The NAHBS was last weekend in Sacramento.  If you’ve never had a chance to make it to one of these shows you need to make a point of it.  It is a gathering of the best of the best current handmade bicycle manufactures.  It is more like walking into an art exhibition that an bicycle show. You could spend a whole day at nearly each and every booth.  There is too much cool stuff to even come close to absorbing.

Anyway, my sponsor and long time friends at Kent Eriksen Cycles won 2 awards there this year. They won the best gravel/cyclocross bike and best TIG welded bike.  This isn’t anything of a surprise. Kent and Brad normally bring home a ton of awards, which the truly deserve.

I’ve known Kent forever.  I won the first MTB National Championship riding a bike Kent made and now I’ve been riding Eriksen’s titanium cross bikes this whole century and honestly can say that they are the best cyclocross bikes made, bar none.  Titanium is a perfect material for cyclocross/gravel/and MTB’ing.  It is virtually bombproof and has an incredible ride feel.  Titanium has improved a ton since the old Merlin/Litespeed days.  It is lighter, stronger, thus for the road, my bike is nearly as stiff as that of a carbon frame.

Frankie Andreau came up to me at Joe Martin, a few years ago, when he was running the 5 Hour Energy team, and asked me if he could ask me a personal question.  I said sure, having no idea what he was going to ask.

He wondered why I was riding a titanium road bike?  I was expecting something way more personal.  I told him that I wanted a bike that if, or more honestly, when I crashed, I could reach down and pick up my bike off the ground, knowing that it would not be in pieces.  I had ridden carbon frames for the previous 3 seasons and had broken a ton of them.  As soon as a front wheel from another rider hit my carbon frame, it was done.  I’d broken stays, main tubes, integrated seat masts, etc.

I told him I didn’t ever have a car following me that had another bike ready and available for use, so I’d prefer riding a bike that could take the rigors of bicycle racing.  He understood.  It was April and he said that his team had already went through 10 frames, which was about the same as my experience, just on a lesser scale.

Anyway, I can’t say enough about Eriksen frames.  When I retire, I’m only going to have titanium bikes hanging in my garage.  They are going to outlast me, which is how a bicycle should be built.  It’s a privilege to be riding them.

For all the show winners, here is a link to Bikeradar, which has them all listed.

This video is a little fussy, but Brad gets across the pertinent information.

Almost forgot Tucker’s picture. He had to remind me.

I’ve been going about my business and crossing my fingers that all this little issues I’ve had occur the past couple months will just take care of themselves.  They might be, but not quickly enough to appease me.

I’ve gotten pretty beaten up the past couple years.  Just beat up enough that I can still ride a bike, but doing daily tasks and normal life things is a struggle.  It is hard not to get frustrated on an hourly basis.

Right now the list of injuries that are still mending are as follows.  My right thumb and ring finger are still broken.  The thumb feels better than the ring finger, but that can change in a second if I hit a big bump in the road.  I tweaked my neck when I broke those fingers and it bothers me in the morning and then after I ride for more than a couple hours.  I had a x-ray done and it wasn’t broken, so I guess the diagnosis is something akin to whiplash.  This actually seems to be getting worse than better.  Plus, my right thumb is still achy.

The big injuries from the past couple years, right rotator cuff/surgery and then a left broken hip are just what they are.  The rotator cuff is never going to be back to normal, so it is what it is. The hip has been hurting more this year than last.  Mainly around where the incision scar is right over the IT band.  I’m just going to keep an eye on this and hopefully it is just a short team mending deal.

Last week, my left ankle hurt riding.  I couldn’t remember twisting it and sort of forgot about it over the weekend.  On Monday when I was riding, my ankle hurt pretty seriously.  So much that I couldn’t really stand up on it while riding.  I ate a bunch of ibuprofen and iced it.  Tuesday I rode and it felt pretty normal, maybe a little achy.  Then Wednesday morning, the first step, I could hardly walk.  It was seized up.  I iced it again and more ibruprofen.  Yesterday riding it was fine.  Then this morning it feels alright.

Cycling isn’t really an overuse type sport, it is very easy on your body.  You have to do something really dumb, like putting your cleats way, way off, or taking a challenge to ride huge gears up an mountain pass to injure yourself.  I didn’t do either of these things.  I’m not sure if this is just a passing problem or is going to become worse.  I’m thinking passing, but nowadays, I never know.

Man, after writing all this down, I’m not feeling all that great about my body and the prospects ahead.  I was hoping to be racing the Fatbike Birkie on Saturday, but can’t hold onto my MTB bars, thus I think it would be impossible to hold onto a fatbike’s handlebars.  It is strange that I can hold onto brake levers when my wrist is in that position, but if I rotate my hand flat, my thumb doesn’t work too well.

Okay, glad I got all that off my chest. Recently, I’ve felt like the little boy that had to put his finger into the hole in the dam, but there are too many holes and not enough fingers.

I had another prescription for an x-ray of my left hand.  I’ll probably do it after this weekend.  I guess I’m racing a local criterium here and then driving down to Tulsa for a 70 mile road race.  I need more race miles and this is the best I can do as of now.

Tucker is very playful in the morning.