Seventy Three

Happy 73rd birthday Dad.

(May 1, 1934 - December 24, 1984)

Miss you,
J

One Year

One year ago today an amazing thing happened. First Call Basement Waterproofing, L.L.C became a reality. Happy one year anniversary! The past year has been a real roller coaster. Right now the business is in a valley, having wound up my first year with a few down months and the worst month so far (April). I've learned to roll with the punches though. Hopefully a bit of rain is around the corner (never thought I'd say THAT) and things will pick up.

This anniversary, of course, takes me back to last year at this time. What a stressful time. Found out mom had cancer on April 20th, lost my job April 28th, started the business May 1st and then had to put it all on hold for a few weeks when mom died on May 15th. It all seems like such a blur looking back. Sort of like a dream. My life (and, to some extent, the stress on my family) has changed so dramatically since then. There is good and bad. Give and take.

Being my own boss is challenging to be sure. When it's good, it's very good, but when it's bad... look out. All said, I wouldn't trade it for anything at the moment, but check back with me at the second anniversary. I'll do my best to make sure First Call is still around.

John

Good Ride, Good Company

Rode with George (GeeWizman on bikejournal.com) today at Kensington. As usual, the hills were hard, but the company was very cool. George and I exchanged a few messages back and forth on the site and decided to meet up for a ride. Things were a bit quiet on the hills (neither of us could really breathe), but we managed to get a bunch of great conversation in during our cooldown lap of the lake.

My First Dexter Breakfast Ride!

Today was my first AABTS Dexter Breakfast Ride (the club's signature ride). Started at Dexter and rode to the start in Ann Arbor. Went out with John B., Sharon, Mark B. and Don. Mark, Don and I made the turn for 70. Had breakfast in Chelsea, lunch somewhere out by Portage Lake. The hills are amazing. What a blast! Felt strong today. Great ride.


A few of us started in Dexter and rode to Ann Arbor to join the rest of the group for the "official" start of the ride in Wheeler Park (above). We were able to get done about an hour before most folks due to our early start!


Another shot of Wheeler Park.


The famous breakfast stop in Chelsea. I had a blueberry muffin...


The "curb sitters".


More "curb sitters". Notice the sweet LeMond in the foreground (mine).


Interesting story about this. We had just been in the hills for like 5-6 miles and I saw this at the bottom of a descent. I was pretty far ahead of the rest of the group, so I stopped to take a shot of this sweet barn. As soon as my mates passed by me I started off again. Little did I know, but the biggest climb of the ride was right after this barn. Needless to say, I won't be stopping to take any more photos of this barn!

Great day, great ride! 70 miles in the books. Gives me 900 for the season so far. DALMAC, here I come.
J

Lesson Learned... The Easy Way This Time

As I mentioned in a previous post, I went riding at Kensington yesterday afternoon. Riding in the hills is always exciting, but even more so when you develop a shimmy in your front wheel at 35+mph on a descent. That had happened once before on another bike, but never on the Tourmalet. Needless to say, I was pretty freaked out about it.

Last night I posted a thread about it over at bikejournal.com and received a ton of great advice on how to figure out what went wrong. One of the folks said something about my headset and a light immediately went off for me. The other night I had, indeed, adjusted my stem and, as a result, the headset.

When I took the bike to the local bike shop today, I found out that I had not put the headset back together in the right order. All the parts were in the right place and sequence, but I had tightened the bolts back down in the wrong order. Turns out that on these newfangled bikes, you have to turn the top disc bolt first to tighten the headset, THEN tighten the stem bolts. I had, of course, done the opposite.

Lesson learned. I'm just glad the lesson didn't require a visit to the ER.

Spring is Trying to Spring

Jen, Boom and I went on a trail run this afternoon. The trails are wetter than I've ever seen them before. I noticed that the Trillium were coming up and getting ready to bloom. Made me go back in my blog to find out when I took those photos last year of them. It was April 22. Looks like some things are right on schedule as much as we'd like them to hurry!

The Fun and the Pain

Biking has been a chore most of the past few months around here, but things are getting better. Started going out to Kensington Metropark once a week recently. They have a small hill loop with some good climbing (which Al introduced me to last season). The loop is only 3.5 miles, but you get about 300+ feet of climbing in with each loop.

Us flatlanders have to improvise, yo.

Today's ride was with Daryl. We did a few easy miles and then four hill loops (that's 1200+ feet of climbing!). After that, as is our custom, we did a lap around the lake. It was a good day. I finally took the camera with me to take a few shots this time.


Scenery on the way to the pain.


The pain.


The fun. These are the rollers!


Another shot of the fun!


This is atop the first big climb on High Ridge Drive.