It’s about time I do another product review. To kick off November I thought I’d spread the 411 on a up and coming company called Ridge Medical. It was just over a month ago I met Mike Curry and his wife at Interbike in Vegas. I was passing by their booth and stopped to give them a magazine; as it turns out that was the most important stop I made that day. I had already been walking around the convention non-stop the previous day and for about 4 or 5 hours that day.

I had no idea what their booth was for I just wanted to pass on my business card and magazine. Long story short I was dying of lower back and knee pain not to mention my inner thighs where chafed all to hell! There must have been something in my eyes or perhaps despair in my voice that prompted Mrs. Curry to offer me a BIG tube of “Faster Than Glucosamine” for my back and knees and a canister of “TriSlide” for the chafing.

Needless to say I made a Speedy-Gonzalez-B-Line for the bathroom and I’m happy to say I found a tremendous amount of relief. If I didn’t already say thank you… THANK YOU, Ridge Medical!

Oye vay, I’ve got to tell you Interbike 2009 was my first working convention where I actually was working, walking, talking and networking non-stop. I guarantee you I learned my lesson; before walking a half marathon passing out business cards and magazines it’s a smart idea to lube up before you saddle that horse!

Back to the product at hand. After returning home and doing a little research over the past month or so I’ve found that it’s not just me giving praise to Ridge Medical. All sorts of media publications and outlets seem to be riding the Ridge Medical bandwagon… why wouldn’t they? If you’ve got a good product it pretty much does the marketing all by itself.

In any case, I can say with confidence if you have knee, joint and muscle pain settle for nothing less; Faster Than Glucosamine will exceed your expectations and have you sighing in relief. I’ve found that if I put a little on before I go riding it helps me warm up faster, this is a BIG plus because this lowers my chances of strains and injuries.

So swing on by the Ridge Medical website and show this local SoCal company some WCM love!

Well I just got back home after a long evening of kick ass riding with SocalCross.org and about 30 other die hard cyclist from all over SoCal. Today was the first event of September in a series of clinics and workshops building up to to kick off the cyclocross season.

Dorothy Wong a.k.a. “Dot” and her hubby Jeff Herring hosted the event along with the Simi Cycling Center staff.

The festivities kicked off at Simi Cycling Center around 5pm where Jeff a.k.a. “Mr. Fixit” started fitting people with their demo bikes and gear. Despite the grimace and scowl on Jeff’s face I can testify with certainty he’s one cool cucumber and a super nice guy!

The only thing better than a super nice guy, is a super nice guy who knows how to outfit you with a bike and send you on your way faster than when you came! After Señor Jeff finished outfitting everyone with demo bikes we all gathered in the parking lot for a little pep talk from Dorothy. After the group photo and shenanigans we were off to the races!

We all hopped on our bikes for a short 5 mile ride through the city to a local park in Simi. The ride from Simi Cycling Center to the park was interesting to say the least. You don’t see a lot of large cycling groups in Simi too often so there was a lot of rubber necking and rolling down of windows as the wild and wacky “cyclo-crazies” forged through the muggy concrete jungle! I swear I think I heard a few passers-by gasp for their breath as we weaved through the city, and it’s possible one baby in a stroller may have cried because of our thunderous roar!

Muah ah ah ah ahhh!

I was having a great time riding when not even 5 minutes into the ride I was thinking to myself I’ve got to get myself one of these cyclocross bikes! You see up to this point all I’ve ever ridden are mountain bikes and (I love mountain biking).

Nevertheless I found myself really digging the feel of my demo bike and there was this aura of confidence and über coolness that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I must admit however, like any “high” eventually I had to come back down to reality… it wasn’t long before my über coolness and new found confidence came crashing back down.

There I was cruising along minding my own coolness, I think at the time I was thinking to myself how cool I must look from a distance! That’s when I got showed up by this young buck probably all of 16 years old cruising along on his cell phone (probably talking to his high school sweet heart) not even breaking a sweat! LOL, actually now that I think about it, somebody called him with the wrong phone number!

Anyhoo, we all hauled tail up the incline to reach our final destination and the clinic got on it’s way.

It was Dorothy Wong assisted by my main man Larry who got the clinic going with a quick little tutorial on how to mount and dismount your cyclocross bike. Check out the video below, if it plays slow pause it and let it load completely before you play (sorry we’re working on getting a faster server)!

All in all the clinic was an overwhelming success and I learned that there’s a little cyclocross devil inside me just waiting to get out and tear it up!

After we finished up at the park we all rode back to Simi Cycling Center for a little R&R accompanied by lots of pizza, beer and product demos!

There was also a raffle drawing and thanks to the very generous Dot and Jeff, everyone won something. I happened to be the lucky recipient of a full bottle of “Kool ‘N Fit” an external conditioning fluid used for warming up and faster recovery time… yay me!

That just about did it for the night, be sure to check out the next SocalCross.org event. For a full listing of all the upcoming events go here.

Be sure to check out all the cool pictures below.

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If you’re hosting an event (women’s cycling) in SoCal and want the WCM crew on hand to cover your event be sure to email the details. It’s possible we might be in your neighborhood to cover your event.