Keith is selling his 2008 Gary Fisher HiFi Pro XC. It has many upgrades over the stock model, including:

• Bontrager Race X Lite Headset/Stem
• Bontrager Race X Lite Carbon Seatpost
• Bontrager Race X Lite Carbon Saddle
• Bontrager Race X Lite Carbon Crankset
• Bontrager Race X Lite Carbon Handlebar
• Rock Shox Reba SL G2 Geometry with remote lockout
• Rock Shox Monarch 4.2 rear shock
• Bontrager Superstock wheelset
• Avid Juicy Seven Brakes
• SRAM X9 Front and Rear Deraileur

This bike has never been ridden. It is in perfect shape, and is available now at a great deal.

Buy it here.

a little bike maintenance has become a complete overhaul. Worth doing once every few years.




I ordered a bearing replacment kit from Enduro Fork seals but honestly only know how to get in/out one set of the bearings.

As Lance Armstrong prepares for an eighth Tour de France victory this summer, he opens up to The Daily Beast’s Mark McKinnon about a future in politics, who inspires him, and why his comeback will roll on past 2009.

This is Lance Armstrong's first interview since announcing that he and his girlfriend are expecting a child. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Today's giveaway is the Safe Turn bicycle turn signal.



You wear the Safe Turn signal light on your wrist. When you raise your arm to signal a turn, the light automatically begins to flash on. A lot of thought went into the operation of this light and it works surprisingly well. It's perhaps dimmer than I would prefer, and the batteries are non-rechargeable button cells that are somewhat difficult to get at.


To win: Be the first person to click this link with the text "Bicycle Turn Signal http://www.cyclelicio.us/ #safeturn" to Twitter.

Good luck! This entry is posted Monday morning at 7 AM U.S. Pacific Time. See contest rules for limitations and other details.

You would think after a year and a  half in St George I’d be running out of new terrain to explore when leaving from my front door.  Such is not the case.  This region is tilted, corrugated, eroded into so many different land forms in such a small region as to present seemingly limitless opportunities [...]

This past weekend seemed a bit more 'go,go,go' than the usual for some reason. After getting off of work at 3:30pm I headed for home to jump on the rollers for a little jam session. It was a tempo/pyramid workout that gave my legs the once over for the first real effort workout of the off-season. I was quite pleased with the results since I was able to maintain higher speeds and more resistance than efforts in previous years. Training is definitely starting off better thsi year than it did last year, that's for sure.

Saturday saw the first gravel grinder for me in 2009 with the arrival of A.Lo. paying us all a visit from Michigan and organizing the ride. We had 8 riders show up in the 17F air temps to make the journey towards Janesville and back to Cedar Falls quite the little journey. It's about a 25 mile loop that was split between gravel and pavement with the gravel being very icy in spots. Those in attendance included Blue, J. Fry, Bidwell, Super Saul, Craig S., David Pals, and of course the great A.Lo. himself. It was a great group of friends and actually quite a bit of fun naviating through the snow and ice. There were a few spot where the gravel roads looked more like ice rinks and we did have a few riders go down at times, sure hope Bidwell is feeling okay. How you doin' buddy? It's the first time that I have actually enjoyed riding the gravel in quite a while.


J.Fry and his battery operated socks to keep his feet warm

A quick stop in Janesville for a refueling

A quick shot of half of the group stopping to regroup just South of Camp Ingawanis
Saturday night had Amy, Rhea, and I heading to Hudson, which is about 10 miles from home, to hang out with some friends for a little hoilday type get together. Unfortunately the weather was trying to stop that by bringing us a little more ice from the skies. Some of the roads were really slick but we were able to make it out and back okay. As long as people were driving in a nice, orderly fashion and allowing themselves time to reach their destination everything seemed okay. Getting into our own driveway was the highlight though. The driveway drops about 10' from the road as it goes into the backyard and with the ice there was no traction. Kind of like a pinball machine, I had to get the tires lined up and get a small bounce from the snow bank to aim into the garage where I could then stop. Woohoo!!! Dumped a couple of pounds of salt on the driveway to try to get rid of some of the ice but, it didn't really help too much.

