Been fighting a little cold most of this week.

The motivation is high right now! I am super pumped to be training and working on bikes. The weather in Portland is pretty bad, loads of rain and flooding. I decided to stay off the bike and take care of my body instead of sticking to the program. Take a few rainy days off the bike and then feel better when the weather passes.

Mark Matson stopped by the Veloshop today and taught me about bleeding and setting up my XTR disc brakes. What a swell kid. He works at Sellwood cycle and is also the Kona bicycles XC team race mechanic+demo bike monkey. The few times we have hung out or ridden together he has been super fun and uber nice. Well, he got my bike dialed though I had to take it up to the Gallery later and have Andrew face my disc tabs. I don’t have the tool!

My long lost aunt gave me a phone call yesterday! It has been like 8 years. Feels good to re-connect with family. She lives in Michigan and I am planning a Michigan cyclocross trip this fall, I’ll be paying her a visit.

I’m sitting in the Veloshop kinda burned out and tired from a long week. Pete is on her way over, I’m going to treat her to a fun date tonight. She does not know it yet. hehheh.

I’ve been having the usual conversations with myself about the bicycle business. I don’t have the energy to get into it but, I will soon. Count on it.

By now, we all know about Shannon’s spot in cyclingnews.com! Amazing. It is so cool that he is one of the few people to get a pro-bike spot from cross natz. Vanilla bicycles are worth it, Shannon is worth it.

Also very exciting is Erik Tonkin and Rhonda Mazza’s appointment to the USA Cyclocross World championship team. This is recycled news, I know. It is still damn exciting.

I’ve got my XC training bike together now. I’m destroying my Vanilla 29er riding it so much. My cross bikes are hanging up till next fall and my road bike is getting lots of use.

Damn, I’m running late. More later. I promise.