It has been a week. So here is some more...

With a little research, I found out that Widmer brewery is much larger than I thought. One thing I read was that Widmer is the 11th largest brewery in the US. I am not sure the metrics being used for that one. Another thing I learned is that Widmer is in the process of or has already merged with Red Hook Brewery. I know Red Hook products better than Widmer, and they are good for the most part. I like ESB beers alot and Red Hook has a decent ESB as possibly their flagship brew, so I can't argue with that. They also have a pretty decent porter. Anyway, together they will make up a pretty large beer company. Evidently, they have been sharing marketing and distribution channels for a while now. Both brands still will remain independent regarding beers produced and such, but I would bet that the Eastern Red Hook brewing facilities will start producing some Widmer beers in the near future if they aren't already.

In the midst of my learning all of this good stuff, I managed to secure a reservation for Hennessey and myself on a Friday afternoon tour of the Widmer brewery on our trip to Portland to check out the Handmade bicycle show. Sounds like an appropriate first day in the city of Portland.

In other beer news, I was the grateful recipient of a New Belgium 2 Below winter ale that was a gift from Papa Ted by way of Thad this weekend. I enjoyed it on Saturday night with some pizza at the homestead and it wasn't a disappointment. I am a big fan of the New Belgium beers and this was my first experience with this one. I intend for it to not be my last. Papa Ted also sent some Point Lager my way. Point is an old brewery in Wisconsin and their lager is a nice crisp American Lager beer. Similar to PBR in style, but I dare say smoother and cleaner tasting. Would be a great session beer that i could drink all night if it was available in these parts.

In bike news, I was heading out on a ride with Thad and Grant and Mike and a couple of Ladies (Hilary and Jen) on Saturday and the bolt to tighten my seat collar broke just before the ride as I was attempting to raise my seat a smidge. Luckily the collar from Thad's Surly was the correct size so I could still ride, but it is still a pain. I will be trying to find a new bolt this week, and maybe even a new collar as the threads on my old one may be worked. I was the last one to arrive on Saturday. I arrived at 10:30 and the planned time to meet was the 10-10:30 range. I found out that everyone was waiting for me. C'mon guys... aren't we still mountain bikers? Since when do we start rides on roadie time? The ride was good, though. About 55 miles with a bunch of climbing. And I don't mean we headed to do a couple of big climbs that were out there, but more like long stretches that had short steep rise after rise. I tended to stay off the back as I was on a LHT ride and was opting to stay in my one gear. I let the other guys fight amongst themselves for the always changing finish-line mailbox. I was training for TransIowa, though, so I didn't have time for those shenanigans.

Note that my seat collar breakage was not an indication of bad mechanical luck for me with my bikes these days. Towards the end of my ride, I got a nail stuck in my tire. It went through the sidewall and out the main tread and took me a few minutes to work it back out of the tire. The good part, though, was that my tube didn't go flat....

That's all for now. Cheers.