Sunday had us going to HuHot Mongolian Grill for Amy's Dad's Birthday. We arrived at just the right time to get through the line and start eating before the restaurant got crazy busy. I paced myself eating so as not to overeat during the off-season. Normally it's a two-plate meal for me and I was able to hold myslef to just one. That was an accomplishment I tell you. We were also planning to meet A.Lo. for dinner Sunday night at Carlos O'Kelly's so I needed to make sure I could handle having not-so-great-for-you meals in one day, which I did. A.Lo. had to head back to Michigan today so it was good to be able to sit down and catch-up. Alger Cyclery has a pretty good guy in A.Lo. and he's come to be a fan of Cannondale which always makes me happy.

Enrico Franzoi brought home a second place finish for the Liquigas team in Tervuren, Belgium yesterday behind Niels Albert. That's an awesome finish for Franzoi in a field that featured many of the best in the business. It's great to see him up there battling with the likes of Albert, Nys, Stybar, and Vervecken.

Hopefully Amy can get out of the driveway today and then I'll have to go out and find a couple hundred pounds of sand to pour on the driveway tonight. Salt and sand are probably in short supply around here already.

Via VeloVision magazine comes a novel concept in bike racks: the PlantLock. The PlantLock is a bit pricey but looks like a potential solution to the problem where your spouse thinks that a bike rack on the front porch looks ugly. PlantLock could also be used in tony downtowns that eschew the common bike rack as too plebeian but don't want to spring for a custom design. Someone please import these into the U.S.!

The most restrictive blue laws in North America in Bergen County, New Jersey came about to limit traffic congestion caused by massive retail development. Can Blue Laws be used today to manage traffic, conserve fuel, moderate fuel price increases, and help air quality?

Blue laws restrict commercial activity on Sundays. Historically, these laws have been used to encourage religious observation of Sunday as a Christian day of worship.

Although most states and localities no longer observe blue laws, a handful remain. Sixteen states currently prohibit or restrict car sales on Sundays -- and the car dealerships like the restriction. When Colorado tried to lift the car sales blue laws a few years ago, car dealerships fought to keep the laws on the books because the law keeps costs down for all dealerships. Oregon car sellers are now lobbying for a similar law.

Bergen County, New Jersey has the most restrictive blue laws in the United States. When the Bergen Mall and Garden State Plaza were under construction in the late 1950s, fears that the two large new malls would aggravate already severe highway congestion motivated Bergen County residents to forbid almost all selling on Sundays, with the borough of Paramus, New Jersey within Bergen County forbidding all forms of "worldly employment" because "the physical, intellectual and moral good of the community requires a periodic day of rest from labor."

American visitors to Europe learn fairly quickly that shopping is limited in the evenings and the weekends, especially in Germany with the Ladenschlussgesetz Shop Closing Law.

While I love the convenience in American of buying almost anything at almost any hour of the day or night, closing the shops one day each week would probably reduce traffic and fuel consumption significantly, while also improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. During World War I, automobile dealers supported a ban on gas sales on Sundays to conserve fuel.

There are some problems to my simple idea: tourist destinations and amusements that depend on weekend traffic would perhaps suffer. Observant Jews and Sabbatarian Christians are also impacted, because most of Saturday is already off limits for them.

The various Ciclovia style street closings occur on Sundays, so perhaps vendors that enable non-automotive access to their shops can be exempted. Note also that Bergen County with the most restrictive blue laws in America also boasts the highest retail sales in the United States.

What do you think? Can something like a universal shop closing law be successfully used to conserve fuel (making fuel less expensive for everybody) while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving general air quality, reducing transportation expenses for most Americans and helping the economy?

