January Update; New Rider Josh Qualls, Bob's birthday and SNOWROLLERS?!?

 

 

 

 FIRST...HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO VEGAS BOB! Now go buy that dude some brews. 

Last Saturday, Tookie (Jeff Williams) drove up from Kentucky with his XTC race bike and new team mate Josh Qualls for a couple of hours. Josh is the New Kid On The Block for Backbone, and is very excited to have both a local team mate in his area, and some killer help from sponsors! We fit him up to his new Giant Talon 29 1 and he poured through his sponsor package(s), thankful to Ara and Bob who shipped him a week's worth of team clothing from the past few designs. SIGMA sent him shorts to race in as well.

 Jeff hooked him up with tires and some Amino Vital, and he had more AV piled on from me, with a SIGMA computer and XPEDO pedals and socks that shipped from So Cal. BTW..team chain order from KMC is in the works, and I am anxiously awaiting the new all black SL 10 speed stuff!

  A little background on "Quallsimoto" for you all...

"I am 29 from Kentucky. Cycling is a big part of my life. I've mountain biked for 5 years and road biked for a year and a half. Last year I put in 3560 miles on the road bike. With those miles I did 14 century rides with the local cycling club I joined in Ashland Kentucky called Ashland Cycling Enthusiasts (A.C.E.). Since I bought my road bike in July of 2012 I have logged 6000+ miles on the road.

Last year I picked up racing and really enjoyed the atmosphere.

I raced the Gran Fondo New York. It was 102 miles with 5000+ in elevation. Out of 5300 racers I places 265th over all! That had have been the best experience yet! Seeing everyone in the same jersey take off at the starting gun at the George Washington bridge! Amazing!

I raced in the McDonald's Huntington crit Cat 4/5. I placed 8th. More of a learning experience for me since that was my first crit! 

Also done my first ITT for the Homeless veterans TT. It was to raise money for the Homeless veterans. I placed 2nd in my age group and 9th over all out of 42.

I've always been into some type of extreme sport. I've skateboarded for 15 years and had the opportunity to build/own/operate my own skate park/shop. I snowboard (plan on going Sunday). 

I've set a few goals for this year:

Ride 4500 miles

Ride 20 centuries

Race Road and MTB 

Run a half marathon"

 

  That all sounds awesome..but I didn't read anywhere about drinking beer. Did you? Hopefully Tookie can get Josh up to speed on how we do things here:)

 

 

   It has been a bitter cold winter here in the Midwest. Jeff and I both have been getting out as much as possible, and thanks to a massive investment in new winter riding apparel and a fancy new wheel set for the mountain bike, I have ridden a ton in the below freezing temps here this season. I changed to tubeless for the deep snow, and my gear has made a HUGE difference in keeping comfy out in the Polar Vortex. It is funny to see so much snow here, and so much dry, dusty racing action back home at the Southridge Winter Series! www.southridgeusa.com

 

 

   Another fun thing we all just learned about yesterday here in Ohio is something called a "snowroller." Conditions have to be perfect, and it only happens once in a lifetime or so..but you take a BUNCH of dampish snow, blast it with fifty mile per hour winds, and it begins to lift and curl these amazing little barrels of snow flap-thingys. Really cool in the right light!

 

 

 

    Amino Vital just shipped us some new VOLER TEAM APPAREL arm warmers and new SOCK GUY socks! I look forward to seeing them on everyone for rides and races. Best of luck to everyone in the coming weeks..especially those of us stuck here in the Gulag-esque Midwest. Keep it classy!

 

 

 

Cap'n Chris