TIME or SPACE

Stansbury Island Sunset Sunday

2012-01-30T20:01:00.006-07:00

At bottom right of youtube window, click play, click pause, click the gear to select 720HD or higher quality, click full screen brackets, click play, feast eyeballs.

My new mountain bike is functional, skiing seems marginal/dangerous around here. Ideally last weekend would have been spent driving to/fro the desert, mountain biking and sleeping extremely well. Instead Ed showed me this gem 50 miles west of Salt Lake City. Mountain bikes were brought and attempted, but before getting very far the vulnerable, wet trail favored a hike, comfortable weather enabled a stalled descent back to civilization, and my video camera battery ran out capturing this gem of a sunset.

Odd Job Blues, Respect to Actors

2012-01-28T12:32:00.008-07:00

Snapshot of my corner in Early January, skis waiting for use, bike parts waiting for assembly, Floyd-like me, waiting for the next walk.

In good news, my one course semester (Biology 101) is underway, and going well. Earlier in the month I was able to fill my van with fun bi & quad pedestrians en route to a great cabin trip near Fairview UT. This morning, the new mountain bike received some "finishing" touches-my bicycles are never finished. Anybody want to bike/hike/campfire at Stansbury Island Sunday? In less fun news, much of my time has been spent rotating through odd part time jobs, while operating the one way resume factory, and wondering when the next pending roof swap will happen. Despite, less than promising trail and snowpack conditions locally, I have failed to secure company/carpoolers for a fun, warm, desert, mountian bike weekend near Saint George.

Friday I had some metal work practice, using some shop scrap to create a mountain bike carrying adapter, connecting recent 15mm mountain bike axles (right) to cars with existing roof racks accepting 9mm forks. The welds were successfully abuse tested (twisted and hammered), but welding warped the thin pipe too much for a proper fit. Next time I'll try to find thicker walled tubing (to avoid warping from welding heat) and a bare front hub as a building jig.

Friday morning was met with a failed, cold, metal shop project, followed by a shivering cold, harsh work confrontation. At present, my small grateful victories in January, are storming over. Unemployment/odd job blues have taken hold this weekend, and rejection based self conscious is constantly knocking at my psyche's door. My crap acceptance level is lower than usual, I'm a bit snappy. Good news is bound to come.

As for the title of this posting, my common theme of failure in liking my recent odd jobs converges upon my limited endurance as an actor. By default, as a trained scientist/troubleshooter/producer, I am focused on identifying and conveying fact, truth. The repair shop job requested I spend my day telling (on the spot) white lies about the progress of repairs, between trying to actually focus upon the facts of repair. The other job requested I act the part of expert marketing agent-interrupting the lives of strangers to deliver less than sincere advocacy, for hours on end. Both got me down, and I have a new found respect for the burden and salaries of professional actors, whom are paid to avoid being themselves for months at a time.

Bicycle Frame Coat Rack: Junk-man or Artist?

2011-12-27T10:58:00.004-07:00

Collapse-able and mail-able Bottom Bracket Tripod Base.

Since summer, I have had a goal of crafting a coat rack, mainly because I constantly find myself in need, but also because I thought I could make one from refuse bicycle parts. It turns out I can do this. The first one was gifted to my brother and sister-in-law in Idaho. I took some photos at the construction site, there seems to be a divide among people for and against painting the finished rack. I like this one as is, because it incorporates a frame like the one my father used to ride, and features a Salt Lake City bicycle registration sticker-would you want all that character painted over to better match your abode? I can probably make some more before February, and I need welding practice if I ever want to attempt making a bicycle frame. Anybody want one? (I'm talking to you incessantly dressing and undressing, possibly smelly, wet cloth-ed due to lack of air out space, winter bicyclists)

Branches for hanging

Full Monty (the purple top arm swivels 360 degrees)

Silver Creek Nature Preserve

2011-12-27T09:35:00.012-07:00

Wetland ecology provides ample
opportunity for hoar frost sightings.

While on a solo road trip from Syarcuse, NY in the summer of 2003, I had the opportunity to visit Silver Creek Nature preserve via bike. Last week I returned and ventured higher, enjoying a 1000-1200' vertical hike; no trails, a new mountain panorama, little human development in sight.

self portrait from the Saturday's un-named
summit: FUPA. My brother likes to ski from here,
Complications from ground friction kept my skis
in the van on Saturday. My brother lives
among the stomping grounds of the
famed Olympic skier, Picabo Street. Just beyond
my right ear lies the Picabo Desert, to my left,
town of Picabo, Sun Valley, Galena Pass.

