Passion Trail Bikes, Belmont, CA - specialists in quality bike service and custom-built mountain bikes: Category Passion

Commute Challenge - Oct 27-31

PeterD — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:02:00 +0000

Commute.org, the folks who bring us Bike to Work Day, have another challenge going. This time they are trying to get people who live, work, or travel through San Mateo to take transit at least once during the week of October 27. And those who commit to doing this can enter a raffle for a bunch of free goodies, including iPods, hotel stays, etc.

More details here, or click the icon to the right.

Female Friday! Sept. 12th 5:45pm

Patty — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:36:00 +0000

Back by popular demand! Last month we had about 45 women descend en mass upon the shop for some great riding, gabbing, and consuming of food and drink!

We will be doing it again this Friday, Sept 12th, with rides launching around 5:45pm. Ladies only!

After sunset we will return for food, prepped for our pleasure by guys who will give up an evening just for the fun of feeding a whole flock o’ female mountain bikers!

Tell your girlfriends!

Check comments below for details on the menu and other fun stuff.

Pictures from last month are up here on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51326343@N00/sets/72157607077317100/detail/

How do you play?

PeterD — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Clif Bar has a contest going right now. Write up a short story of how you play differently. Here is from their official rules:
“Was there a moment or decision that changed your life? Were you put to the test or did you have to choose between two paths? Tell us all about it, inspire us.

Prices include a weekend riding with the Clif Bar folks in Napa, year supply of Clif Bars, and $1000 gift certificate to your favorite sports retailer…

Enter at http://www.clifbar.com/howdoyouplay/

Ride Day 1, The Nelson Town Trails

Charles — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:50:00 +0000

One the scale of people you know that really like to drive, Sean would rise to the top. He really, really likes to drive, and he’s excellent at it. He and I did a very fast road trip two years ago, a mad dash to central Oregon and back in four days, with three epic rides sandwiched in between. When he called a couple weeks ago to tell me Nelson was only 19 hours away by car, I knew what he was thinking, and what he was capable of. We put together a couple of roof racks and outfitted his Prius to carry our two bikes as well as the three bikes that belonged to Patrick, Rob, and Jim, who we were to meet in downtown Nelson on Thursday.

The two of us rolled out of Passion at 7:30 Wednesday morning, after checking and double checking the roof rack, our pack lists, and the content of our travel mugs. At some later point, the topic of directions came up, and I was introduced to Sean’s small surly Australian friend, the Garmin Personal Navigator. We programmed Spokane, Washington into the little device, it spat out a 16 hour drive time estimate, and began to correct us every time we attempted to add time to that figure.

A hundred or so miles into the trip, we stopped to recheck the things that mattered, and found our coffee cups empty, and the roof rack an inch or so further back from the windshield than where we had left it. Tightening the rack and getting good coffee seemed easy enough, so we pressed on, but did check both again in another hundred miles. This time we found the roof rack had moved back more than the coffee level dropped. A quick calculation factoring the length of the roof, miles completed, and remaining miles to go told us we needed to make a change, and it wasn’t to the coffee. We ran lengths of clothesline from the hood hinges up to the roof rack, then back under the hood, and marked both the windshield and rope so we could monitor progress in flight, and hit the road once again. We didn’t need to field check the roof rack until we were well into Oregon, and when we did we found no rearward progress. Press on again.

We hit the road one last time, and rolled into, and quickly through, Spokane to stop at the Howard Johnson’s just outside of town, just an hour from the Canadian border we found after reprogramming the GPS for Nelson. Fortunately, our Australian friend had prior knowledge of the Great White North, because we didn’t have more than a small, blurry printout for a map. The HoJo’s had everything we needed, free wireless, big comfortable beds, a self serve waffle maker, and my favorite thing about the Greater Northwest, three coffee shacks within three blocks. We were back on the road by 9:00 the following morning, passing on Brews Brothers in favor of Coffecopia. We were prepared at the border for the gatekeeper that morning, fully apprised of the velocity differences between the African and European swallows and were able to breeze through, and roll into Nelson around noon. By 1:00 we had met the proprietor of the Baldface Lodge, who introduced us to a local trailbuilder, who sold us a map, who then drew in his trail, and by 2:00 we were at the chip truck, ordering Thai chicken and falafel wraps, dressed for a ride and pointed toward the hills above town.

My initiation to Canadian riding was the Svoboda trail network, including the Svoboda Road climb, the Log Jam descent, to Svoboda Traverse, Long Svoboda, and then a final detour onto the new local goodness that was unnamed to us. We were able to get back into town by 4:30 for check in, met our three travel partners, and with the rest of the guests of Baldface, we began the hour long shuttle up a dirt road to the Lodge.

The Baldface Lodge offers an all inclusive mountain bike vacation starting 4000 feet about Kootenay Lake in Nelson, BC. The Lodge would be our home for the next three nights, and our days would be spent on guided tours down the mountain and around the Nelson town trails, with shuttles bringing us back up as many times as necessary.

