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| Thursday, March 01, 2007 If you are close to the Twin Cities this weekend, here's your chance to come check out our frames and to chat with some of the Salsa crew. We'll be at the Minneapolis Bicycles and Travel show at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Come see Katie, Don, or Kid Riemer. Check out our products and ask us any questions you may have. We'll have complete El Mariachi's and built up Casseroll's for you to take a peak at. Here's the skinny on the show: Minneapolis Convention Center, March 3 + 4 Hours Saturday 9:00- 7:00 Sunday: 9:00- 5:00 Don't let some snowy roads keep you homebound. Head on down to the convention center and get yourself amped up for another fine season of riding. This fluffy white stuff won't last long now...will it? Visit the Minneapolis Bicycle and Travel Show show website for more information. -Kid Posted by Kid Riemer : 11:13 AM  Wednesday, February 28, 2007 We finally had a proper dumping of snow here in Minneapolis. About 12" dropped at our house so last Sunday I started construction of a quinzee hut. My ten year old son Jordan and I finished it yesterday afternoon and last night we slept in it. I was really psyched that he was brave enough to sleep out in it. Some folks (including mom!) don't dig it at all, no pun intended. For those that don't know, a quinzee is a specific type of snow shelter. Sometimes people might mistakingly call them snow caves, but there is a difference. A snow cave is a shelter made by digging into a deep pile of existing snow. A quinzee is made by piling up the snow, letting it harden, and then hollowing it out. It is more difficult to make, but it can be built virtually anywhere if you are willing to move the snow to make it. Do a search online and you'll find a lot of instructions for doing this, but here's the way I do it. Shovel a large pile of snow into a dome shape pile. The number of folks that will sleep inside determines how big the diameter needs to be. Don't try to make it too large though. Do not compress the snow pile. Let gravity and temperature change work its magic for a minimum of a few hours. If you aren't really in a hurry, let it sit overnight. The snow crystals will recrystallize and give the snow some strength. The resulting snow isn't going to be hard, but it will hold together and be able to be removed in relatively large pieces, chunks, or blocks. This strength, combined with a dome structure, will stay upright as a structure. Shoveling a huge pile of snow is hard work so you are going to get sweaty. You can shortcut this a bit by burying some full gear bags in the center of your snow pile. That gear will take up space and will mean less snow removal when you get to that part of the job. You will have to be able to fit the bags out the doorway though. When you think your structure has had the proper time to firm up, put on an insulating layer or two and some waterproof pants and a jacket. Otherwise you will get very wet during the carving out process. Hollow out the dome structure leaving the walls twelve inches thick. The easiest way to make sure you don't hollow them too thin is to take sticks or poles and poke them into the structure about twelve inches. If you do this in a somewhat intelligent pattern, you will carve till you hit a stick and then carve over to the next one. In this fashion you can work your way around the inside, keeping the thickness constant. If you don't have enough sticks to do the whole structure at once, put a few in and then clamber out to place them in their next positions. Keep the entranceway to the stucture as low as possible. If you can, dig it down deeper than the actual snow surface where the walls are. This will keep the cold air moving toward the door. Remember that warm air rises. As you hollow out the inside of the quinzee, do not remove all of the snow down to bare ground. Remember, the snow on the ground is actually insulation and will keep you warmer than the bare ground. You want to sleep on snow, not on ice or frozen dirt. Once you have properly hollowed out the structure, poke a few holes through the walls. The holes only need to be a couple inches wide. These holes let air in so that you can keep on breathing! Also, take your gloved hand and smooth the inside surface as best you can. Doing this will eliminate some drip spots from condensation as the temperature warms inside. When you are in in the quinzee you will notice how warm it is inside. The snow will keep the inside temperature of the quinzee around 32 degrees. Your body heat will raise the temperature even further. Besides insulating, the snow also deadens sound and it will be very quiet inside. Partially block your entrance with a pack, shovel, or snow block and it will be even warmer. Because it is nice and white inside (you didn't build