My wife rode at Hungry Mother today and saw a bunch of bobcat tractors and trail workers adding some new miles.

I guess they are extending the CCC trail and the Molly's knob trail so they are longer and are not as steep. The goal is to make it more accessible to a larger complement of riders.

There's some fun riding there. Some great introductory trails that won't rattle the teeth out of or require donation of a lung for new riders, yet still create some challenges for experienced riders when they turn on the speed. There is also no shortage of climbing when you hit the CCC and Molly's.

The glutton for punishment in me hopes they don't take out all the steep stuff. But anything they can do to get more bikers to the top of Molly's would do wonders for the general karma of the world cause that view is to die for. I've only hauled my butt up there on the bike twice. neither time clean and left portions of lung on the way.

The only thing I'd wish for would be more tight singletrack and more technical riding. Granted you have to make do with what you've got and bobcat tractors can hog out trail a lot more than nonexistent volunteers who are more busy blogging and bellyaching.

Kudos to the work they do out there. Wonderful park rangers who dig mountain bikes and mountain bikers and great local heros making the sport accessible to more riders.

Today's giveaway is the book Road Biking Colorado: The Statewide Guide by Michael Seeburg.

This Colorado road cycling guide describes 141 road cycling routes with maps and elevation profiles and total gain and loss. Road Biking Colorado splits the state into different regions from which you can select your rides. I'm familiar with of the routes listed in the "North Front Range" section of the book, which describes most routes on a single page, though the magnificent Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park merits four pages. This book would be a decent gift for your Valentines Day honey if you cycle in Colorado.

To win: Be the first person to click this link with the text "Bike Book Contest http://www.cyclelicio.us/ #roadbikingcolorado" to Twitter.

Good luck! This entry is posted Saturday morning at 10 AM U.S. Pacific Time. See contest rules for limitations and other details.

Welcome to Colorado's only indoor velodrome.

The facility, called Boulder Indoor Cycling, was created to give riders the chance to train on a wooden track in a controlled environment.

Read more and watch the video. Via. See also Boulder Indoor Cycling, which has an open house today from noon to 6 PM.

Everybody else is doing it, so I might as well also. I'm strictly a numbers guy, so by the numbers...

2008 Top Content

These pages had the most visitors in 2008.

5. Bicycles for heavy people.
4. Bicyclist taxonomy.
3. Bike commuter tax benefits.
2. I can ride my bike with no handlebars.
1. Kirsten Gum Not Nude.

Top search keywords.

Most visitors to Cyclelicious arrive via search engines. Here are the top search words they use.

5. kirsten gum pics
4. bicycle blog
3. bicycle sidecar
2. Chanel bicycle
1. Kirsten Gum

Top referrers

Besides search engines, I get most of my traffic from (in no particular order) Stumbleupon, Bicycle Design, Flickr, Reddit, Mahalo, RocBike and Ecovelo. Thanks for the link love, all!

Weird and wonderful

Interesting search keywords include "gansaari", "hairy men", "bicycle chocolate milk", "big thighs", "wind blowing skirts up", "chupacabra", "bicycles are of the devil", "did jesus go to china", "hair miniskirt", "are womens bike skirts dorky", "shimmery tights".

While most Cyclelicious visitors surf the web from within the United States, my logs show visitors from 184 nations and territories including Antarctica(!), Iraq, Iran, Israel, Libya, China (PRC and ROC), Vietnam. The top cities were New York City, San Francisco, London, Seattle and Chicago. I registered zero visitors in 2008 from Cuba, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Somalia, North Korea, Greenland, a whole swath of central Africa, and Madagascar.

44% of you use Internet Explorer, 41% use Firefox, 11% use Safari, and the rest of you use Opera, Chrome, game systems and mobile devices. 77% browse from a Windows PC, 19% of you us a Mac, 3% browse the web from with Linux, and, in declining proportions, the rest use an iPhone or iPod, SunOS, a Wii, PSP, Palm, Symbian, FreeBSD, Android, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, HPUX, IRIX, and just plain ol' UNIX. There's also something I hadn't heard of before called "Danger Hiptop," which is apparently what Ahp00k works on.

