It was back to work for me today. Last night I held onto aspirations that I might get up early enough for a pleasant coffee shop experience before work; alas, a deep winter sleep once again kept me in bed for as long as possible. So it was straight to work.

It was nice not having to listen to Christmas music for once. There were a handful of customers I helped today. Two were thinking seriously about bikes, and we had good interactions that may result in a bike sale in the next few days. One customer and his wife (Dean and Julie), who we've seen come in the store on many occasions, were considering purchasing our most expensive mountain bike, the Specialized Sworks Stumpjumper FSR. We had it on sale, marked down from $6,700 to $5,300. I could tell Dean wanted it, but with sales like this, you don't want to be perceived as pressuring the customer. So currently Dean is probably dreaming of this bike-he'll be in tomorrow to buy it, I'm sure.

I managed to find time to work on my commuter zone. I posted the Ada County Bike Routes map, and relocated the road and trail maps to achieve maximum fungshwai (or however you spell it).

After work, I went to the YMCA. I put in a short ride to warm up and then did two rounds of the circuit training weight room, again concentrating on lifting heavier weight slower. I rode home and prepared to host my girlfriend for dinner and telly. We said goodnight just after 9pm. Of course I had to watch a stage of the tour while enjoying a bowl of cereal before bed. The stage was ridiculously exciting, with a break away of four fighting (including American Danny Pate) for the stage win, and a chase group of all the favorites all trying to drop each other on the final climb. In the end, Frank Schleck was able to drop Cadel Evans by 6 seconds to make up the one second he needed to gain the yellow jersey.