In '03 I was visiting my brother and now sister-in-law at their first co-habitation station near Bellevue, ID. After nearly a decade of moving around the state of Idaho, my brother has a lead management position, and they are now back where they started. Often my brother can be a two-face, moody, PITA, but I have to admire his perseverance on his career track. My brother has to be one of the few people I know whom, following the decade after college graduation, has worked in nothing but the exact field of their college degree-efficient! Congratulations Brother!

THICK hoar frost pocket

Brother treated me to skate skiing at Galena Lodge Nordic Center-well run establishment! From the skate skiing track we couldn't help but notice great potential for ski touring. Our region (Utah, Southern Idaho) is lacking snow this December, but Galena pass area appeared to be thin, but more ski-able than current Wasatch conditions. In my self portrait above my brother's hood, you can almost make out the white peaks in the distance.

Moment of Inertia Part 1: Geeking About Bicycles

2011-12-17T06:00:00.061-07:00

In November 2009, I geeked about ski surface area : weight ratios and I had a positive outcome. As with skis, inertial bicycle mass limits my travels. Akin to my touring/powder skis, the one mountain bike I invest in should travel far and work well under many circumstances. Though the finances are challenging, I'm trying to follow Walt's Opinion on all around XC bicycle design. Unlike my skis, much of my bicycle's net mass maintains momentum, and is not lifted with each step/pedal stroke. With each pedal stroke I am primarily lifting my body and the rotating parts. Estimating this efficiency upon net bike mass is often an expensive and durability compromising over-simplification to the efficiency problem. Thanks in large part to the influence of my sister's geeky boyfriend, I am now geeking about a rarely published, yet important bicycle metric: Moment of Inertia.

My new (but second hand) front wheel on
improvised bunjee string, tape measure,
bottle cage scale

Not unlike Jeep enthusiasts, I appreciate large wheels and tires for my off road vehicle. The difference between me and a Jeep is I cannot swap out or upgrade my motor to overcome the increased MOMENT OF INERTIA attributed to larger, heavier wheels. If I wish to boost trip range, and torque, I will need to minimize the moment of inertia attributed to my hoops (wheels). There are many rotating parts of any given bicycle which contribute to total moment of inertia (crankset, pedals, shoes, toes, cassette, chain, derailleur pulleys, etc, etc) but the largest effect comes with radius, and the largest radius is found in the wheels.

New inner tubes + thorn liners....
may remain plan B to A tubleless
puematic system.

To minimize moment of inertia, many astute bike geeks correlate moment of inertia with net wheel weight or net rim weight. This strategy is a simplification of some complex math, for which I hope to formulate a standard measurement. Over the years, my 29er mountain bikes have featured narrow rims (18mm or less inner width) and wide (2.3") tires. New off-road rim offerings are getting wider, and I think this trend could be wise for a few reasons:

1 wider rims are laterally stiffer, meaning the wheel is less likely to bend or waver while railing on edge over rocks.

2 wider rims add weight, while expanding tire contact area. With tubeless pnuematics, narrower, lower weight tires can be mounted to wider rims without affecting tire contact area. With disc brakes (reducing some need for rim sidewall weight), and full suspension becoming commonplace features of mountain bikes, wider rims could encourage less tire width & lateral tire flex for more confident, hence more fun, cornering. Wooo-hoooo.

I remain a skeptic that the weight of small radius bicycle components (hubs, cassettes, chainrings, bottom brackets) significantly ($$$$) impact a bicycle's overall moment of inertia, hence efficiency. If I am able to assign inertial contributions to various wheel components of various radii, then this may be apparent. I am not entirely confident I will be able to correlate my data to noticeable pedaling effort. If my notion is correct, I may learn some new experimental skills, while saving hundreds on a wheel set. If I'm wrong, I will keep on keeping up with lighter bike-ed riders, buck up on my next wheel/drive train purchase, and understand why moment of inertia is not a metric commonly published by the bicycle industry. A standard testing method has been outlined, stay tuned for more info.

