End in Sight

This week has been an eventful one at work and the end of our cold weather season is in sight. We sold a ton of coats last weekend and when I came into work on Tuesday, I found bike racks set and ready for me to fill for our mountain bike shop. We immediately started seeing more activity in bikes and look forward to even more as the coats go away and the bikes come out of hibernation. We've only got two more weekends of coats and then we'll be able to finish the full set up of the bike shop.

I had a good month of sales and finished well above my month's goal and chipped away at my trip goal as well. Some of my co-workers are on their trip to Cancun that they earned by selling enough to meet their trip goal last year. I started in sales too late to qualify last year, but estimated that I needed to sell $6500/month over my monthly goal (which varies from month to month) in order to win a trip next year. I pulled that off for January and am roughly $12,000 above my month goal this month which means that I should now have to sell at a pace of about $5900/month over my month goal. Hopefully next year at this time Amy and I will be somewhere sunny.

I've also had more opportunity to get out and ride lately. All on the single-speed, all on the bike path, but any miles not done on my trainer in front of my TV are welcome miles at this time of year. It's in the low 30's today, so I'm going to ride to work and it may be even warmer tomorrow, so I should get to do it again then. With any luck, I'll finish March with at least 150 actual miles more than I did last year which is a great way to start my season. I started last year with a good old-fashioned butt kicking on a group ride but I didn't even have 100 miles in my legs. I may forgo the group ride until May this year anyway because I don't pretend to be in the same early season form as some of my fitness freak cohorts.

There's definitely two types of riders: those who ride for performance and those who ride for pleasure. Granted, there's some middle ground, but the primary motivation is usually out of those two camps. I am very much a pleasure rider. I love the bike. I love being able to just get out, clear my head and feel better physically. I always hope that I'll perform well, but that is never the first thing on my mind when I hop on the bike. Besides, I know I'll be able to hang by the time the Tour de Kota rolls around in June like I did last year.