Monthly Archives: August 2013

Announcing TrekCarePlus for your new bike. 3 years of wear & tear coverage, plus accident insurance!

For a higher-mileage rider, TrekCarePlus pays for itself in the first year, and it's good for three! Plus road hazard insurance too. Can't lose!
For a higher-mileage rider, TrekCarePlus pays for itself in the first year, and it’s good for three! Plus road hazard insurance too. Can’t lose!

TrekCarePlus is a new service you can buy with your new Trek bike that will actually cover damage to your bike from “normal” road use, and most parts that wear out (tires, tubes, brake pads excluded, but chain, chainrings, cassettes… yes, it covers them!).

The cost is almost too low to be true. $359 for a $2000-$6999 bike, $499 up to $12,999. That gets you 3 years, and covers most accidents that don’t involve cars, and parts that wear out. What? Did you misread something? Am I saying that Jeff Z, a guy that rides and rides and rides and goes through chains & cassettes & chainrings like butter (and a darned good guy besides), might bankrupt the company with a program like this? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

How soon does it start? September 3rd. So should you wait to buy a new bike? No, because you can get coverage for any Trek bike purchased in the prior 60 days, meaning a bike today qualifies. Pricing starts as low as $49 (for bikes up to $499.99). Read more about TrekCarePlus in our FAQ.

This is one of the best-reasons ever to get a new Trek from Chain Reaction!

Car crashes into truck, seizures, it’s never boring!


You ride with your video camera on long enough, you’re bound to get something interesting. Today it was a nasty car/truck crash at Sky Londa. But we’ll get to that in a minute. First, it was great to be back on a bike after a week off, as I traveled to Trek on Sunday. Technically, I rode a bit yesterday (Wednesday) in Waterloo WI, on Trek’s mountain bike trails, but that wasn’t too taxing. Unfortunately, I hold up better after a while off the bike than Kevin, who, after having to cut last Thursday’s ride short due to a massive headache, and was told by doctors at Kaiser to take 4 days off from riding (which killed off Sunday), and then forgot to set is alarm for Tuesday… he was not in a good way.

Of course, being young, Kevin still tried to ride hard & fast, which probably contributed to his two seizures, one halfway up Kings, and another on the descent towards Sky Londa. But if he hadn’t had that second seizure, if I didn’t have to try and figure out where he was and then ride back to find him, I’d have never come upon the car/truck crash.

Aside from that it was a gorgeous morning, with a bit of fog burning off just ahead of us as we rode. West Old LaHonda was spectacular, with a whiff of fog along Skyline and a blazing sun overhead.

Health Food at State Street Brats in Madison WI

It’s going to take a couple of weeks to get back into fighting shape after this latest trip to WI though. I gained about 4 pounds, which still puts me several pounds below last year’s weight, so I’m thinking that cheese-laden bratwurst was worth it on Tuesday, when we decided we’d rather get fat on “real” WI food than catered convention glop.

Obviously, we’re going to need to burn some calories off on our ride this Sunday!