Arleigh Jenkins

Real Run

It's almost April and I went for my first real run of the year this morning. Warm up, (run 2, walk 3) x 5, cool down. Basic abs and attempt to do sit ups = failure. To think I used to love running. Maybe I'll get there again.

Monday - Day Off

Two days off in a row, what a treat! Today and tomorrow are my days off and I'm rather enjoying it. Not shoving everything on my to-do list in one day allowed for relaxing, catching up on work and then watching the boys play lacrosse at night. Also got some time to take a few photos of Quinn : [flickr album=72157616054737585 num=10 size=Small] One last one .. this is my new desk/dining room table thing. Lots of work is getting done here. It takes a lot of work to feed the 6 mouths in this house!

We're Melting!

Charlotte is under torrential down pour for the 4th(?) day in a row.

If you look at the blurry radar picture you can see that we soon will be either: a. under attack by the blob b. on fire c. have torrential down pour that hopefully does not equal torrential flooding I'm hoping for c. but a. would be a great story to tell the kids. The rain has put a stop to all Trek and Gary Fisher demo's for the weekend a large bummer as many of us were looking forward to test riding the new Gary Fisher Roscoe and super swanky 29ers.

But the rain won't keep the triathletes at home. The MAP Tri is on tomorrow at Huntersville Family Fitness and Aquatics. Roughly 600 people will be swimming laps in the pool, riding in the rain (none of them will have fenders on) and then running in that same rain. I think we should create an indoor tri for this purpose. Laps in the indoor pool, cycling on the Computrainer and then running on the treadmill. Due to the no drafting rules you could do it at any time and not a scheduled time on a scheduled day. You could race on your own time, not the race promoters! I don't think I'll be able to get out my bright idea by tomorrow so I'll be up at 5am to get to the event by 5:30. Then I will stand around under our tent with my red rain boots checking over bikes and pimping pumping up tires. I still find it interesting that no one is putting fenders on their tri or road bikes for this event. Hopefully for all, including my rain boots, it stops raining this evening!

Thursday Day Off

Here's some photos from the past few days... Ride home on a mountain bike:

New home office :

Quinn is growing...:

Yes mom, I'm alive

Slammed busy, many projects on the stove and many sick children/wifey at home. For now : the creature from the fridge :

"Bang Head Here"

Crazy weekend in the store with the sale starting and decent weather out. I don't think we had a down moment during open hours on Saturday, we can hope that Sunday will be the same. Ran into a couple "oh craps" because the system we use to sell things doesn't take American Express or Discover. It normally isn't an issue but was one 3 times yesterday. But we ended up with many happy customers on bikes that will suit them well for many years to come. THAT is why I enjoy my job, the hours suck and working at a bike shop isn't going to make me rich but I believe in bikes.

There's a lot of things stirring on the horizon, lots of man hours happening in the wee hours of the morning I'm for-seeing. Will keep you up to date once I know the status if I can let things out of the hat or not.

Down and Out

My knee is still bothering me. To the point that I stopped 3 miles from work today to call in my back up. Hopefully pedals with more float, or maybe platform pedals for a little bit will help with the pain. This week has been one of no riding, some crappy weather and lots of meetings. Tomorrow morning is an early one at the shop as we roll out our March Madness Spring Sale. If you were waiting for a sale to purchase that new bike, or get your old bike rolling. Now is the time. As I sit here at work, waiting for my lady to come to my distress signal I wonder where the month of March has gone. It's the 20th. Do you realize that April is less than two weeks away? I remember in November wondering when it would get warm again so I could start riding. Now it's warm and I'm not riding as much as I should.. but it is happening some. There is also a whisper on the wind that I may have some weekends here and there off. That means riding with family, day trips to the mountains and well.. having a somewhat normal woman's schedule again. But that's just a whisper so we shall leave it like that. Other happenings are as such :

The shop won the Best of Charlotte Magazine. (Yes, crazy!)
Dirt Diva's meeting this past Tuesday
Tarheel Trailblazers of Lake Norman meeting last night
Our "Experience" wall at the shop is taking shape as you can see from the photo. A large map, hand outs and soon to be TwinSix tshirts!
The more I ride my cyclocross bike, the more I want to #1 build it with Fu-Bar's and mimic my Salsa Casseroll. #2 build my karate monkey back up. Full rigid single speed goodness is calling to me for some reason.
Been listening to a good amount of Al Green when possible lately
Need to get the family car checked over for inspection, I hate cars.

Go Ride Your Bike

It's Your Ride from Cinecycle on Vimeo.

CATS Does Me Wrong

Last night I attended a Dirt Diva's meeting in the southern end of Charlotte. Since the girlfriend was picking me up at work I decided to leave my bike there and we would car pool home from the meeting. In the morning she would drop me off a few miles from home at the Davidson Park & Ride, I would catch the bus into the bike shop and ride my bike home from there. No such luck. It should of been a sign that the bus was picking up the other side of the strip mall then it normally did when I rode the bus daily a couple months back. The bus then started back south on a route that was very obscure... not the normal either. As we are on the highway my stomach started dropping, they changed the route. We pass the exit for the Trek Store. Inquiring with the bus driver he tells me that many routes have changed and some routes have been completely deleted from the system due to the economy and ridership falling. Once we arrive to Uptown (downtown) Charlotte I ask for a transfer pass and walk over to the information desk to figure out what my best plan or bus to get back to the bike shop would be. By now it is 9:55am. I'm supposed to open the shop at 10am! The route I once took from Uptown to the exit for the shop is severly cut back and the last bus left at 8am. The only option was to wait for a bus that ran every 30 minutes, which is also a city bus and stops every 2 blocks. Finally I called in my back up car ride. The one I tried to avoid first thing this morning. If I would of originally gone for the car this morning I could of laid in bed for another 30 minutes. Screw you Charlotte Transportation. Edit : It is not Charlotte Transportation that is in charge of the bus system, it is CATS.

Aching

Rainy day in Charlotte and Mooresville, NC. Dreary and un-motivational. I need inspired and searching the web isn't doing it. My knees are still aching, tested out the new fit on a 5 mile ride tonight. Felt okay but normally does until mile 12. I have off tomorrow so I'll go for a longer spin to see what happens. Here's the rides this week via the Blackberry low-res photos :

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