Looking at this picture you can't help but wipe the drool from your chin as you admire the new fork and headset. But you may ask yourself why I have the Jamis hooked up to a trainer?! Well....there is a very simple answer to that. You are looking at my sorry excuse for a workstand! That being said I'm doing a nice year end tear down of the brake system. All the cables are getting replaced and I switched out the old lever and canti's for some SD 7 levers and XTR brakes I had on the single speed. I'm not sure what condition the XTR's are in but I know they have better stopping power then the old SD 7 cantis.

Had a nice little chat with Ben about the upgrades I'm doing and he was able to steer me away from buying some very pricey components. A little lesson kids, expensive+light=me crying when it breaks. I still am going to do the drive train when this team discount kicks in (I bet you wish you knew what team I speak of, patience my child).

Had my last dinner party of the year on Saturday. It was a 55 person buffet out in Schaumberg for some clients I did a class for in the summer. Great people!! Very friendly and I never felt pressured throughout the entire event, granted my assistant John performed like a well oiled machine and was really on his game. As the year closes I'm feeling very good about how work is going. I'm not overwhelmed but I'm making some descent money (for once). Hopefully I'll keep building my client base and I can stop juggling two jobs, but thats not anytime soon.

Ok, back to what matters in life. You got it, bikes and stupid cold weather! This Sunday was the Illinois State Cyclocross champs out at Montrose Park. I went out on my own but met up with some teammates who were racing that day. After an all day assault of questions about how come I'm not racing cross, I've decided to try it out next year. I won't be able to do a huge schedule but I can at least do the ChiCross cup for fun. Back to Sunday...Ben went off first and, well, look at his blog if you want to know what happened. Everyone has a bad day, and after pulling out so many great finishes this just wasn't his day. Mike went off with the 3's and had a great race and grabbed a bronze in the state champ. Not to shabby for his second cat 3 race. Everyone else went off in the 4a and b race. Long story short the 4a race was one by the biggest sandbagger I've ever seen. The guy had almost a 3 min lead on second place!! I have no respect for that, hope he enjoys his title and promptly looses it next year. Granted he did get punched/pushed off his bike by the second place guy! Not sure why, but I guess karma bit him in the ass. All in all it was a fun day, and I have come to realize that my hands will never get warm no matter what gloves I wear.

Pic stolen from Julie!