Happy New Year!

I'm not sure that I'll actually be awake to see the new year start, since I stopped caring about that sort of thing a looong time ago, and I'm if anything a lot less of a fan of the Julian calendar than most other folks, but I know my legions of loyal readers would be inconsolable if I didn't post a new year resolutions type of post.


So here you go. Just don't ask me to do this again for 365 days.

Stuff I'd like to do in 2009, in rough order of importance:

1. Break the Winter Park hillclimb record. I have always done well at hillclimbs, where my spastic bike handling skills can do minimal harm, and this is basically a ridiculous goal for me. Consider: in 2008, I rode 33:24, good for second place (and 5th fastest of all time) but the record (held by the esteemed olympian Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski) is just a *tad* quicker at 31:14. So I'll need to go a whopping 7% faster to match that pace.

That's, um, not going to be easy. Most of my plans at this point involve not drinking too much beer and riding hard a lot before the race (which is something I haven't really bothered with in years past - apparently they call it "training"). I may also get a bike with gears this time around, but I've been informed that the record would mean a lot more if I did it with hairy legs on my beat-up singlespeed. We shall see. There will be blog updates about this particular quest as it progresses.


2. Find a good wet painter. I've become less and less happy with the powdercoat guys - they are always behind, lose things, shoot things the wrong color or get bubbles all over the clear coat, etc, etc. Overall, they do a good job, but I'd like to explore other options for frame finishing. Got a good bike painter (in the Boulder/Denver area) that you like? Drop me a line and tell me about them.

3. Keep the shop (and the house) cleaner. I've always been a slob, and so is Sarah, and the two of us together are a holy terror of filth. I really think I get more work done when the shop is clean and well-organized, though, so I'm going to try to get on that. Any time now.

4. Finally fully rehab my bad left knee. I blew up the MCL in this knee in a motocross "accident" (read: episode of stupidity and incompetence) when I was in graduate school. I spent about 6 months riding my bike around with one leg to get to and from classes and such, and my right leg has been larger and stronger than my left ever since (I mean, it's visible. Pretty funny stuff). So every year I try to get the left leg back to the right leg's level, but every year the thought of riding one-legged very much is intolerable. Maybe this is the year?