Evidently there are MANY crazy people who want to ride bikes in winter.

We hosted our Winter Clinic & GORE Bike Wear Release Party last Thursday night and we were humbled, astounded, and greatly encouraged by the turnout. Over 60 souls were in attendance and only one came for the free beer (that I can prove). We were happy to see so many old and new faces, coming from so far as the Far East (Bolingbrook), the Great White North (Roscoe), the Wild West (Sterling), and the Dirty South (Plano).

We know a thing or two about the crazy people who like to ride bikes in winter, so we had the bar stocked and an in-house blazito going. The indoor s’mores were a hit – especially the ones made with Honey Stinger Waffles.

It’s one thing to say you buy local when you get honey at the co-op. It was another thing entirely having marshmallows that were made 3 hours before the event. Local and freshly harvested marshmallows – only at NCC (Thank you, Lynn!)

Our generous vendors had given us a pile of reasons for people to come. The door prizes for the winter clinic were the nicest we’ve ever seen. We handed out goodie-bags at the door, so everyone was a winner. Some people just happened to be big winners. Especially the ones who walked away with a new GORE jacket or a Lazer Snow Dissent helmet. Thank you to our wonderful vendors – GORE, Knog, Salsa, Lazer, 45NRTH, and GORE, again.

No, the Beargrease was not a doorprize.

We set it up town-hall style, with a panel of “professionals” (put “bunny ears” on those quotation marks) up front – consisting of Brendan Gecik from GORE, Brian Mark from Knog, Eric Frederickson from Salsa, Legendary rider and all around great guy Paul Carpenter, NCC Chad, and myself. Our goal was to keep the night upbeat and engaging instead of just listening to one person talking the whole time.

The format was very successful. We had great participation and it was evident that we had dedicated riders and new riders in the crowd. The most exciting element of the night was seeing how many people were excited to keep riding into the winter. We weren’t just preaching to the choir, we were equipping new riders to keep going with their fitness, their commute, and their excitement.

We covered the mind-blowing technology from GORE and Knog, the new bikes from Salsa, and shared some of our personal techniques for staying comfortable in all sorts of conditions. Paul Carpenter’s stories from riding 320 days a year, down to temps of 20 below, made us all feel like chumps and inspired us at the same time. He had sprained his ankle on Tuesday night, but still rode to work (30mi), to the clinic (2mi), and rode home afterwards (30mi). I got a papercut on Wednesday and called an ambulance…

We spent some time talking about Fatbikes, including the Beargrease (special order yours today), and talked about some of the new products coming out from 45NRTH, a company dedicated to equipping winter riders for the harshest conditions. The Wölvhammer boots are their pièce de résistance – a game-changing SPD-compatible winter cycling shoe.

After an intermission, we had Brendan share a few demonstrations of GORE technology. The most amazing was the “comfortability” test – proving that Gore-tex products will be comfortable and continue to breath even in the wettest conditions. Check out this quote from Riding Against the Grain:

“They had a demo where you’d get your hand wet, and stick your wet hand in a goretex gloveliner.  You’d then put your wet hand, in the glove, in a bucket of water.  You would then move your hand around vigorously.

I kid you not…when you pulled your hand out, it was dry.  I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it.”

And if that wasn’t enough, Brendan had set up a Rain Booth for the full-body Gore-tex experience. Here’s a video from RATG of our friend Mattias putting it to the test:

The stuff works, I tell ya.

The clinic was the informal release of our “Fat Pack” program for fatbike buyers this year. We wanted to introduce a way to make people aware of the most common items that go along with fatbiking that may or may not be obvious if you’ve never done it before. It’s not always apparent that you’ll need a digital air gauge, but when your riding quality can be affected by 2 lbs of pressure, you’ll need something that can read individual units. The Fat Pack offers a discount on the best sellers and hottest products, divided into 3 tiers: Needs (10% off), Wants (15% off) and Desires (20% off). Stop in today to take a look at the program.

Thanks again to everyone for coming out. I think we’re going to have a great winter!

A couple weeks ago, I (Tobie) along with a few other guys pulled the ejection seat on winter and took 5 days to go mountain biking in Sedona, AZ. This was a dream that became a reality because of the loving support of 5 wives, 5 employers, and one awesome bike company. In the weeks before our trip, Salsa Cycles arranged for us to be greeted with five Salsa Spearfish to enjoy during our time there. It was pretty incredible. I’m still having trouble believing this really happened.

