My mother and brother are visiting for a few days from Houston. We drove over Trail Ridge Road to admire the mountain vistas.

Since I saw their booth at the Denver Auto Show, Lightning Hybrids has progressed from a body shell and bench top drive train demo to a functional prototype. I attended an open house at their facility in Loveland yesterday and am cautiously optimistic about their changes in X-Prize Cup, though I'm still skeptical about the clamshell entry and think their production schedule is a bit aggressive. I wish them luck.

Today was Ride to Work Day so I ignored the weather forecast and rode the VFR. My knees kept me from riding much last year. The VFR has a fairly aggressive riding position that flexes the knees a bit much. The exercises I've been doing are helping. I can make it to work now before it gets painful. We did have some afternoon thunderstorms, but I only caught a sprinkle.

Saturday Dan presented his philosophy of strength and conditioning, followed by catered BBQ. Later we were treated to a sample workout and individual instruction. I believe that everyone woke up muscles that they'd forgotten they had, no matter what kind of training they'd been doing.

Sunday we met at Mimi's for breakfast and I drove back to Lyons. My goals for the weekend were:

1. Secure a copy of Dan's new book.
2. Polish my kettlebell technique.
3. Find out why I don't need barbells. Dan advised me to stick to kettlebells when I visited him last Fall.
4. Have fun!

I achieved all my goals. My conclusion on barbell training is that last Fall I needed to focus on rehabbing my knees and shoulders, for which kettlebells are perhaps the best tool. Depending on where I'm working out, I'll do some barbell and dumbbell training, but I think kettlebells will be my mainstay.