project

It's ridable for these guys in the clockwise direction, and still very soft. Am trying to put in some small rollers to help them in the anti-clockwise direction. Will be a good test to see if the simple addition of rollers makes it easier to ride uphill. Reality check, is that the dirt is wheelbarrow only, and it will take a lot of wheelbarrow loads. Probably more than I will want to do solo, so it might just end up a clockwise loop.

SS SSPBE2009

must steal this cool graphic from Steve.

I was nowhere in the mix, not ever coming close to placing a stage,
got some points only once, from the no-dab section on the Little Canaan entrance,
which came right after embarassing myself trying to climb up the wet rock shelf adjacent to said entrance. Here's the result of that, ...so typical, I usually seem to hurt myself in the parking lot, or at breaks in the action. What was that about being 13 again.....?

a keg o' Peg Leg Stout at the 2/3 mark. emptied,
then, down the freeride trail to Lil' Canaan. Loved it.
more pics, story, and movie coming soon...?,
but not from me, these are the only pixels I caught

wheels turning

The wheel is turning and you can't slow down

You can't let go and you can't hold on

Lot's of biking things have been in my mind lately, not just the past few days of melt. Small talk conversation over the weekend about the Shenandoah 100 and racing with gears. Thinking about doing a lot less racing than usual, and replace some of that with touring. And the race(s) I do do, I may be doing with gears. Like I said last Sept, I can't imagine doing another 10 SMs on a single-speed, and I can't yet imagine not doing it at all, so maybe gears will be a compromise? Maybe a 1x8 or 1x9?

Won't you try just a little bit harder

Couldn't you try just a little bit more

So many projects in my head:

• make a Tomicog fixxy out of the Soul Cycles cross frame; ride the mixte, new motivation to spin cycle the legs
• pick up a 24" Mirraco from this guy- pump track'n, learn to dirt jump, skate park, wall wides, be 13 again, learn to manual on a bike designed for it
• introduce Oliver and his friends to a little more woods riding, maybe some BMX track action if they're into that; use that manual on a track
  
• an Eastern Woods for the SM 100; cheapness and laziness have prevented me from doing anything towards acquiring said type of machine; Crouse's Paragon?? if it's still for sale??
  

No sponsor's jersey on my back for the first time in 8 years, no minimum race requirements, no minimum work requirements. I probably won't do so many races; I'll miss seeing a hundred friends at a time.

Of course, even with gears, I can't just show up at the 100 without some prep work in the legs, riding the pump track all summer long won't cut it. Thinking of filling the race void with some of this kind of stuff:

• rack and pack overnights; SAG'd overnights; The Ring; M-G-M (like SDS, but closer to home); 1903 rides; Tuscarora Explora (maybe one of these will happen?)
  

Little bit harder, just a little bit more
Little bit further than you gone before

Then there's all these thoughts penetrating:

• build more fun stuff to ride here in town, get a grant, try to help the kids and town a little more;
• help people build more trail like I***erg and M***ey;
  
• help people build more official trail;
  
• help build Buck's pump track, other pump tracks, and ride more pump tracks;
• spend a little more time helping things in Michaux;
• buy/borrow a tandem, try some woods or overnight stuff with Oliver stoking
• ride Raystown every chance I get
  

.... all the different ways to have fun with pedals. 52 weekends/year, and I'm using up about 16 of those with skiing..... it can ... all .... wait...

yadda yadda blah blah, all good thoughts, in 10 months, we'll see if any thing is any different.

Every time that wheel turn round
Bound to cover just a little more ground

Opinions welcome

Send a Kid to Camp

Help a brutha out
let's get this kid to Colorado!

3 days

our weekend view from the house
thanks to Mr. Million Vertical Feet!

Not a lot of pixels or words to capture the weekend. Lots of lunges, some jumps, some moguls. Quigley, Buchness, Brothers, all of them rippin' tele skiers. More friends stopped by for the party Sat. night.

Oliver skied comfortably from the big lift, Kim stuck her toe in the terrain park for a few runs, and my mogul skills went up a hair. Super-soft hero snow helps an awful lot with all that.