Here are a few shots from the trip.

Yours truly

Dean rides the red line

Phil-billy

The Spearfish

I don’t think I can state how much fun the Spearfish was to ride. The bike was fast, comfortable, and spry. It climbed like no other bike I’ve ever ridden. This is the longest stint I’ve put in on the bike (I’ve ridden them before, but only for short rides), and I’m very glad we picked one up for our demo fleet this year (Yes, you can try it, too!).

The Stanfords, some midwest ex-pats who used to ride with the NCC Crew years ago, have set up camp in Sedona and made sure we had places to ride, places to eat, and a place to unbox and box our fleet. Thank you, Zach and Sarah, for making it easy for us and for taking it easy on us.

Zach, in full NIU/NCC regalia, points the way

Our time down there was made very comfortable by the good people at the Red Agave Resort and the Sedona Bike & Bean.

A complete and wonderful account of our trip has already been written on Riding Against The Grain, so I will keep my post short and sweet. Many thanks for Dean for his gift of verbosity and great photos.

It’s been a crazy few weeks at NCC, but despite sad but hopeful departures, hematomas & homesickness, cross races & chaos, the NCC Crew rides on.

The 4th Annual Hopkins Park Cyclocross Race was a blast. We had over 650 racers come out.

We also hosted the second annual Official Unofficial Illinois State Single Speed Cyclocross Championship and we’re sending the winners to San Francisco for the Nationals. This unbelievable prize is the result of one man’s generosity – Chris Jensen of Robots <3.

Huge thanks to our fellow promoters Half Acre Cycling and Robots Powered by Love and our beloved sponsors Surly, Salsa, Lazer, Bontrager, and Finish Line.

We’ve had some great bikes exit the daydream phase and enter the reality phase recently. Here are a few.

Here we are building the fastest bike on the planet next to the burliest bike on the planet: The Trek Speed Concept 9.9 & Surly Pugsley Alfine 11.

The Speed Concept is more akin to a spaceship than a typical bicycle.

The “KING PUGSLEY” Project has an Alfine 11 drivetrain, and Mr Whirly, Thomson, King, Brooks, and White Industries bits. We’ll have a full post to follow. This beauty will be riding the Great Divide next year.

Next up is a delicious Ti La Cruz for “Pitbull” Halverson. Stay tuned for more on this one, too.

Thomson Dress-up Kit, blue.

And finally Jeff just tweaked his Trek District to reflect his inner Englishman.

Trek World is the annual event where Trek shows all of their dealers the latest and greatest from the engineers and artists up in Waterloo. Every model in every color is on display – it’s quite a sight. It’s a great gathering – Trek knows how to throw a party. The 2012 lineup looks very tasty. Of course, the bling bling items were incredible – Trek never disappoints when it comes to groundbreaking technology and breathtaking aesthetics.

I failed to take a full picture of this bike, and it’s rider, who was only feet away; I have no excuse.

Trek surprised everyone by having The Schlecks, Fabian Cancellara, Jens Voigt, Chris Lieto, and Jule Dibens present for the keynote presentaion. It was pretty cool to see them and here about their racing this year. I typically don’t geek out about racers and famous people, but Jens and Fabian are rad. Crossing their path on the bike ride away from the conference, they were surprisingly nice when I said hello. Anyway, let’s move on…

More importantly, Trek unveiled an expanded and aesthetically gorgeous array of new bikes for “real people.” The revised “District” family looks fantastic:

The District is available as a belt-drive or chain-drive singlespeed, and the new 9th District – a 1×9 urban commuter – will be a great addition to our selection.

The other new addition that will work well for us is the 7.4FX – toe’d in between the 7.3 and the 7.5FX, the 7.4 offers just the right balance of light, fast, and strong.

The Sawyer got a facelift:

And then I forgot to take any more pictures until the next day when I saw this:

Which was pretty cool, but sadly reinforced the idea that Trek must still think fat tire bikes are a joke. We don’t.

Neither does Gary:

While at the Trek Demo, I had the pleasure of riding the Fuel EX 9.8 and the Remedy 9.8:

Both of which were incredible. My love for mountain biking is ablaze again. NCC will be planning a series of MTB trips this fall so you can love it again, too.

Thanks to Trek for a good time, great seminars, and another year of great product.

ttfn.