Thank You Boulder

2011-11-13T08:46:00.001-07:00

for a great time with friends. Thank you friends for making time and space for me. During a job search/period of career contemplation it is good to visit with old friends, to remind you of your true character, and hopefully guide you-we westerners seem to have so many career options. Increasingly fewer of such specifiied paths continue for very long-how many advanced degree owners actually work in the path of their investment? How many enjoy it? It seems that I rarely have just one Resume, often I make two or three at a time, with different purpose statements. Maybe my diverse skills in fact point me towards my own business, it seems like Merica is lacking small, localized business, and thus job shortage. After my Boulder visit, I cannot conclude any particular direction, but for now I will very selectively seek job interviews while I focus on crafting cycle trucks, with help from DaveR. If the cycle trucks sell, I'll keep crafting, and worry about supplemental income in whichever form it may take. For the present, I really want to share this incredible Nederland-ian contraption I stumbled upon via youtube. For years I have contemplated constructing a penny farthing, I appreciate the style and drive system genius of Wautur's Monster Penny Farthing.

Farewell Pony

2011-10-29T09:37:00.007-06:00

There is something special about customizing (building) a bike.....it takes on a value beyond that of a consumer product. Indeed synergistic-greater than the sum of it's parts. Over the past half-decade I have learned a lot from experimenting with low-cost bicycle builds. My bikes usually end up lifting poorly, and riding very well. For a few years my riding partners have been amused by the mass of my mountain bike...many of whom have been out-climbed by this very anchor. To quote Lance, I keep telling myslef-I don't need a lot of money-"it's not about the bike". There does come a time when the body tires of keeping pace with the skills in the brain. Pounding oneself relentlessly over rocks all day leaves the hands & feet in an achy state.-this is the time for a high tech mountain bike. The new UTA bus line (902) from Downtown SLC to Park City should help the cause too.

Friday the special, though somehow nameless, pony was packed into a box, but surely not a coffin.

The unique old steed will soon get a unique new owner. Why not send it to the only person for whom it has caused a concussion......I have many fond memories involving this bike. Peter Allen, your well loved, 8 speed 29er mountain bike will arrive in Boulder the same day I land in Denver, Tuesday Nov 1. May she bare you well through snowy Boulder commutes, and hopefully beyond.

At the UPS store, I may have been the first customer to drop off a bike via bike, shipping wt: 40lbs. I've got to start crafting cycle trucks.

Summer 2010, Pony carrying me atop Breckenridge Resort, jumping into the Breck 100 race course, and dropping the backside to the Colorado Trail with Chris Miller

Last Altitude MTB weekend?

2011-10-24T16:09:00.015-06:00

The van's registration expired on October 5......it seemed wise to break my 6 month car free vows for a mid term evaluation, to avoid doing inspection repairs in the snow, to burn some of the bugs out.....the high country is slated to be non-bike-able very soon. Also, my mountain bike will very soon be packaged and sent to Peter Allen in Boulder Colorado. .....long story short, the fruit was ripe, Evan did a lot of mountain biking this weekend, and met a lot of great riding partners. Thank you world.

topping out on "Puke Hill" with Stephanie-not my sister.

Stephanie and some friends decided on the Wasatch crest, we drove up Big Cottonwood, parked near spruces, and Laura's husband kindly lent us a pickup truck drop off atop Guardsman's pass. George was getting over the flu (in the hospital Wednesday), and on short notice was able to convince a roommate to drive him to Guardsman's from Jeremy Ranch.....A few miles down the trail we found a lot of mud, and it continued a loooong way. George measured 18 miles, though I'm sure we added another mile sliding on mud. After several improvised wrenching attempts, Hayden found a 10mm wrench wedged next to the granny gear did the trick. George's binding bottom bracket bearings were fixed....onward. We ended up riding to Dog Lake, up, and out to Mill D, with just 2 miles of road riding. Sevaral times, I narrowly missed crashing while resisting the urge to trail Hayden, who took some photos like the one above....Though hard to resist the urge, it's not always wise to ride a hard tail while tailgating somebody donning a full face helmet.

We stumbled upon this lovely artwork, reminiscent
of Sugar Post's work. Fuzzy jokingly suggested
somebody climb up the naked pole for a
photo opp, and I managed.