your quinzee with yellow snow did you?) one small headlamp or a couple small candles fill it with light. A beautiful, warm winter project you can live or hang out in for a few days. Nice huh? Here are a couple memorable quinzee experiences in my life that you can learn from. I once had one cave in on me while I carved it out. Luckily a friend noticed quickly and dug me out. I'm not sure I could have gotten myself out without his help. If you can, have someone helping you from the outside while you hollow it out. They are a good safety net and can make the job quicker by keeping the snow moving away from the entrance (where you are depositing it). Don't sleep in a quinzee with the snow removed to ground level. If anything, shovel some snow in to get some insulation back inside. I had a miserably cold night of sleep once inside a quinzee because of the bare ground effect. In fact, I finally just hauled my sleeping bag and pad outside and slept in the snow. Jordan says he wants to sleep in the quinzee again tonight which is fine by me. More snow coming tonight as well, which will be cool. Waking up to 4 or 5 more inches of fresh stuff will be sweet. Enjoy your winter wherever you are. -Kid Posted by Kid Riemer : 3:30 PM Monday, February 26, 2007 Today I purchased my first new bike frame of 2007. I've been waiting for our new Chili Con Crosso to arrive and they are finally here! Way back when I was a riding fool, cross bikes were my favorite category of bikes. I rode cross bikes everywhere. My cross bike was my primary commuter and training ride. On top of that, what is better than hitting a little dirt with tall wheels and drop bars? Man I love cross bikes. The truth is, I traded my beloved cross bike for professional wedding photography. Yep, a bike for pictures. I don't regret the choice. I just regret giving away that bike. It's been almost 8 years now and I've never been able to replace that beloved steel cross bike. Enter the Chile Con Crosso. This bike just could be the one. I tried a few others, but they were not quite right. They were either too much road or too much dirt. In my opinion, at least on paper, our new Chili is just perfect. It's real light. It's got clearance for good size tires, not monster cross size, but big enough. It's got just a slightly lower BB than some of those high BB cross bikes. It's got some wicked tubing manipulation that just makes sense. Lastly, it's drop dead gorgeous!! Now the struggle. How should I build it? I'm stuck between the following two options. Option 1) Old Reliable Old Reliable is a combo of really good and simple componentry. 1x9 drive train. Single Shimano bar con shifter. Nice Cane Creek brake levers. Avid brakes. Salsa Crossing Guard, Bell Lap bar, Pro Scandium stem, Shaft seat post, old Zona Tres saddle, & Goma tape. Wheels are trusty Shimano hubs with Delgado X rims finished off with Salsa Flip Off QR's...green of course. Option 2) New School Road New School Road is based on a complete SRAM Rival group. You may remember I bought a Rival group for my Casseroll prototype frame. That bike was taken apart and was tested by someone else so I have this group just sitting here collecting dust. I just don't know if I want to put such unproven components on this bike. Maybe I should keep the Rival group and install it on a true road frame? It's going to be a long night trying to figure this out. All I know for sure is that I'm putting together both piles of parts and tomorrow the process will begin. What will it be? Check back for full build photo's and a first ride report. Jason Posted by Butcher : 5:46 PM Friday, February 23, 2007 I've heard folks say you can pick your friends, but not your family. Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that this is also true of the World Wide Web. I won't lie, the WWW has been very good to Salsa. In fact, it could be said that the WWW is one of the contributors to Salsa's recent success. It's also a big part of our future plans. Yesterday, someone posted a broken Salsa frame on one of the more popular web forums. Yes it stinks when this happens, but we'd be fooling ourselves and not telling the truth if we said that Salsa has never seen a product break. The user and Salsa are in contact and it appears that each of us are good with each other and how this situation is being handled. The part of the WWW that I struggle with is that you don't know who is lurking or waiting to chime in on a topic. You don't know the motivations. You don't know where the conversation is going to go. You don't know what level of knowledge some of the users have when they make comments. Heck, I've even witnessed other competing manufacturers commenting and drawing attention to other brands failed products. To make matters worse, this all plays out in a public forum that is viewable any where in the world. Many manufacturers have