May | 2012 | Big Wheel Racing Europe

Since my last post in January I have had a quite exciting and stressful time, but so far I think I managed to come out at least even and only very rarely had to sacrifice my riding. Although my 29er Stumpjumper was stolen on March 23rd I was able to ride my 7 speed steel Hercules Stadtrad throughout March and April. I got a handful or more of 100km rides on this bike and if anything it gave me a taste of longer road rides again since the tires are semi-slicks and I seriously had only ridden my 29er for the past 13 months. Once the spring started first week of April I started riding long sunday road rides with a local pelaton and was able to hang on 100+ km rides with the road bikes on my Schrot. A couple shots of the Schrot in its prime habitats.

At the same time, a link from my call for help email to the BWRE group came through with a sweet Bergamont 6.1 frame equpped with XO/XX 10-speed and a Reba that is good enough for training and racing. Thanks Ralf and Martin! Once I got the fit dialed in I basically started riding every Midevil village, Singletrack, Hansa Stadt, or hill on the landscape that was within riding distance. I logged one of these here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3535874568157.144222.1611131706&type=1

There are 2011 and 2012 Bergamont 29er Revox reviews available and both were pretty true to the review after riding it for over a month now. I am just glad to have ended up with a great ride after what happened.

2011 Revox, http://twentynineinches.com/2011/02/22/bergamont-revox-9-1-29er-hard-tail-final-review/

2012 Revox, http://twentynineinches.com/2012/05/22/bergamont-revox-team-29er-final-review/

I also got a job as a bike mechanic at Stadler in Berlin. Ironically, the pelaton I had been riding with the past month was out of this shop so its been a good fit so far and I have an instant crew to ride with and will have enough dough to travel to a couple three races before SIS. I am working 3 full days a week which gives me 4 days off to ride and recover, do my research and whattever else. And to top it all off, last week I came across a used aluminum Trek SLR road bike through the shop and snapped it up. Riding road again has been AWESOME since its been well over a year.