I've been spending a lot of time outside and been doing a lot of fun things since my last post about Serotta Bikes. I finished up my first huge week of riding and spent just over 20 hours training last week. I'm currently in an R&R phase and only doing about 11 hours this week. We've been getting some snow here in Boulder so I've spent a lot of my hours off the bike either snowshoeing, skiing/snowboarding, or hiking. I've been trying to learn how to ski and was up at Eldora yesterday and convinced myself to go down some black runs. I took them pretty slowly but was happy that I got down them on my second day of being on skis.
Kate and I have a day off together today and went for a hike in Gregory Canyon just outside of Boulder. We had a great time and the snow was pretty fun. We definitely wished we could have had a dog with us though and think a lot about how much Luke would like it out here. We're now at Laughing Goat enjoying a cup of coffee and playing Scrabble. I'm writing this while waiting for her to play her turn.
I wanted to share this link with you about Doug Emerson who is the owner of University Bikes and is spearheading the effort to create a new outdoor velodrome in Erie, CO.
http://collectivehunch.com/velodream/ The video is copyright protected so I can't repost it to play directly here but I'd recommend following the link to Collective Hunch and checking it out. He's still in the fund-raising stage but has the permit to begin building. Once built, the velodrome would be vastly superior to the current indoor velo here in Boulder (which we still have a blast on but it is a little tight and steep to be safe for all-out efforts). It would also be large enough and well-built enough to provide a venue for racing and hopefully attract some top track athletes to the area. I'm hoping that it would also give rise to a whole new series of racing including some things like match sprints and maybe even some 6-day races. Look out for me in the IU kit going around the track. I didn't know they were going to be filming that day but just by chance was supporting my Alma Mater. You might be able to spot Kate as well in some black knickers and a blue Interbike jersey.
This evening I went to Ubikes with Kate for a presentation from Ben Serotta about his bicycles. We had a great time and learned a lot about his brand and what he is trying to do with his bikes: create the best riding experience possible. This means that his frames are designed for performance, longevity, and great compliances. Ben mentioned outright that this mean his bikes are not always the lightest as he does not sacrifice the handling and feel of the bike for this feature (However, we weighed the high-end carbon bike he brought in that was outfitted with SRAM Red and it came in at 15.45lbs without pedals). Serotta offers fully-custom, semi-custom, and stock bikes to consumers and seems to have been doing a good job of it for almost 4 decades. They offer bikes made from steel, titanium, and carbon fiber. The most unique thing about their bike manufacturing is how everything is done in house. While many bike manufacturers now go to outside sources for their materials and even outsource assembly, Ben Serotta creates all of his own tubing and assembles and paints all of his bikes in his two locations here in the US. The attention to detail in the design, manufacturing, and assembly of his products is simply mind-boggling
