Emerging from hibernation

Our bloggerific hero, Rider 3, has been a one-man writing machine of late. And trust me, I feel bad that I haven't contributed much. For the most part he's been understanding, but the blog is indeed meant to be a team effort.

It's said that there's no "i" in team, in this case meaning more than one person should ideally contribute to our little blog. It's also said that there is indeed an "i" win, but I'm not sure how you win at blogging. Unless you're a bigger dork that even we are, which is saying something.

Like Rider 3 mentioned at some point I have a multi-part review of my Trek Madone. Unfortunately a two-week sinus infection, work, training and getting my house ready to put on the market has made getting some pictures to go with the review a bit difficult to get to.

Nice excuses, eh?

In the mean time, here are some bike-ridey thoughts to pass along:

• I have a favorite new blog. OK, I know the guy a bit, but still, I'm digging Michael Barry's updated site. Check out "Le Metier," at www.michaelbarry.ca. Great writing, insight, pictures and, well, overall outlook and perspective. Nice stuff.
• I've been riding with a full-on geek factory on my stem this year. And I have to say, the Garmin Edge 500 is one pretty slick unit. It's small, lets you pull down all kinds of cool maps and ride info, and so far has been bomb-proof. I think my favorite thing though is how customizable the screens are--you can very easily set it up to show only the info you want, which is a nice change from some of the info overload systems that make you feel more like an airline pilot than a cyclist. Two Wheel Transit has these in stock, by the way.
• Spokane has had the oddest "winter" I've experienced in 12 years living here. I think it's snowed once--and my five-year-old daughter was in charge of shoveling that 1/2 inch of snow. We also had pretty consistent 40+degree temperatures through January and February. Crazy. The result? People are riding awfully fast this year. Should make for an interesting spring racing season.

• Sinus infections suck. Pardon the expression. But two weeks off the bike when everyone else is starting to go really fast? Not fun. But hey, if Cav can recover, so can I right? Wait, did I really just compare myself to Mark Cavendish. Sorry about that...
• Back in the day I carried more than a little disdain for the guys that showed up to group rides looking a little too "PRO" for their own good. In other words, they looked the part, but couldn't always follow through, if you know what I mean. Something happened over the past couple of years. So now when I see a guy show up for a training ride rocking deep section carbon wheels, custom Oakley Jawbones and a bit of Assos thrown in, I mostly feel happy for him. Maybe it's a function of age, of getting slower or being worn down, but being a bike geek is a good thing. The caveat? If you are said bike geek, please don't expect the group to leave out dirt roads and bad pavement or whatever just because you pulled out your go-fast gear. We're still going out for fun and training after all.
• Kudos to Rider Two. A couple of weeks ago he cracked his Cervelo R3 SL in not one, not two, but three places! All without crashing. Thankfully he actually brought it to the shop to attempt to warranty it. Not that riding around with a broken carbon fork is a bad idea or anything...

OK, more to come.