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Friday, June 23, 2006
This just in... After dropping 40 lbs in the last year and a quarter, I've discovered that bicycling is a great way to lose weight. For real. All jokes aside the weight will come off if you want it to folks, and if you work hard and make a few lifestyle changes. My latest discovery is that if you really want to shake the poundage is to get out on the road bike. Round here, mountain biking trails have too much flow (if you can say that!). So you wind up doing a lot of coasting while you are twisting and turning and such. But head out on the road bike and it is pedal, pedal, pedal. No coasting, just working. And it works. Former pro racer and good guy Joe Parkin once told a complaining fellow racer how he could drop those last pounds. "You want to lose weight? I'll tell you how to lose weight. Get up in the morning and eat a bagel, go ride 100 miles real slow, come home, drink a dark beer, and go to bed." I'm sure Joe's plan works, but I'll stick to mine for now. Riding early and often as I can. Eating right. And enjoying life. Enjoy your weekend everyone. Cheers. -Kid Posted by Salsa Kid : 5:54 PM 0 comments | permalink 
Thursday, June 15, 2006
This week we've got one of our Taiwanese partners visting us on business. Now when Leeche visits I always enjoy it because besides being a good business partner, he's also a good friend, and a fun guy to boot. Today, we took off the kid gloves and went a few rounds on the ping pong table. Now I'm not going to bore you with past history of some of my ping pong matches with Leeche. I won't waste any of your time talking about the only time I came out on top, winning 2 of 3 games...all of which were 2 point wins. No...I won't dwell on the past... I'm man enough to face the facts that today Leeche handed my #$$ to me on the ping pong court. That's just the way the ball bounces...or in this case, it's the way the ball gets slammed down your throat! All I can say is keep it to his backhand...real low...with a lot of backspin. And don't misjudge the amount of backspin that he's putting on the return to you. There's more on there than you'd think. And whatever you do, don't send anything easy to the forehand or he'll pounce on it like the cool Taiwanese cat he is and deliver you a pen-style knock out. That's todays ping pong lesson. Till next time. -Kid Posted by Salsa Kid : 3:12 AM 0 comments | permalink
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
As much as we all love bikes...there is always a segment of our lives that is off the saddle. Us Salsa guys are just regular joes that love bikes and just like all of you have a life away from them too. I know....I know....Suprising isn't it. Well what this cat does in his "spare" time is play in a band. Music has always been a passion of mine and as far as music goes today is probably the biggest most exciting day to date. The band that I play with (Complex Zero) is releasing our first national record today. Its been a crazy and confusing process up to this point (including a canceled release date in March that some of you may have heard about....) but the day has finally arrived. As of today, our debut album "Everyone has an hourglass..." is in stores across the good ole US of A. To be honest its still a bit surreal at this point to see our disc at Best Buy, and Tower Records and a bunch of other major retailers but I think I'm getting used to the idea. :) Long story short, I would love for all of you Salsa fans out there to pick up a copy. Check out a piece of who one of us crazy Salsa folk are outside the two wheeled universe. We do have a couple sample tracks up on our myspace page too if you want to try before you buy...which I know that bike people never like to do..... Anyway, here are a couple links for ya. Thanks and out. Bobby Salsa Cycles Our Myspace Site: (if your on myspace make sure to add us!) www.myspace.com/complexzeromusic Tower Records: http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=3375969&title=Everyone+Has+An+Hourglass&artist=Complex+Zero Best Buy: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=14943831&type=product&id=1525674 Our Website: (currently under construction...bad timing I know...believe me) www.complexzero.com Posted by Bobby : 2:54 PM 0 comments | permalink
This was a big week for Salsa. Why you ask? Well, because Jeff Hall broke into the top 10 in the pro field at the Norba National last weekend. He's now 9th overall in the series! Jeff has put countless hours into home, work and training. We've said it before, but Jeff is one of the hardest working pro riders out there. He's a dad, a full time employee, and a full time pro racer. Wow. congrats Jeff! We also shipped most of our El Mariachi Limited Edition 29" framesets this week. We've got about 20 left going to our international distributors. We hope to finish those this week and get them shipped next week. This frameset is something special to us and I believe anyone who buys one of these frames will see and feel just how much effort went into this project. Lastly, anyone in the mood for a nice bike trip? I know I am. Kid Riemer was out last week doing a Grand Canyon bike tour with BIKE magazine. BIKE magazine took roughly 30 crazy industry folks on a fully supported Grand Canyon tour. Sounds rough doesn't it? Well, thanks to Kid for taking one for the team. I believe this was a great opportunity for Salsa and I can't wait to hear about it. Check back here over the next few weeks for some stories from Mike. Jason Posted by Butcher : 7:04 AM 0 comments | permalink