Sunday morning George called me...after I dropped him off for his second Saturday shuttle ride to Guardsman's Pass, he found mid mountain trail to be in prime condition. I motored the Aeroship van up Parleys to Jeremy Ranch, and the $h!t show assembled. Lately, it seems that really fun days start out as $h!t shows. Fuzzy, was visiting Park City from Price, UT where he runs a bike shop focused on custom builds, quality, and fitting-cool! In the pre ride assembly, Anthony was defending the "coolness" of using Diggler mountain scooters. Anthony, George's landlord-whom hadn't ridden a bike in over 2 years, hopped on his 15 year old mountain bike, borrowed some shoes from George, and ended up riding 26 miles of trail, finishing in the dark. Greg, was a ball of fire, and I found it entertaining and challenging to always be catching him when his from rest rocket boosters burned up-he got grumpy and cold when the sun retreated. Overall, I enjoyed riding with two very motley, easy going, entertaining groups on two very scenic days, lots of camera shutters going, including my "low grade" flip phone camera. I was proud to have accomplished riding all weekend, fully equiped without wearing a backpack.

George, failing to win the race against sunset.

Visitors

2011-09-13T10:44:00.002-06:00

Looking at the hood of this truck, it's not difficult
to imagine who belongs to this vehicle.

Bama and Taneshia Milucky! Rained out of Portland, this couple
is headed for Grand Junction-Look out Colorado
the Miluckys are coming back!

It was fun showing the Miluckys a Utah beer run,
while remembering goofy times in Boulder, CO.
I took Breakfast out to the street,, it's fun to eat breakfast
out on the street, yet inside the cozy confines of the Airstream. Fierce Guard Dog Larry

Indian Philosophy

2011-09-08T15:26:00.001-06:00

My mother calls me a minimalist, at least relative to my American environment. Amid exponentially collapsing finite resources, one must wonder at the value of stuff, when so many people all over the world seem happy without. With some fascination about the future, we look to the past, and few places have more recorded human past than India. I watched the Story of India this week and I've been reading a thick Philosophical book for 8 months-"The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita". I think this quote may help to demonstrate how radical we 'Merican's really are, buried amid our thoughtless productivity and progress. Rajas is one of three Gunas-basically three attitudes that we mortals are continuously balancing in our lifestyles.

"The rajasic state is characterized by passionate mobility. The mind is restless, occupied by greed, full of desire for things outside itself. Bright dreams may fill it, dreams of great things to be done, yet all those things are for the sake of self though they may sometimes wear the glittering robes of altruism and service of the world.
This rajasic restlessness is often confused with the Divine activity. There are many who cannot sit still for a moment, who think that to be always up an doing, no matter what, is to be full of life, and they bow down before activity in any form whatever. But this rajasic lust for movement is not the same as the Divine action, for it will be found, if analyzed, that it is always tainted by some personal desire, always in bondage to some personal gain, while the Divine activity is free, calm, and majestic in Its selflessness." -The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita.

I like how Merican' Culture summarized philosophies via the Bloodhound Gang, truly inventive: "Life is short and hard, like a body-building elf, so save the planet and kill yourself"

Tour De Fat 2011: The Stoke

2011-08-17T14:14:00.009-06:00

2010 Ft Collins, trade your car for a bike ceremony

Ever heard of Tour De Fat? It is not every day an adult gets to freely express the alter-ego through ridiculous costuming, and also feel a part of something larger than the self. (even Black Rock City-Burning Man-charges for this now) Tour De Fat is a unique opportunity for the utilitarian Street rider to celebrate their daily, self-motivated acts of survival.....Among 13 hip-er US city/states, a Saturday party celebrating Utilitarian cycing is thrown each summer. New Belgium Brewing donates the party-there is no charge for admission-proceeds go to localized bicycle causes.

Lemon Mad

2011-08-14T18:34:00.005-06:00

Back in February, I chose to sign a year lease on a slum house. At the time it seemed rash, the house isn't in great shape, but the shaded backyard and detached alleyway garage induced a terrible suction on me. My seasonal employment is up October 1. In one corner, of boxing ring that forms my conscience, is the security of a profession, and opposing is the adventure of crafting stuff I like, hoping others do too. Sunday August 14 marked the beginning of my welding practice-MIG welding. I am looking forward to producing some yard art for the SLC Bike Collective, and progressing on to coat racks, cargo bikes, etc. When life gives you lemons, make lemon Mad(e).

Pioneer Day: Getting Klunk

2011-07-25T19:48:00.010-06:00

The horse, all loaded up, awaiting the long journey.

