rons bikes blog dot com

uuuhhhggg, winter is just fine until February hits. a few fluffy little snow storms, and mostly popcorn clouds and bright sun defines December and January each year — and then February. ice — slush — snow turning to rain — roads salted enough to cure your tires like they are a salami or something. so I usually leave this time of year to head to the desert.

not this year though. Tenzin has left with her mom and brother (we all live together) to visit family in India until mid march, and I am staying put. not just to make sure the pipes don’t freeze, but because after last year’s wrench in the works (sewing factory closure), I am feeling like I really need to focus on things with this business — and while I can generally stay on top of things while traveling, I find it hard to motivate beyond just maintenance tasks such as checking emails and making sure orders are going out. I know that right now I need to be focusing on making sure we have things to order.

are you curious about my day to day? a little admin reveal??

7:30am : wake up, start wood stove, make coffee (v60 pour over) and start steel cut oats in the instant pot.

7:50-9am : sip coffee, read internet news, browse strava, and eat oats. brush teeth. lube face.

9-12 : emails. most of my job is customer service. I start with the Ron’s and Ultradynamico inboxes and move to the 3 instagram accounts that I admin for direct messages customer service. If I am posting that day, I ready whatever I am going to put up at lunch time EST.

12-1 : media posts and lunch. lunch is usually a toasted PB&J on Ezekiel sprouted bread, coconut milk chia pudding with thawed frozen fruit, and a few squares of Divine 85 dark chocolate. maybe I will make another coffee — but this time with the aeropress.

1-3 : designing products and ordering materials for those products. phone calls with factories. new projects if there is room. by 3, especially if the sun is out … I am ready to call it a day at work, but then I remember I have a bunch of customer builds in the queue.

3-5ish : so I head to the barn and work on those until 4:30. these builds are highly curated to not look curated and most of the time I put into them are ebay searches for the perfect part. maybe I spend too long on this, but folks seem to appreciate it.

5ish-6:30 : go for a ride most days, run some other days, and sometimes both. this is also when I get to go out and take pictures — my fav part of the job.

6:30-8 : make dinner and eat dinner. usually beans and greens of some sort. I have been eating a lot of roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes too this winter. if I am alone, I browse ebay for my own and customer builds.

8 – 8:30 : outside to chop some wood or move around logs. good for digestion.

8:30 – 10:30 : settle in to watch YouTube — this month is all about Modern Marvels re-runs. this was one of my fav shows back when the History Channel was about history, and they have em all on YouTube! here is a list of all episodes if you want to cherry pick. can you feel my excitement?

10:30-11 : stretch and go to bed. I also like to fall asleep watching Modern Marvels.

what would I like more time to do? work on my YouTube channel. it takes a tremendous amount of focus for me though. each episode takes me about 20 hours to make. I would also like more time to ride, but that is summer stuff. a lot more of my day is spent on the bike in the summer. okay kinda felt good to type all that out.

so the snow comes and goes, and dang is it nice in the woods when the conditions allow. 20 degrees out? you can ride without gloves and a hat on some slow speed CT rock crawl chunk and be toasty as a baked potato. its riding on the road when things get cold and unenjoyable IMO. but after a snowfall and when the stuff sticks around and gets icy (right now), you can only ride the road. while the roads are as beautiful as they get around here … I am not trying to lose toes here after work each day. so I have been running and doing log sports when riding the road just isn’t in the cards.

on really cold days take your bike for a hike! good for the upper body and you will be warm. the hiking does wonders for chilly toes. bring a thermos of tea so you can stop and take it in.

riding with friends on the weekends is highly motivating. its raining over the snow right now so no friends today, but dang — riding friends are really my only kind of friends since its the only way I have socialized for some time now.

I have never been one to “go out” after dark, even in my college days when that is normal. I live in the country about 10 miles from anything you’d go to, but even when I was living in cities such as Austin and Tucson — I’d rather be chilling, baking some cookies and watching documentaries. thats me!

okay I hope you enjoyed a winter day in the life. hope you get out for a good ride today, or at least enjoy some Modern Marvels.

XX RR