stayed away from the WWW user groups and forums because you can't pick who gets to respond to a question or issue. Honestly, that is a challenge and at times, I wish we would have just sat back and observed rather than participated. However, I still believe that even though you can't pick your family on much of the WWW, it is critical to actively participate. It can make you better if you let it. I'm not saying it won't make you ill at times, but if you can step back and let it happen without doing or saying something stupid, you just might learn something and find some new friends at the same time. Through this situation yesterday, not only will Salsa learn from it, but we also received countless props, emails and voice mails about how Salsa is handling the situation. In the end, I feel lucky and blessed to have so many friends. Have a great weekend everyone. Hug your kid(s) and ride your bike. Jason Posted by Butcher : 4:59 AM Thursday, February 22, 2007 As a coach last night may have been all that I could have asked for. Our guys played a great game and really showed all that they have learned this year. I could not have been more proud. Best of all, they showed absolute respect to the other team both during and following the game. How do we make sure they continue to do that as they grow older? It certainly won't come from watching professional sports on television. The league I'm coaching in is a 3rd-4th grade league. Because Jordan is a 4th grader this year, that means that if I coach next year it will be with 5th graders. A lot of programs seem to push toward traveling teams once you get to the 5th grade level. I am really hoping that the large turnout in the 3rd-4th grade house leagues can mean the development of a stronger 5th grade house league. It seems to me as if opportunities to play for the fun of it start to die out as kids get older. Eventually there is just a junior varsity team and a varsity team. It is a shame that there can't be house leagues all the way through high school. It would provide a viable alternative for kids that can't make the varsity teams, but still deserve activities and sports for fun. If you enjoyed playing team sports when you were growing up, consider volunteering your time to make more of these opportunities available to the kids of today. It is a lot of fun. Enjoy your day. -Kid Posted by Kid Riemer : 8:51 AM Wednesday, February 21, 2007 Some of you know I coach 3rd/4th grade basketball. Well, the Kings have had a great season. We're 8-1-1 and play tonight against the fearsome Team L. Now, Team L has the best record in the league at 9-1, which means that whoever wins tonight is the regular season champ. I can't say I wouldn't love to win the game. The boys have worked hard, improved their skills, and learned a lot about teamwork and showing respect. They've become a good team. I think they deserve to win. So tonight we see if we can play good basketball without letting our emotions get the better of us. We see if we can play good defense by hustling and moving our feet, by stopping the quick game of the other team, by playing good, solid, help defense. We'll drive hard to the basket and try to get some of their players into foul trouble. We'll look for good passes and run our plays well. Well...that's what I hope happens as a coach! You never know what will really happen with 3rd and 4th graders! Keep your fingers crossed for the mighty Kings! -Kid Posted by Kid Riemer : 7:56 AM Monday, February 19, 2007 Greeting everyone. I just wanted to take a moment to introduce each of you to our new website. This has been a big project. Phase 1 rolled out last Friday afternoon just in time for Frostbike. We spent quite a bit of time focusing on the navigation. Too many sites these days are difficult to navigate. We are biased, but we think our web guys nailed this part. As you check out the site, I expect you'll run across some pages that aren't finished. These will be coming in Phase 2. Our main objective was to get the new site up and we'll add our new products & features over the next several months. The website is a critical piece of Salsa future. Our hope is that you will feel like family and learn some things at the same time. Please check back and stay a while. If you see something weird or have suggestions, please email pman@salsacycles.com. Lastly, a special shout out to all the Frostbike attendees that made last weekend great. I met many old friends and made a lot of new ones at the same time. It was great. Hope you all enjoyed your time and had a safe trip home to friends and family. Have a great week folks. Jason Posted by Butcher : 8:57 AM | Amigos Calendario Frostbike Minneapolis Bicycling, Travel Sea Otter Classic Fruita Fat Tire Festival Ore To Shore Mountain Bike Race Outdoor Dirt Demo Interbike
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