In Utah, we have two Independence days. I don't know the history, but July 24th is called Utah Pioneer day. In memory of my predecessors and hard working pioneers, I celebrated the pioneers of mountain biking, the Klunkerz.

Driven by my quest for minimalism, simplicity, masochism, etc, I made the decision to park my van this summer. The most difficult part of my decision: reduced access to mountain biking. 2010's July epic required a 115 mi drive to Breckenridge. 2011's July epic ride begged creativity.

I love my new Jandd frame pack, in just one month, it's been
carried on 3 of my 4 bikes and seen use as a hiking daypack.
More secure, more volume than the seat wedge. It give my cruiser
a stylish tank look, the best part is no backpack!

Several SLC-Bonneville Shoreline Trail (BST) rides this spring left me with a little to be desired. I needed to dig deeper to piece a car-free off road epic ride together, it needed to be longer.

By July 4th, the van was parked, A leisurely July 4th cruiser ride to see the hillside wild fire inspired the Klunking, is there an easier way to make the BST seem longer? more challenging? Scheming began. My neighbor Ed brought me some liquid courage-special high-temperature grease-to help my coaster brake last the voyage.

After re-packing my 2 speed hub with high temperature grease, gearing down for climbing, retro-fitting my new frame bag, and plotting my water stops, I was ready for an Epic evening July 23........summer is crazy in this valley, I finally pedaled away at 7:05AM on July 24-UT Pioneer day.

The Bare Essentials for a near-dark Klunk. You've gotta
love summer night riding close to home, 375 ml bottle is all you need
to get to the next water fountain (Red Butte, City Creek). It's like a
supported race-you don't carry much!

At 8AM I was drowning myself at the Red Butte Garden Drinking fountain. The next trail-side water stop would be in City Creek, there wouldn't be much time to waste in the next exposed trail section, the sun was rising.

Down off the sunny meadow behind the hospital, the steep Dry Creek climb loomed ahead. This climb begged some sprinting from me-thankfully, this shady climb is cool. Shortly after splashing past a resting gray-haired rider, I was proud to have made the Dry Creek grade to the exposed switchback, I needed a rest-push time.

Amusingly odd handling characteristics of inadequate braking and plush street tires soon induced survival mode. At the woody entrance into City Creek, the forest greets the rider with a walled right angle switchback. While the wall gave me the confidence to drift the corner, it failed to slow me down for the following steep grade. I completely ditched my trail bike into the brush. Terrifying, and hilarious-low speed crashes can be highly entertaining.

By 9:30AM, it was hot, I had reached City Creek Canyon, and the runners were heading home. This was the decision point, explore unknown trail to the north, or head home- "when in doubt, go higher". After pushing, sweating, and cussing my bike up much of the 900' ascent north of City Creek I eventually reached some very enjoyable traversing singletrack-and the cooling breeze of rolling. At many intersections, the BST leaves you guessing at direction-"when in doubt, go higher". Breakfast was opened over an impressive valley view. A BST sign pointing downhill to the north indicated this was the summit of my journey, the point of accomplishment. My estimated vertical gain for this trip is 2600'-roughly 4 times up and down my childhood ski hill-Song Mountain-I certainly have become a freak.

Not bringing real photo equipment, I felt compelled to snap
this low quality cell phone photo-for proof.

Until Bountiful completes it's BST trail section, Eagleridge Dr is the end of the SLC trail section. Despite a screaming smelly hot hub shell, my coaster brake did not give out while glissading down Eagleridge Dr (800' paved vertical in 2mi), -thanks for the grease Ed. Eagle Ridge Drive terminates in a bike path south to Beck St @ 1810 N, which quickly delivers a cyclist to Downtown SLC. After a water stop at the gas station, I was home and hungry by Noon.

Carting The Horse:

There is an old saying, which emphasizes the importance of priorities-"It sounds like you are putting the cart before the horse". I have many rationales for moving from Boulder Colorado to Salt Lake City, one being the ski commute. During my winters on the outskirts of Boulder, Monday through Friday involved 50+ bicycle miles commuting in what many would deem extreme conditions. Saturday-Sunday would often involve many hours of ski touring, accessed via 150-500 miles of driving. I've never owned an auto with working AC, so summer auto use was primarily for mountain biking-it is hard to pedal as many miles as your car drives you to do so. Does the irony of maintaining an auto for access to human powered recreation need explaining?

