My room is getting greener...

The building inspector came by and tested my new desk for its stability...


Not bad for a $9 Goodwill find and some "sweat equity" from Martin and myself:)



Walls and shelves are painted and the room is move in ready... yeah!!
I even got out my old office chair. Not a good color match, but a status symbol, because it is made by IKEA Sweden:)

Now I have to find some storage for office supplies and such and get my books back on the shelves and I am back in business.

ERGON GP1 W -- TRANSALP TESTED!

TRANSALP TESTED these are. And they got a design award!


And they are GREEN

Transalp is a race that I have been dreaming about for a while. It crosses the European Alps from Germany to Italy and by doing that you ride e.g. 630km and 20,000 vertical meters.
ONE FINE DAY....


GP1 Women specific: My latest addition to will go on my Cannondale to race a few cross races.
You can race cyclo cross on a MTB, but you aren't to have bar ends on your bike, so here is the answer:


Thanks to Jeff and ERGON, I will have comfy hands while riding my hardtail in the future":)

And here is a little bit of ART:


Do you know that logo?

Garden Duty

Martin and I, under the supervision of Mr. Whiskers, worked all afternoon in the Garden. I mowed the lawn and picked up Walnuts, dead headed some flowers, planted some new flowers that Brenda, our neighbor gave me and played with Mr. W in his pool. Martin picked up even more sticks and fallen nuts and then he started a new flower bed. It has been in the planning for a while now, but I never got the vibe to dig around with the stones for the wall around it.
Well, he has done it now and I can spend my time one the fun part: filling it with plants.

I already know that this bed will be another specialty bed: I will only plant grasses in there, so I have to start reading up on them a bit more....

Oh, and tonight I watched the TdF, since a) I didn't make it out of bed in time this morning and b) Martin was watching Formula 1 this morning anyways...

Gardenwalk with Mr. Whiskers

more picture here: Gardenwalk

ERGON HM1-W TESTRIDE

Got up EARLY this morning to drive down to the Platte River State Park for the weekly Bacon-Ride on Sunday mornings.
You probably wonder, what bacon has to do with MTB, and you are right to wonder about this.
Well, Platte is one of our best places to MTB. It is pretty much in the middle between Omaha and Lincoln, so it's easy to reach from "both sides". AND it has a Sunday breakfast buffet: ALL YOU CAN EAT, with the infamous bacon!
The other reason, we go out there so early is, that in the summer, they have horseback riding there and MTB aren't allowed on the trails between 9 am and 4 pm.

After feeling kind of yucky all week and not doing Ponca on Saturday, was it the first MTB ride this week for me.

Exciting, because I had a new pair of gloves to try out:
a pair of Ergon HM1-W

It's an all mountain glove and as the "W" says, in my case women's specific.
The German is me is even more happy about the name of the glove, because I know, that the "H" stands for Handschuh = glove:)
Europeans label their clothes different than we do. There, a large is a large and they don't make you into a medium, just to make you feel better...
So, in my case, I got the women's large and when I first saw them, I thought, Oh my, they look tiny. BUT they fit....like a glove (duh!) They fit perfectly.

So today, was the day for the first test ride:

And I have to say that I really like them. They breathe very well. All the material in between the fingers is a fine mesh.
Like I said before, the fit is perfect and they compliment the grips. Well, I guess, they were made with the Ergon grips in mind and it was obvious after an 1:30 hrs of riding, that they function optimal with the grips: I had NO pain in my hands, not even a discomfort.

Oh, and the grips had won me over before, but after riding my last race with normal grips (and my hands falling asleep), I appreciated the "cushy" feeling today even more.
And I know, what I am talking about. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis in my hands and a pain-free ride is a WONDERFUL ride.