Hello and welcome to my about me page.  For the last 20 years biking has been part of my life.  As long as I can remember I was riding something.  First it was a tricycle and then my big wheel.  You remember the big ugly plastic one that had the hand break.  As I grew I graduated to my first BMX bike with training wheels, but once  those training wheels came off it I road that bike until I wore it out.

Over the next 10 years I went through 3 or 4 BMX bikes.  I would also constantly take them apart and try to “fix” them.  I can’t help it; I have to take all my bikes apart.  As I moved on to high school I had a couple of road bikes that I used more and the BMX bike moved to the basement to collect dust.  I still wanted to ride it, but it was too small and there really wasn’t anywhere to ride it.

Then it happened, in my senior of high school my best friend asked if I wanted to go biking.  Sure why not?  Where are we going?  He says we wants to go to a local park and ride the dirt trails.  My first question was on what, BMX bikes?  No………a mountain bike!  Problem was I didn’t have one.  No worries I borrowed one from a friend of ours and I hit the trail for the first time on a 1989 GT Karakorum.  I fell in love instantly.

The summer of 1992 my parents got me a mountain bike for graduation.  It wasn’t the Karakorum I wanted, but it was at least a GT Talera.  That bike is still with me and has been apart more times than I can count.  Right now my stable has that Talera, a 1993 GT Team Avalanche, 2011 GT Force Carbon Pro, 2012 GT Force 3.0, Trek 1500 for the trainer, and a Soma Juice 29ner on the workbench going together.  Every year I swap out a bike or two and try something different.

I am not a pro or competitive racer, just a guy who loves the sport.  My day job is an IT consultant in the Chicago area.  My wife and I live in the Milwaukee metro area and have a family with 2.5 kids, 2 dogs and 2 cats.  Not kidding on the 2.5 kids.  Right now our new daughter is set to join us in April.  So balancing work, family and my hobby are always at war. As you can also guess the Midwest is not as exciting as the west coast, but there is still plenty of good riding around here.