Is Mountain Biking Cancelled?
I hope my car-less (summer) lifestyle can motivate new solutions to the horse carting problem, and limit me to a more inclusive MTB culture in SLC. Klunkerz taught me that Mountain Biking is rooted in inclusive exploration, despite exclusive country club culture - Gary Fisher was expelled from road racing because his hair was too long. Many of the pioneers cited in the film are avid bicycle commuters to this day.

One thing I cherished about downtown Boulder was the mountain bike bus. Every Saturday/Sunday morning, Boulder Transit Center was THE place to meet new trail riding friends or to merge with the old crew. Though the fuel cost of carpooling was marginally cheaper, the simplicity of the bus meetup was beautiful. You could send out a text message to a handful of friends, "First Ned bus?", or just show up-it could hold 20-30 bikes. The bus was a meeting place, a mountain air-conditioner, a chairlift, for less than $4-nobody was late. I have heard of a Crest Trail shuttle operation, and I may have to try it soon-with a legit mountain bike.

The SLC valley seems to have a lot of un-tapped potential for mountain biking. Public, bicycle friendly, transit to Park City or Draper would be a great start. Escaping the summer heat to higher elevations is nice, but shoulder seasons, early mornings, and evenings are wonderful times to ride mountain bikes in the SLC valley. The Bonneville Shoreline Trail is far from complete, many sections are, in fact, paved roads. Might new sections of the BST be built (sustainably!) and connected with mountain biking/hiking in mind?

How To B

2011-07-23T22:40:00.000-06:00

Goathead Harvest, July 6,7,8 Jordan River Parkway

2011-06-26T12:37:00.005-06:00

Dear SLC residents:

If you love the Jordan River Parkway, cycling, flip flopping, or dog walking, but feel bothered by pesky thorns, you can trade in environmental apathy for an evening or three of direct environmental action. Please join myself and the Public Services Division of SLC Corp in our efforts to reduce the spreading of thorny, invasive, nuisance goathead weeds and other invasive weed populations.

The meeting place will be Bend in the River Park, the time will be July 6,7, and 8 from 5:30pm - 7:30pm. From here we will harvest goathead weeds between 800S and 2100S along the Jordan River Parkway. The plants and seeds will be gathered in bags and hauled to a proper disposal site @ SLC corp public services.

View Larger Map

Bend in the River Park

1030 W Fremont Ave, Salt Lake City, UT 84104

Know your enemy, it has been a long spring, tough on
tomatoes and goatheads. Nevertheless, the
vines should be crowding pavement very soon.

If you have ever had a flat bicycle tire during the summer in SLC, it is likely the goathead plant's seed has created the puncture.

Goathead thrives only along the dry, hot edges of paved areas, such as the Jordan River parkway, as well as many SLC roadways, sidewalks, and parking lots. Fact is, there is no easy way to eradicate the creepy vine, and it's tap root needs to be manually plucked from the earth. Plucking of individual plants is labor intensive, and otherwise difficult for the Public Services Dept of SLC Corp. to staff and manage. Many hands make light work, and SLC corp's Public Services Dept. has equipped me to facilitate this work, I just need a little time from lots of people like you.

Is this pointless work? Won't they just grow back? Myself, SLC corporation, department of public services, and the Goathead Avengers in Boise don't think so. Goathead pulling parties have occured in previous years along the parkway, with positive results. The seeds are sticky, travel far, and remain fertile for many years. This year the Jordan River Parkway is expected to extend north from SLC, and connect to the Legacy parkway. Let's nip this in the bud. Any effort to contain, or reduce the spread of this vine now will be quietly appreciated across the valley for decades to follow. The best known defense against the goathead is competition from other vegetation (shading)-note, competition is removed by herbicides-goatheads like conditions created by herbicides. The Public Services Department intends to promote healthy competition in the fall by seeding the problem areas we locate and map.

First Bobsled run

2011-06-20T23:22:00.000-06:00

Today marked my third foray with wheels on the Bonneville shoreline trail. I have got to complain a bit, sorry. The routing of many SLC foothill trails is an abomination as compared with the many familiar trails in Colorado. The SLC trails I have been riding are routed in creek beds. This means they are steep, off camber, ditched, eroding, and constantly re surfaced with loose rubble.

