MTB's Ready

Awesome day - I was finally able to go out to the bike shop once I had my Kuat bike rack built this morning and hooked up to the Sportage. Based on that you can guess that it can mean only one thing. My bike is ready and so am I to go pick it up!

Rack

So once the rack was built, which was super easy by the way, it was time to put it on the car, again really easy. Once it's on the receiver you simply tighten down this knob that extends from the end which pushes an internal ball bearing against the hitch itself inside, as well as merging a piece of the internal frame of the hitch against the hitch-pin locking bolt. Not only does this make it extra secure but it makes it so that the bike rack does not rattle AT ALL and is solid as a rock. I am so friggin' happy that I spent the $570 to get the best-of-the-best rack.

I had watched several videos on YouTube on how to set-up the rack when you have bikes on it. So I was 100% prepared when I was done setting my bike up at the shop. When it was time to head home and put the bike on the rack for the very first time, albeit in the stupid ass gusty wind (hate the wind) as well as blowing snow / hail along with the fact it was freezing cold! I simply lifted the bike, put the tires into the correct positions and once again another crazy-easy thing to do on the Kuat. I was able to get the bike on the rack, 100% secure in less than a minute. The only reason it took that long was because it was the first time and I was double, triple checking everything.

Bike Setup

So at the bike shop I did several test rides, taking it easy, and making sure that the seat was at the right height, the auto-up and down of the seat was working properly and anything related to that. Next it was time to start putting extra spacers on the shaft for the handlebars to get them to a height that I liked best and felt the most controllable.

After just over 5 test rides total I had the height exactly where I wanted it and the guys where awesome as usual and hooked me up with spacer change-outs several times until I had a fit and feel that I liked best. Even better, when they cut the bar they left me a little extra just in case I decide to make it a little higher down the road.

Weather

So the weather was total shxt today as I hinted upon in the previous paragraphs. It was windy all morning and I anyone that knows me knows exactly how I feel about the wind. Then it started sprinkling rain on the way to the bike shop. It did this on/off while I was doing my test rides, giving us all a hint of what was to come. Well by the time I was ready to start loading up the bike on the Kuat it was raining, hailing and blowing wind which turned into a snow / hail combination.

Lovely weather to have - not only the first day I have my new bike but in May. I could have swore that by the time we were in this part of the year we are in spring and entering summer. Yea, total sarcasm there but really? Was that one last cold storm necessary mother nature? Guess it was otherwise you would have skipped it.

The weather guessers say that by the end of the week we are supposed to have temps closer to the mid-to high 80's and maybe all the way up to the low 90's by Thursday. Not that I like it getting into the dry 90's and higher but it's better than what we had today. Should be a nice change but it's not as much fun to sweat like a pig and ride. I had hoped that I would get a month or so of warm but not dry-heat summer before we were dropped right into the hot months of summer. Anyway, just crazy that it's snowing today.

Dinner

So we were invited over to the parent-in-laws house for some awesome tri-tip dinner with corn on the cob, potato wedges and garlic bread slices. How could we possibly say no to that? Plus it gave us a great excuse to visit with everyone and let them visit with Zoey for a few hours.

As usual, super good barbequing by Cicely's dad and all of the other food was awesome as well and hit the spot big time. As hard as it was to do I was good and did not over eat but it was really hard to do. The tri-tip dinners are always hard to eat only a little bit when it's so dam good and I am crazy hungry like I was today.

On the way over to dinner I decided to stop by the bike shop to get myself a helmet. I was going to wait and order one online to try and get one that was all black with silver on it to match my bike but I was unable to get the color online as well. They will not be available until at least September of this year and there is no way I can wait 4 months. Actually I take that back, there was one that was silver, black and had a little red on it but Cicely liked this green and grey one that I was originally considering and as luck would have it was one that the local bike shop had in stock so we stopped and picked it up on the way. While there I got myself a trail tool-set to keep in my pack as well.

Now I just need to go online and find the Camelbak hydration pack that I want. They have a cool one at the shop but it's the wrong color. I mean the color is really cool - it's sort of an off-orange color and then a dirty gray but nice. I think I would like to get the back in black/grey so it better matches anything I happen to get down-the-road in the future.

So I will search around the web and see if I can find it. I would bet that I will be able to find one on Amazon after determining the model I want from the Camelbak website. I would order it from the bike shop but it can be hard to find time to get there because they are about an hour and 15 minutes from me round trip. Anyway, more on all of that later on once I figure out what I want.

Chew & Swallow

That's gonna do it for today. I am really tired for some reason. I did a lot of riding on the bike testing it and then running around after although I would not have thought it would wear me out that much.

I think the work week kicked my ass mentally, I know next week will be rough so I am probably thinking about it without realizing that I am and that is wearing on me as well.

On the positive side of it all at least once complete I will have my Agile / Scrum certification under my belt. I am taking the boot camp on Wednesday / Thursday. We have an instructor coming on-site to train about 20 of us on the methodologies and techniques we have already started using in our studio by a few of those that have taken the certification.

Looking toward the end of the week, I will be finished with another elective class at UNR once the clock strikes 4:00 on Friday afternoon. I'm looking forward to the class because it's being taught by one of my favorite instructors that I had one of my first classes with.

Photo: A shot of my sweet-ass, brand spanking new and freshly built Kuat NV bike rack. Fully assembled and ready to carry home my Santa Cruz Heckler!