Diadora X-Vortex Pro

As we opened our bike shop at the first of the year I was still searching for a line of cycling shoes to sell. Luckily a longtime industry pal of mine suggested I have a look at Diadora. I have owned many cycling shoes over the years and could even be thought of as a little OCD over the fit, weight, and stiffness of my footwear. Several years ago I even had custom shoes made in Germany and while they were super light and super comfortable they durability was abysmal. Somehow in nearly 25 years of wearing cycling shoes, I had zero first hand experience with Diadora so I contacted the “local” rep and arranged a meeting to see the shoe line while we were down in Oregon for a visit. Read more »

Fast and Grippy with burly shoulders!

Friday I picked up a pair of 29×2.0 Kenda Slant Six SCT tires. They felt a little hefty; they felt sturdy; and they looked like they had some skimpy knobs, skimpier than, say, the Specialized Renegade, or the Bontrager XR1. Those were my first impressions. Friday night I hopped in a car and drove to Bend, Oregon and was out and about until after 2AM for a bachelor party, um, session.

Saturday I was up too early, coffee in hand, sitting on a sunny porch, yanking the XR1′s that I rode many, many miles on last season off my wheels, and putting on those heavier, stiffer, and on closer inspection, more toothy Slant Sixes. I can usually get away without an air compressor and these Kenda’s mounted up nice and easy with a cocktail of sealants I had on hand, the front with a hand pump, the rear took a little coaxing because of the ding in the rim and old tape that was folded in one spot. Soon they both were seated and then with only a few hours sleep we set off on our merry way into the hot sun of Central Oregon. Read more »

My bloodwork is slowly showing steady signs of improvement after the Epstein-Barr episodes (starting 2009) and the progressive Sleep Apnea and ensuing CFS that finally broke me in the middle of last season. Since I really only “hung on” and was lucky enough for some decent results last year, I dedicated my focus to diet, sleep and subsequent recovery this year. The only problem was that after the surgery I had to sleep on an incline which completely screwed up my SI joint again. This seems to be my “Achilles” heel and this time I couldn’t get it resolved for several months. It is better now with lots of stretching, massage and chiropractic tune-ups. Read more »

I’m baaa-acck! For all you virtual followers out on the trails of cyber world my apologies for taking six months off. Actually I didn’t take “off” just needed to re-focus the virtual energy inward for awhile… First I had nasal surgery to correct some minor injuries accumulated over the years face taking face-plants. That amounted to about a month off the bike and then I kept it pretty mellow doing some great mountain biking throughout the fall and having the perfect excuse to stay almost entirely out of the realm of cyclocross stupidity strikes most local cyclists. In December I began to slowwwwly ramp up my volume and spent more time sitting on cool new stuff like this…