Friday, I was easily convinced to take the morning off and grab a session with Legend Withers and his Roundtop buddy. These guys can ski! Five seconds into the first run, and I knew it was gonna be a fast day. Frequent tailgates gave the legs a break.

Looks like a terrible week for temperatures. It's still too early to jump right into mud season. The mountain biking can't be any good right now. Some Wx geeks are predicting a strong and cold second-half of February into March.

Wow!

Food for thought, as the topic of Oliver and ski racing has come up lately. I guess high-speed crashes with low-speed trees are a lot worse than your standard over the bars mountain bike crash. That's 2 deaths and 1 amputation in this season in this thread. Can't say I can recall any mountain bike related deaths. Wonder what the actuaries think of ski racing? Maybe we'll just stick to the terrain parks....

found today on the DCSki Forum from a college ski racer in PA.

Injuries this year
Sorry to diverge from this topic... seemed kinda dead but what I am posting is kinda related... but I wanted to comment on the high number of injuries I have witnessed this year.

Our first race of the year,at wisp, a racer from WVA flew off the run that merges with the lift at the base of main street and had a compound fracture in his leg. Unfortunately, the bone nicked an artery and two weeks later, doctors had to amputate his leg a few inches above the knee.

The same weekend, a racer at Denton, PA; from the roundtop team; flew off a green and died upon impact with a tree.

Two weeks later, during a Giant Slalom race at Elk Mnt in PA; two racers from my team tore their ACL's and another from my team stressed their ACL and is out for the season.

And just this past weekend, at Timberline, another racer from my team had a compound fracture in the lower part of his leg and the medivac had to be called (i think they in the end took him to the Oakland hospital by ambulance). Another kid from another team, on the same day, tore his ACL.


Has anyone else noticed a greatly increased number of injuries locally? Or is it just centered on local racers? Kinda nerve racking

year of quantity

Lot of various turns in the past few weeks. Have probably skied 4-5 days/week the past few weeks. If time on skis and number of turns can make you a better skier, then I certainly must be getting better this season. In the past week, I've had a pretty good-snow night session at Liberty with the Single Plank Outlaw and crew, also ran into Lee & Scotty Jones; a hard ice night on Thursday with Oliver; a harder icier session Friday evening at Whitetail with Tony (who missed the Tuesday), some Outlaws, and Mr. Quigley. Didn't ski much with any of the Outlaws though as we all had trouble with our timing and catching up with each other. Found Tony and Joel in time for the chilly tailgate afterward though. After that session, I have to think I've improved my fall line ice turning ability significantly this week. Learning how to push that controlled sideslip in the middle of each turn a little bit more.

Saturday was a pretty good snow day at Liberty with Oliver, and yesterday was a completely different situation. Warm, 50 degrees, slow and soft. Ran into Tim on my second run, and skied the rest of the time with him and occasionally some of his buddies. Hit the moguls on Exhibition, and skied them better than I ever have. They were slow, really slow and sticky. So much so that we found ourselves actually steering towards the shiny spots just to pick up a little speed. Actually trying to go faster through moguls! Yea, that's never happened to me before. OK, so they weren't fully grown moguls, they were only a day or two old after having been groomed out after the recent ice storm. Still, I'll take slow & sticky Exhibition and Bold over fast & sketchy Exhibition and Bold any day. It added some work to recover from the constant pitching forward. We moved around, hitting the terrain park lift for several runs, Tim and Patroller Jay encouraging me to drop it a little faster so I can clear that gap and not smack the flat landing. Then over to Fanciful seeking the shady fast line near the trees.

Lots of options out there this weekend. Some folks were getting some quality, and others were doing some good works. Others hit Laurel Mountain for some fresh poached eggs, and I think a few others camped out at White Grass. Other friends rode in timed circles on frozen farmland. I selfishly went for more and more turns on snow. More turns equals more better, right? Time on snow adds up right? I'm certainly gettin' my $ worth out of the season pass.

And this past week, got better on steep boilerplate, soft baby moguls, and gap jumps. Fur sur.

Bike meeting tonight in Emmitsburg, maybe some new trail to build in the near future...