Tricycles and a Farewell Ride

The week has begun again and the weekend seemed to blow by...AS USUAL. But with each passing week, new stuff is created, old stuff is torn up and irony always finds it's way into the picture. It started late Thursday when I was taking pictures of a titanium tricycle...yep, I said it, titanium tricycle. A kid out there is getting a titanium tricycle for Christmas this year. I wish him or her well and I am a bit jealous. We are going to brush it and etch their name in it...I cannot believe they give me money for this. Happy Holidays y'all.

Friday was equally swell in the fact that I was able to take the time to photograph our new Mazak CNC machines. These things are unreal...we cannot even begin to think about what we can do with these. It's like having the ability to make just about anything you want out of steel, aluminum or titanium, or whatever else for that matter. Within a few weeks we have already begun designing and developing all of own small parts like cable stops, brake saddles and headtubes. 2008 is going to be very exciting for product development. We have several sweet new products coming and I will keep you posted as they develop.

On the other side of life...
I woke up early on Saturday morning to let the dog out because he would not stop pacing. Nothing like waking up to impatience. It was still dark and while standing on the deck, I realize that I cannot see more than 10 feet. There was so much fog and mist, the dog disappeared instantly. I walked back in the house, turned on the coffee pot and opened the laptop....straight to weather.com. Normally I would have went back to bed, but today was Justin's Farewell Ride at Franklin State Forest.

I had been looking forward this ride for several days. Jut and I talked on Wednesday and thought it would be killer to meet up between Nashvegas and Chattaboogie. The trip up Monteagle mountain was somewhat surreal due to the fog and mist. It seemed like it was going to rain the entire drive, but it was actually stranger that it did not.

I was the first to the cabin, shortly to follow were the Murfreesboro crew. We hung out in the parking lot for about 30 minutes before the Nashvegas boys arrived. The trail was in great shape but completely covered in leaves...completely. It was a full on day of high speed, flat track cornering and hidden gems that nearly knocked your fillings loose. But the gems caused many, many tire changes...it was like a flat tire repair clinic at your local shop. On one stop we had 4 out 11 people changing flats. The leaves caused me to make some poor line choices and I am very lucky to have missed out on the clinic. I did have two funky line choice that caused injury. Once to me and once to Thad...for which I am very sorry. We had a traffic jam at a technical climb and the 29er gave me some hell for picking the line I did and I had to dab. Which in turn caused Thad to dab, but he slipped and caught his ankle in between some rocks and fell. I did not realize that any of this had happened. I was back on the bike and heading down the trail when this went down. Shortly after, I launched off a root and was diving into the trail and the left turn was not possible with the air and momentum I had going, so I knew I was going down. Nice to have leave sfor falling, but not so good for steering. One hurt ankle, one shredded pair of bibs, one more ride with the Yazoo Crew, and one more day living the life. All in all, it was an great day of riding and a killer day to hang out with your friends. I look forward to another farewell ride.