We are making hot water today. The panels were at 150 degrees and it was 28 degrees outside. The sun is pretty amazing!

We finally got our solar hot water system up and running this winter. We also put in an on-demand hot water heater in and got rid of our old hot water heater. So far we are super happy and saving money every day.

Sara and I are excited to be riding once again on the Trek Co-op Team. We have partnered up with Maury which means we'll be able to help out with Trek Demo rides that Ken Derico organizes. Ken's the guy at Chequamegon, Iceman and a host of other events around the country with the huge fleet of Trek demo bikes.

We are also going to be riding for KUHL, the sweet outdoor clothing company based out Salt Lake City, Utah. A former Wisconsin Elite MTB racer, Tom Bender, is the manager of the mountain bike team and he wanted a WORS presence, so we'll be hitting up more WORS races than last year to splash the KUHL brand around at some WORS events.

We'll be wearing KUHL kits when racing in Wisconsin/Michigan and Trek Co-op kits when competing in events around the Twin Cities.

We'll also be fueling up with HAMMER NUTRITION PRODUCTS for 2011. Our good buddy Ron Raymond was able to hook us up with the fine folks at Hammer. He was also kind enough to line us up with an old sponsor, OAKLEY. We absolutely love all our Oakley glasses and we are stoked to try some new eye wear this season.

What's better than this?















Or this?













THIS!




Sara and I are quite excited to have our bikes already. Last year we didn't get our new bikes until the last week in June and this year we got our Fuels in February (Thanks Maury!) and our Superfly showed up at the SkiHut yesterday (Thanks Whitey!). I can't believe how easy the bikes were to put together, especially the Fuels since they have internal cable routing. Alas, no problems dialing in the new XTR stuff or getting the lock-outs set up.

I put the Superfly together in about a 1/2 hour and that includes switching the brakes around to make them normal (the front brake is ALWAYS on the right side).

Sara and I rode for about 3 hours in 25 degrees and sun this morning while my dad watched Kiera. This is probably our last weekend on snowmobile trails since the sun is getting so high, softening the trails up rather quickly. There is a lot of ice, which keeps it interesting, since I hunt for the fastest rolling, least resistant line.

A couple of weeks ago we rode in the toughest conditions possible: new snow and warmer temps. It made this year's Mont du Lac race feel easy.