Female Friday Fandango - month 2

PeterD — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:20:00 +0000

Had another women-only ride and party last week. About 25 women came for the ride (and a few more for the festivities only). All cooking, drink-making, etc. was performed by men (especially, master chef Jay).

So, this came in early, to escape attention, and when out late. There were no leftovers. Handmade Tiramisu by Jay.

“Slower riders to the left of me, faster riders to right of me…” As you might imagine, most people clumped near the middle.

One way to mix four different colors. Rather nicely I think.

Jay and his sous chef, Michael. They were putting the finishing touches on hors d’oeuvres as the first of the riders began to return.

Becky, Valerie, Kat, Stacey, and some mysterious stranger on the lounge couch.

Here are our guests, enjoying the cooking. And our cook, enjoying the guests.

We had little islands of humanity just about anywhere we could put them. This was in the middle of the sales floor.

Charles works his one trick at the bar, a fresh lime margarita. Popular enough that no one asked for any other mixed drink, and good thing. We don’t know what he would have done. Notice the tester on top of the toaster.

Before dinner, evidently. Margaritas and wine in hand, lots of good cheer, standing room only.

Mountains, Milestones

Patty — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:46:00 +0000

John off to Climb Denali

Tomorrow John leaves for a little hike up in Alaska. Our resident mountaineer got an opportunity recently to join up with a group and attempt the summit of Denali again; this time he hopes to make the peak. Word is that good weather up there is very unpredictable and luck plays a huge role in whether climbers can find a safe window of opportunity for reaching the top.

Photo of Denali, viewed from the north, from wikipedia

For those of you who were able to attend John’s presentation on summiting Mt Everest, you’ll know that his chances of bagging this peak are pretty good. We are going to keep our fingers crossed that his trip will be successful and that he will stay safe on the climb.

Varius websites have a lot of information on Denali, so if you’re looking for some good web surfing about something other than the election, I recommend sinking some time into the subject over a cup of coffee. Tidbits I’ve learned include that the base of Denali is only 2,000 feet in elevation, with the peak at 20,320, giving the mountain over 18,000 feet of vertical rise, about 6,000 feet more than Mt. Everest. Our Bay Area peaks, which range in height from 2,417 (Sierra Morena) 3,849 (Mt. Diablo) to 4,360 (Mt. Hamilton), wouldn’t even reach the snowline in the picture above.

Sterling slayed his 2nd year at SJSU

Boy genius Sterling will be returning to full-time wrenching for the summer, and we are psyched. He’s a lot of fun to have around, and we are trying our best to resist making him the butt of all shop jokes. We’re hoping our customers will help keep his mind occupied with tough questions about materials, leverage, pressure and other ME subjects so he goes back to school in the fall smarter than he left.

Daniel is getting hitched

You’ve probably met Daniel by now; he’s the charming guy up in front behind all the Chris King components. Turns out we’re not the only ones who find him charming. He’s smitten his sweetie Sarah sufficiently to set a date, and he will be out later this month on a short honeymoon following a modest little knot tying ceremony. We think they are a great couple and know they will have a wonderful future together.

Reba turns 4

The little brown dog with the fetch fetish no longer has an excuse for acting like a puppy. Amazingly, this month she’ll have managed to achieve four full trips around the sun without getting tired yet. Whew. We’re exhausted though.

Tonight I Straggle

Charles — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:07:00 +0000

We have a bunch of rides on Wednesdays that leave Passion, and each of these has its own theme. Last week we had a Fat Bottomed Girl Ride, a Drinking Ride, a Big Bike Ride, and the Frisky Ride. This week will be similar, but different. I will have at least as much trouble tonight as usual, getting my butt out the door on time, so I will lead a Straggler’s Ride at 6:45. Anyone else that has trouble making the earlier rides is welcome to join me. This ride will certainly leave after the other rides tonight, and may even leave on time, but call if you’re running late and I will procras… uh, make arrangements. Our route has yet to be determined, but I’ll get around to it.

The weekly rides are outlined in the weekly email, which you can subscribe to here… list

The weekly email from yesterday has been posted here: newsletter

And all the rides start here: Passion

Charles

Santa Cruz Hell Ride 5

PeterD — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:25:00 +0000

Santa Cruz is at it again. Here’s your chance to ride with some pros and have a chance to win a new Santa Cruz Nomad. Enter at http://www.santacruzbicycles.com/hellridefive/

Of course, to win, you must be able to ride hard and long. Basically take one of our shop weekends in Downieville, skip on using the shuttles, and compress it all into 1 day. Not for the faint of heart…

Do The Test

PeterD — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:27:00 +0000

Interesting awareness test – can you pass?

2nd Anniversary Demo Days

PeterD — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:41:00 +0000

The event went off well. The weather reporters were wrong when they said we would get rain on Saturday – we got just enough Friday night to make sure the trails were dust free, but not so much to make things muddy. Good set of photos and comments showing up on MTBR (though I am copying some of the better ones over to this post).

Thanks for everyone who showed up! And special thanks to folks like JohnH, Justine, TomR, MichaelP, and others who chipped in to help.

More photos below…