street Car Shootout is next Friday night. Looks like it's going to be pretty badass. There is rumor of a viewing party at the Eye Diehl Tap in Plain....