Thursday, June 01, 2006
I'm lucky. I work in an industry that I actively participate in and enjoy. Heck, I love bikes. My lady was in quite the opposite scenario until yesterday, which was her last day at work. Now the job she'd had was good for her for quite a few years. As a single mother it paid the bills for her and Jordan, something which certainly can't be taken for granted. But while she enjoyed most of the people she worked with, she never enjoyed the work. At times, she was flat out bored and miserable. About 5 weeks ago she gave her notice that she would be leaving the company. She's taking the summer off and then looking for a job that she'll enjoy and receive some satisfaction from. It was a great decision for her to make and I'm glad she's done it. Life is too short and work takes up far too much of it to be less than satisfied with you chosen work life. It may not be easy, but if you aren't digging what you do, consider making a change, then put the pieces in place to make it happen. It will take effort, but all things are possible and you owe it to yourself to enjoy life. Have a good day. -Kid Posted by Salsa Kid : 10:47 AM 0 comments | permalink
Yesterday, I got to sneak out of the office early for a meeting in Saint Paul. Thankfully, the meeting went well and my wife encouraged me to go for a ride. OK then. Off to Lebanon Hills I went. It was a glorious day. The heat and humidity broke. I was riding my El Mariachi with a new White Bros IMV fork. A perfect day for product testing. I couldn't wait. As I prepared my bike and started rolling to the trail, two of my buddies also riding 29" wheeled bikes (a Niner and a Waltworks) were just finishing a lap. Perfect timing. What could be better than an afternoon riding with friends and testing new equipment? Both Kevin and Tom were riding 29" Singles and I had my El Mariachi set up as a 1x9. These guys are fast...Really fast. As we took off, I thought what the heck, I only have 2 hours to ride today so I'll push it today and do my best to keep up. Kev immediately went off the front and Tom and I rode together and BS'ed for a while. As the pace picked up, I picked a bad line through a rock garden and hit the ground pretty hard. I got a few scrapes, bruised ego and a sore wrist. It was a bummer because I've cleared this section about 100 times already this year with zero dabs. Other good news today was that a new section of trail was opened. It's nice. It needs to be worked in, but with all the traffic this trail gets, that shouldn't take long. The new section adds some technical difficulty to a pretty simple flowing downhill. This is good news for me as I was able to catch up to Kevin. We finished the lap, talked a bit. They were finished and I headed out for another lap to actually do some product testing. The new IMV fork is pretty darn cool. This fork is a custom 80mm with thru axle. It's stiff. For bigger folks thinking that the big wheels and the long forks are flexy, this IS the set up. At times, it felt like the first time I rode a Marzocchi QR20 on my old freeride bike. It was immediately obvious how much stiffer this fork felt. Simply awesome. I did some fiddling with the IMV valve. It works really well. I like forks that actually move pretty freely, so I ended up setting it at the lightest setting so the fork remained fully active. I tweaked the air pressure and the rebound as well. I ripped another lap out. Awesome fork. If the reliability has improved from White Bros forks of past, I think that this could be my new favorite fork. I'll update later because a few hours on a fork isn't long enough to really test it right. One last product note. 1x9 simply works so well. Simple. Light. Functional. I'm using an N-gear jump stop on the inside and a new Salsa Ring Dinger on the outside. I'm trying to get the gearing dialed. I've ridden everything from a 30t to a 36tooth ring in front. Today, I had a 32t and it was really good. Out back I had an 11-34 so I had quite a range. The Ring Dingers are a new product for us and aren't even on our website. They are in stock at QBP. $40 msrp. It is essentially a light outer ring replacement that provides a little tooth protection and also keeps the chain in place so it doesn't go over the outside. If your interested, look at our Crossing Guards on the Salsa website. The Ring Dingers are a scaled down version. Sorry this got so long. Riding just feels so good. Riding rules. If you can find a way to sneak out of the office early, do it. Jason Posted by Butcher : 8:18 AM 0 comments | permalink |
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