GVH Bikes | Tom's Blog

Tom's Blog

This is where I'm going to put the stories and pictures from my adventures, and maybe an opinion or a rant or two. I may also include a glimpse into the deep inner workings of this little operation we call GVH. But realistically, I have so little free time that I probably won't put much in here at all. It's hard enough to find time to get orders out and keep the inventory lists updated and important things like that. But I do reserve the right to take long weekends and vacations to do the things in life that make it all worth while, meaning travel places and ride bikes. ( :

7July08 RAO is nearly here. I think I'm ready. We'll see. 538 miles - yikes. At least I've got my crew all set, and they are going to be great! The bike and other equipment is all set. My body is as ready as it's going to be, not top fitness by any means, but not too bad for putting in as little saddle time as I have this year. Now I just have to get my head around riding for 40 hours non-stop. But really, if you put this into the context of difficult tasks that normal people in much of the world accomplish every day, it's nothing. It's only because we live in a country and time in which we have all the time and resources we could want that we get to (need to?) go to such silly lengths to challenge ourselves. Geez - too much solo road riding does strange things to the head.

24Jun08 Here's a note and pictures send by a recent bike buyer:

Tom,

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for the fantastic job you performed in building, preparing, and packing, my new Cinelli road bike. I was most impressed with your awesome packing job. I’m sure a Fabergé egg would have made the journey unscathed if packed with the bike. I also found the few final steps in assembly to be very easy, even “U.S. Marine proof”.

I purchased the bike as a retirement gift to myself for completing a 24-year career in the Marine Corps. Coincidentally, after a 24-year hiatus from cycling, I’m overwhelmed with the advancements in technology revealed to me by riding my new bike. From the ease of shifting to effortless cornering capability, I found the bike to be a vast improvement over my ageing Colnago with its steel frame, toe-clips, tube-mounted shifters, sew-up tires, and case-less freewheel.

What a difference a year makes! Enclosed are 2 photos of me taken almost exactly a year ago in Fallujah, Iraq, and 2 photos taken of me yesterday enjoying my new Cinelli in downtown Reno. In the “Desert Rats” photo, I’m the Marine second from the left. In the “Platoon” photo, I’m the tall blonde guy, back-row, second from the right.

Again, thank you for the superb job in preparing the bicycle. In the meantime, I plan on reliving my criterium glory days by circling the city blocks nearby my downtown residence here in Reno, NV.

Semper Fidelis,
John M.
Master Sergeant, U. S. Marine Corps (ret.)

19May08 Yup, that was interesting. Over the last four days, I rode 472 miles in unseasonably hot weather at the RAO training camp. George Thomas and Terri Gooch, the promoters of RaceAcrossOregon put on a fantastic weekend, with great help from another accomplished ultra rider - Hugh Gapay, and a Hood River based physical therapist/masseuse/coach/triathlete/sandwich maker - Cassie Nobbs. They told us where to go, fed us, bandaged our road rash(just Bruce), watched out for us, and made it possible to ride the race route and worry about nothing else. My goals for the weekend were to get in some much needed training miles, and overcome my mental demons about Ochoco Pass, which defeated my attempt to finish RAO last year. Both goals were suitably accomplished this weekend. After getting dehydrated and overheated on Friday - I decided to get in the van and skip the hardest 30 miles of the day when I stopped sweating and started shaking - I was convinced to try the 'ice in a sock on the back of the neck' trick, and boy is that magic in the heat! The next two days I felt great and had a good time riding the hills. Mark was great company, especially because he seems to like to pull real hard into headwinds - how's that for a good habit in a riding partner. The camp was also much more social than the races, so I got to know a few of these crazy ultra riders better. My ride distances for each day were: 101, 115, 135, 122 miles. Here's a profile of the whole thing. This weekend was a little different as a couple of the roads are still snowbound. I skipped the really big ugly climb at mile 270.

12May08 This coming weekend I'll be doing a training camp for this year's Race Across Oregon. We will ride the whole 538 mile route (with a few re-routes because some of it is still under snow!) in 4 days. That's 135 miles a day, four in a row! I rode 75 yesterday and I was wrecked at the end, so this should be interesting.

9May08 Had a fun visit last Friday. Two guys who had been planning thier new bikes for many months drove up to Oregon from LA and SF to pick them up. The plan was to ride the new bikes back toward SF. They brought along two friends, one to ride with them and the other to drive the car back. They came to the shop and we spend a hour or so setting the bikes up and chatting about their ride. They headed south the next morning. Today, I got a note and a few pics: "Thanks again we had a great trip. The bikes rode great and we really lucked out with the weather. I've attached a few shots from the trip." They rode 400 miles in four days and drank lots of beer.

9/12/07 Ring of Fire

Last weekend I participated in an odd event, it's a 24 hour road time trial. I've done several mountain bike 24 hour races and enjoy them, so this seemed like a fun idea. It is put on by the same folks who do the Race Across Oregon. This is my second year at Ring of Fire, last year I rode 342 miles and placed third. This year the goal was to go farther than that.

It started well, the air was cool and sky clear at 6:30am. I tried to take it easy for a while, but it is so hard to back off the effort when there are riders to catch in view ahead and others passing by. My brother was there as my support crew, so he would give me water and sandwiches every hour or so. At 53 miles, I was in third place. At the 83 mile checkpoint, I was still third, but had been seeing Michael Wolff from time to time. He and I would play leapfrog for 100 miles. The first 111 miles is a big loop from the start/finish town of Maupin up onto the shoulder of Mt.Hood, then there's a 50 mile out and back on the appropriately named BakeOven Road. It's all uphill on the way out and all headwind on the way back. Only my brother's endless water and food kept me alive.

At the turn-around, it looked like the leader, Urs, was about a half hour ahead, and second place, Hugh, was about 10 minutes ahead of me. Micheal Wolff, who is technically in a different category because he's on a recumbent, was close behind me. Glen Johnson looked to be about a half hour back. After getting back to the River Lodge in Maupin, it's off to do as many laps of the 27mile short loop as you can through the night. I started my first one at 4:30pm, so I'd covered 157 miles in 10 hours. The first lap went well, the next was harder, then night fell and it started to get cold. My spirits were low and I was really feeling the day's hard efforts.

Around 1am, George, the race director, told me that I was gaining on Hugh. That triggered the dormant racer in me. I put in two hard laps to catch him and then put some distance between us. At the end of that I had done seven short laps and had less then two hours left. I set out for one last lap, thinking that I may not have time to finish it, I asked my brother to come find me when my time ran out to give me a ride back in. Any distance covered before the time ends does count, you don't have to finish the lap, but when my brother pulled up beside me and told me I was 3 miles from the finish and had only 9 minutes left, I had to go for it. I think he thought I would just roll another mile and stop, because he got very excited when I picked up the pace. He came up every minute or so and told me the time and distance. At one mile to go, I had only two minutes, so I stood up and sprinted flat out, nearly crashed on the last cattle guard and passed a rather surprised Glenn Johnson just before the end. I skidded up to the timing table, George looked at the clock and laughed - I had 16 seconds to spare. That last mile was number 373 on the day for me and it was hard earned.

June 2007 - TransPortugal

June 2006 - Race Across AMerica