Big week

Last week was a week I'd been targeting for a few months now. The main reason was that our Spring bike ad started last Sunday which meant a big build up and lots of activity. We sold a ton of bikes this week and I sold enough over the last five days to get me over half way to my sales goal for May. I may have to increase my goal to give me a target worth shooting for. The larger my goal, the bigger my bonus if I hit it, so it's worth going for it.

To add more to my plate, I helped with a bike build that was going on for the company's bike university that was meeting in town this week. Lee, Dave and Brad (the full time shop guys at the store) and myself served as instructors for about 25-30 people who had never built a bike before and who were expected to build bikes that retail for over $2000 each. The challenge is that better bikes take more time to set up because they are more fine-tuned, precision machines. We were there for about five hours and I had already worked over nine hours at the store that day, so I was pretty much worthless by the time I dragged myself home.

The reason we were building that many good bikes was that we received our bikes for the competition that starts on the 15th. That means that I now have a Trek Madone 5.0 sitting in my basement. I would have been able to build mine on Monday night if I wouldn't have been helping out, but instead had to wait. I had hoped to build it while I was at work, but things were too hectic, so I brought it home and built it in the basement on my day off. It was a fairly quick build, but the weather has been horrible so I haven't had a chance to take it outside yet. I did ride it on the trainer on Friday to fine tune some adjustments to the bike, the saddle position and the cleats on my new shoes (also a part of what was given to me for the bike competition).

I'll be interested to see how it rides outdoors, but already see a few modifications that I would want to make if I were keeping the bike. The wheelset, stem and handlebars are all better on my LeMond. The thing I miss most is the ergonomic drop on my LeMond bar. It is a flat spot on the part of the bar right beneath the brake levers where I spend a good amount of time while riding. The bar on the Madone has a standard, rounded section there which means that I will likely be looking for other hand positions and wishing that I had my other bar on this bike. It's only six weeks, so I'm sure I'll survive, but if we get to keep the bikes, I'll have to see whether I keep it, sell it or sell both and buy something else. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy getting to test ride other bikes.