Walz Cycling Caps Review

Walz Cycling Caps Review

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Walz Caps Website

Ever have helmet-head hair after a ride?  Felt stupid sitting in the cafe after a ride because your hair looks like something from a punk rock video?  Does your head freeze during those cold morning rides.  I have just that hat to fix these problems and look great while do it.  :-)

For my birthday I received a wool, cycling hat from Walz Caps and was greatly impressed.  Their quality and materials are great.  They also have a wide variaties of cool materials (cotton blends, wool, moisture wicking, eco-friendly, etc).  They can even personalize and/or custom make you a hat.  Even better is these caps are handmade in the USA. 

This is the wool cap I received for my birthday!
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I have to say their customer service is above and beyond.  My noodle size was in the middle of the sizing chart so I ordered a small/medium.  When I received the cap it was a little too small.  I called Walz up and they immediately sent me a size large/x-large.  They then told me if that was too big they would custom sew me one to my size if needed.   I received the large and it was only slightly too large so I threw it into the washer and it came out the prefect size. 

Walz Caps are awesome and they are great people.  I would highly recommend ordering some caps from them.  I tried to score a discount code for my readers but their shopping cart system does not currently support it. 

BTW - thye have free shipping and can personalize and/or custom make caps.

Family Triathlon Weekend Photos

Not not easy being this cheesy!



The next Michael Phelps



T acting suprised (I love this photo)



It's a major award!



Bonnie with part of her team before she rocked the swim.
She is in the pink cap



Bonnie with her team after the race



T getting ready to swim. 
With a lost Mr HalfTRIng in the back ground.

Photos of Me

1. Rocking the Finish
2. Rocking the Bike
3. A decent pic of me on the bike
4. Sporting the magazine cover
5. At least they covered my face to spare others
6. Looking confused

Photos of Bonnie

1. A little dirty from the swim
2. On the bike
3. Winning the run

2011 Fall Triathlon Festival Lake Moss Olympic Triathlon

2011 Fall Triathlon Festival
Lake Moss Olympic Triathlon


My Results Comparison

Year	Pos	SwimTm	T0Tm	T1Tm	BikeTm	T2Tm	RunTm	TotalTm
2010	69/107	0:20:17	00:32	2:19	1:13:15	00:33	0:58:46	2:35:46
2011	52/98	0:23:52	01:53	2:47	1:08:51	01:27	0:56:10	2:35:01

Click here for my 2010 race review

The weekend was a family triathlon weekend.  Triston did his first even triathlon.  He did that Saturday sprint triathlon.  He had a great time and won third out of three in his age group.  He was excited to receive an award.  You go to love small events where you can place.

Bonnie and I did the olympic triathlon.  This is the same race I did last year so it is neat to be able to compare my results and see how I compared.  My swim time went down by 3 minutes (but the swim course was different and I believe longer).  I improved my bike by over 4 minutes.  My run time improved by almost 3 minutes.   Overall time was almost identical.  This was a training race for the upcoming 70.3 Augusta so my transitions were designed for a much longer race so they were longer than they should have been.

Last year’s race review is still pretty much the same, C-.  Almost all the comments are still the same.   At least this year they started checking numbers as people left the transition area.  This year still had no judges.  Many people were cheating on the swim and drafting on the bike.  The swim was so dark you could not see the people kicking you in the face (and that is no joke).  I kick and got kick more in this race than all others combined.  The run was nice and shaded but was pretty much a trail run.  No support on the bike course.  Only warm water was given out during the run.  Post race was water, granola mix and bagels.  BTW no race shirt was provided.  They offered last year shirts to other races or $10 off to another race as a consultation.  That is sad!!

At the race finish we all looked like we participated in a Muddy Buddy.  We had dirt everywhere (i.e. on your face, in our ears, on our clothing, shoes, etc).  Luckily there was a hose to rinse off with.  Any white on our clothing was dyed by the dirt and tannic water.  This race basically ruins white triathlon gear.

I will not be doing this race next year. 


Sorry for the lack of pictures.  I will post them later today.

Cursed Bike

The evil, cursed bike.  Stear your eyes from it.  Don't look it in the face.

My bike (who recently had a name change to Daemon) has been nothing but problems since the day I have bought it.  It has had a broken chain, multiple exploding and flat tubes, derailleur issues, wrong fittings, etc.  I am starting to think it is cursed.  How do you fix a cursed bike?   Throw holy water on it, exorcism, call Father Lankester Merrin, etc? Any suggestions? Any ideas for a bike name change? 

I’m back!!

I’m back.  Sorry for the long delay since the last posting.  I am sure all 3 of you who read this blog were waiting with baited breath to know what has been going on with me.  Well it has been a busy few couple of weeks.

1)      I had a certification I had to pass for my work.  Most of my free time for about 2 weeks was take up with studying.  I passed with nearly a perfect score

2)      The family went to Sarasota, FL for vacation.  It was a nice 3 days at the beach.  I was slightly rainy and overcast all but the last day but the overcast and rain was nice because you would stay at the beach/pool for much longer without baking in the near 100 degree heat.  We hung out the at beach, read books, drank beers and just hung out.  We also went to Venice Beach, FL and found some sharks teeth on the beach.

3)      Lots of training.  I have been running 3 days a week now to try to get my running legs back.  It has been hard because FL is experience feels like temperatures from 100- 110.  Strangely you get more use to the high temperatures after awhile.  But your pace times still a MUCH lower in this heat.

4)      Bike Issues.  I broke a chain during a training ride.  Luckily I did not get hurt.  I did remove a link to get myself home but locked up the whole system and fell on my butt.  I nearly get ran over by another biker.  Angel followed me home but he blew 3 tires on the way home.  We ended up having to call his wife to come pick us up.  

 After a LBS had multiple attempts to get the rear derailleur adjusted they gave up so I have to buy a new one.  Of course they did not have a rear derailleur so I had to take it to a different LBS to fix.  Too much money later and now it is fixed.  I think I will call my bike Daemon because of all the “issues “ it has.  I think I will get a priest to do an exorcism on the bike to get rid of the evil bike spirits.

5)      I got a bike fitting.  Daemon was manipulated to fit me.  Come to find out the LBS sold me too big of a bike so I need to buy a new steam and a zero degree seat post to get the beast to fit to me. 

Today I am back at work after a one week vacation and got a ton of emails and work to catch up on.

Only 42 days left till Augusta 70.3!!