Break’er 1-9... This here’s East Envoy, Ted Cituk checkin’ in from the road.

The July heat has been doin it’s best to slow the Thule rig down, but a little heat can’t stop the trusty Dodge from spreading the Thule name, and getting to events up and down the East coast.

After a long weekend over the 4^th of July I got rolling “luckily with all my fingers still attached” north on 95 back to CT where I again attended the Griskus Tri at Quassy Amusement park, but this time it was even bigger than the last time, and we had many folks from Thule racing in the Tri as part of a team or solo for the more die hard racers. The tri got under way around 6pm giving the racers a break from the heat of the day, and the looming thunderstorms passed to the south avoiding the race all together. After the last racer crossed the line and every one finished their after race recovery brew, I turned the Thule rig west and headed towards Windham, NY for the East Coast NORBA nationals at Windham Mountain Ski Area.

This was the first time a NORBA race was held at Windham Mountain, and not only was the weather cooperating, but everyone was raving about the race courses and how wonderful the race courses were designed. I spent the long weekend making small parts available to all the Thule racks that had parts go missing over their years of service hauling bikes.

Turning south out of the Northern Catskills and the town of Windham, I headed back to CT to attend the Thule Sales Meeting, which many of you attended, so I will not bore you with any of my “witty” commentary and get right to the highlight event of the month “Kenda Bikefest”.

To finish off July, I kidnapped Chris Moor “Left Coast Envoy” after the sales meeting and headed the trusty Dodge to Jiminy Peak, Home of the Kenda Bikefest. This mountain biking weekend, was full of adventure for Chris and I, from 4 wheelin the truck and trailer to get into the event to watching a car with a SARIS rack have its bikes removed by a low hanging Kenda banner on the last day of the event. But even with all the other excitement the highlight of Kenda Bikefest had to be the Thule Mud Bog, where daring souls tried to make it the farthest though the shoe eating mud pit “from my count at least two pair of flip-flops and a pair of Croc’s were devoured by the mud” trying to get farther than anyone else and claim the grand prize “a complete Thule rack for their car”. There was some fierce competition in the heads up final, but every competitor played to the crowds wishes and ended their runs with some kind of improv mud bog belly-flop at the end. There was even a kid’s category, so all the little bikers had a chance to play in the mud as well.

Well I’m off to clean the mud from the Thule truck, and head north to visit out northern neighbors in Canada.

10-4 Over and out