- Good grief where have I been? -

Here's the thing. There is a glitch with my blogger account as I have it and my google checkout account on the same computer and they are run off of two different email addresses, so I haven't been able to post easily until now because I still had to keep tabs on google. Fortunately we have hired my brother Jared (currently building last replication boxes in our carbon workshop) who now handles that, so I am free for the critical work of blogging again.

An incredible amount has happened since I was last up here.

Sram and Ultegra Hudz have finally hit the market - though the gold for those two are lagging a bit. We hope to have the coloring re-sorted in the next coupe weeks. With the Sram and Ultegra molds going into service we have also moved all of our Hudz fabrication to Colorado. They are made just south of us in a little town called Denver (try the Sushi Den if you're ever there).

In other Hudz news our DA7800 compatible Hudz showed up on the ride to Paris in this year's Tour de France. Both Yellow Jersey winner Carlos Sastre and White Jersey winner Andy Schleck sported the enhanced hoods and matching bar tape on they Champs Elysees. Next stop, the Olympics...

Yes, Hudz will be on the bikes of some Olympic athletes this year also. We have sent them for the three Canadian women (all Webcor racers) and Christine Thorburn from the US (also from Webcor) in custom colors - the Canadians will have red and white swirled Hudz, and the US have one red and white and one blue and white hood. Another 10 or so deligations were sent Hudz for their riders, so we'll see where all they show up.

In tech news DA 7900 and now the new DAi2 or whatever the electric group is called have been unveiled. I was so excited about the 7900 group that we have bought sets for all of our Interbike show bikes. DA all the way this year. Last year we went with predominantly Campy bikes with one DA and one Sram bike, so this is a big switch for us. The reports that I have gotten from the guys in Europe using it have been that it is excellent, it keeps all the good things about the last group and improves on things that you didn't even know needed it. As for the new levers, well, the feedback is positive but it looks like there will still be room for Hudz to do their thing and improve the grab-a-bility there as well.

BB30 looks like it is gaining all the time, but the inability for custom builders to easily ream a bb shell after fabrication is making it a lot harder for us to get on this train. Seems like there are rumors about something later this year, but if that doesn't materialize, you'll probably have to keep shopping from China to get BB30 compatible frames.

Shoes are moving forward again. Check back for some prototypes before show season. We've worked out the design on all the things that Maggy B. wanted in them and I think the final product should be stellar - albeit a touch outside the realm of some people's comfort level.

The last big project of the year will be to get DA7900 and Campy 11 Hudz ready (well there's one more, but that's still secret, the new shapes were logical enough that most of you already figured that out). We are scrounging around for Campy and DA parts before they hit the market, but so far it's been impossible to come by. We'll keep at it and hope to be able to deliver Hudz for the new levers around the time that they are commercially available. With the additional time beyond our schedule that it took to get Ultegra and Sram Hudz on the market though, the end of the year will do for me.

More stuff coming soon...