Thanks so much for your continued support and promotion of Cyclelicious. 2009 marks the the fifth year of this cycling blog and I hope I don't get too stale with age. I hope you also like the new writers I've added this year. I hope the rest of your weekend goes great!

Implementing a sort of cruel social obligation, Kenny scheduled, as he has several times before, a ride on New Year's morning. And so, while I crawled into bed as soon possible after that other social obligation --staying up until midnight-- I found myself thinking of excuse after excuse to simply not show up for the 10AM ride.

But as I drifted off to sleep, the appeal and the lure of climbing up Squaw Peak Road on my mountain bike, over the frozen and packed machine trodden snow overcame any doubt and any excuse. I slept peacefully, knowing that in the morning a cold, challenging, and very nearly absurd bike ride awaited.

Excellent.

Up and up the snow we all pedaled. The snow was cold and firm, which meant limited time off the bike. Which meant that the normally built in explanation for hoofing it up the mountain ("well the snow is so soft!") was eliminated. In other words, fitness and the bottom of the year lack of it, was laid bare for all to see. And mock.

But alas, the finger pointing and snickering and cookie blaming was, like time off the bike, minimal. Instead we all quietly, although conversationally, made our way up the mountain, just as we have so many times before.

And as I climbed I contemplated the risk in beginning the new year with a fantastic bike ride. It is, as I see it, a two-edged sword. On one hand, there is little better way to begin the year. A solid, entertaining, enjoyable workout can easily set the tone for the days and weeks ahead.

But, on the other hand, it might be hard to top. You know what they say: "eat a live toad first in the morning, and nothing worse will happen that day." Riding a bike is hardly eating a toad. And so the potential for let down looms over the rest of the year.

But not really.

Indeed, I am optimistic for the coming year. I find myself once again drifting off to sleep at night with far horizons dancing through my mind. I see the White Rim and Gooseberry's north rim. I see deep forests, and open meadows. I see, everything that I hope to see in 2009. As well as other scenes that are merely distant fantasy, perhaps a reality on some future day.

And as for now, when I close my eyes I see the passing snow and tire tracks of Squaw Peak Road on New Year's day.

I've always loved the skills aspect of mountain biking and enjoy any book or movie on the subject. Favorites have included
Mastering Mountain Bike skills
Ned Overend's book
One of my favorites, the out of print Single Track Mind. I was so bummed when I lost this book. Can't remember if I lent it to someone or just misplaced it, but I'd had it at my office and moved offices and then couldn't find it.

I just saw this DVD in Bike.
Fluidride:like a pro
It looks really interesting.

Of course reading a book or watching a movie or putting one under your pillow is going to improve skills. In movement sports that can only be accomplished by two things. Repetive movements and time. I've found that it takes up to 2-3 weeks for specific movements to become integrated as 'second nature' where you can implement them without having to think about it

The downside too, is that not practicing these movements regularly for me leads to a noticeable decrease in skills. Did the new years day ride. Cold and out of practice and feeling stiff and disconnected.

I'm a huge proponent of the better ride skills clinics and the basic practice routines Gene shows. My favorite is the endless drill. Basically just a figure 8. But this simple drill creates the muscle memory and integration of the body positioning, weight shifts, and hip twists that absolutely make or break your cornering.

Havent done it in months. It takes just a few minutes and can be done on any flat place.

Even my basic lofting of the front wheel skill is going to hell.

If I do these drills consistently about once or twice a week, I will notive a big jump in cornering comfort and downhilling comfort in about 2 weeks. It's just like something clicks, and can feel the balance during subtle shifts of the rear wheel as it drifts in a corner or slides off a wet root.