Get Phat with Pat Fat Bike Race

Penn Cycle owner Pat Sorensen with the racers at the starting line.

Get Phat with Pat Fat bike races were held on Saturday, January 28th at the Penn Cycle Eagan location.  A race earlier this month had to be cancelled due to lack of snow, but Pat said that he plans on having more races next winter. The Eagan store has great terrain in and around the property to lay out a nice course that provides an eight minute lap time. See you at next year's races.

Great deals during the off-season

The months of January and February are a great time to head down to your local bike shop for some off season specials to get you ready for the upcoming riding season.  You can get a great deal on close outs of last year's model bikes as shops bring in 2012 inventory for Spring.  I recently got an excellent price on a brand new 2011 Trek Mamba 29'er.  I can't wait for the snow to melt so I can try it out at the Lebanon Hills Regional Park mountain bike trails.
Another reason for heading to your local bike shop now is for the quick turn around getting bike repairs, tune ups and overhauls completed before everyone else gets the idea. Once the weather starts warming up, cyclists will start bringing in their bikes and mechanics will be busy again. You can also get some great deals for off-season bike overhauls to keep mechanics working during the slow part of the year.
With a little advanced preparation during the Winter months, you'll be ready to ride on your new or tuned up bike while other cyclists are just starting to get theirs out of storage.  Come on Spring!

GPS Ride Tracking

With today's smartphones, it makes it easier than ever to map your rides complete with statistics. There are quite a few apps out there that do this quite nicely. One that I have recently discovered is Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro. This convenient little app is available for all of the major smartphone operating systems. I use it on an Android phone.
This app is loaded with features, but the ones I use most are the live GPS map tracking, live workout stats, tracking my personal bests and posting my ride summaries to Endomondo.com for future reference. It seems to be a very stable app, at least on an Android device, and it does have users singing it's praises in reviews. I particularly like it's simple and easy to read user interface which comes in handy when viewing while riding. There are a lot of handlebar mounts for smartphones of all makes and sizes, so take advantage of this great app's features for tracking your next ride.