I am not ashamed to say I walked my bike down this foreign ditch to reach
Bobsled Proper. Yesterday, my friend Tim Sandstrom's response to my move to SLC:
"The only difference between a rut and a grave,is the dirt in your face." Very
profound given today's trail conditions-don't get stuck in a rut!
An apparently avid trail rider steered me here, THIS is the better entrance to Bobsled.
...must have looked better last year.

Complaint being filed, I have to confess that once I walked my bike blindly for 5 minutes down a washed out ditch, I reached a trail known as Bobsled, and I had a great time riding a stupidly formed fall-line trail. Bobsled is the result of bikers descending in a ravine. The gradual formation of the trail seems to have taken the shape of rhythmic, banked turns-almost like a bunch of skiers have been riding it. The berms are so high, that the wheels only ever encounter washout when they travel across the fall line=brilliant. Inadvertently, I launched a small jump mid berm on the trail-no time to swerve around it. Wahoo! I have got to work on my route to the various trailheads, campus and the hospital are wonderful bicycle traps.

Intro of Spection

2011-06-12T10:53:00.005-06:00

A "samsquanch" walked through my kitchen

After injured winter doldrums, a prolonged spring, summer crept up very quickly this year, the flow is surging. I have been uncharacteristically bailing out on a lot of outdoorsy trips this year, yesterday I missed the boat for supporting the Great Salt Lake Swimming Marathon.

Worm at work on my back yard dirt farm (compost heap)

On the surface, it would seem like I'm losing my lust for adventure, my mojo, etc. I feel as though I'm finally getting the support I need to grow a set and assert the lifestyle I want to live, regardless of how cool the photos or video turn out. In 18 days I will be car free for the first time as a choice. This is an irrational, self depriving, masochistic action, that has been on my to do list for years. By now, I think the rationale behind being car free has reached the masses, so I won't waste ink/pixels/attention preaching on. A lot of good things have happened to me this month, and I am suspicious....today I am focused on grounding myself before I get pinched out of this dream.

"Wasted"

2011-05-05T13:51:00.005-06:00

Prototype saddle tested today on the
Trail for a continuous 2 hour ride. And
yes, it is indeed held together with clear
duct tape. A bit hard, but the stock
chassis has some give. Overall positive,
narrower profile provided added
mobility on short, steep descents.
Settling back into the seated
position was instant, no wriggling.
I'll have to do longer paved
& unpaved tests when my body
works back up to it.

The microbial community of my intestines has been through a period of withdrawl this winter/spring. The community hasn't been able to enjoy their usual dose of oxygen from my usual aerobic activity level----until this week! Yesterday I dusted off the old mountain bike for a tough return to hard pedaling. After the ride I was helping the neighborhood urban homestead clean up the back yard, when a resident asked me if I was "wasted". I remembered a time when I used to hang with Chris Miller in Boulder, CO. Chris would return home grinning from a good day of cranking, and without any substancial imbibery, exclaim he was "wasted". I slowly sneered towards my neighbor, and nodded a "yes, I'm wasted, but not how you think".

In town, fair weather rides inspire light travel, no backpack, just voile strap
your pump, tools, windbreaker, hat, water to the frame. Snack in pocket, spare tube gets looped twice and slung over the shoulder.

I forgot how good it feels to get aerobically "wasted", You don't know what you've got until it's gone. Today I rode from my house (Liberty Park) up the Avenues to City Creek, hit the Bonneville trail to Red Butte Gardens, across campus, and tucked down 800S back home....shy of 2 hours.....I expected it to take longer, but I suppose you move quickly when you travel solo. Glad I wasn't at work;)

Knock On Wood.....Ankle on the mend

2011-04-21T09:25:00.000-06:00

BBQ season, Internal Gear Innyards

2011-04-14T19:04:00.003-06:00

First Propane run using the Hippy Truk.

Sigh.....Yup, that's our front porch!

After 4 years of hard, year round use this is the first time this transmission seal
has been cracked. If this were a derailleur system, I would have disassembled the entire
drive train for cleaning and/or component replacement 8 times by now.
The 19T steel cog is worn but usable.
Owning AND OPERATING 4 exposed transmission bicycles is inconceivable to me.
Having said that, I am presently putting together a derailleur-ed 3x7 touring/fair weather
bicycle. It has literally been 4 years since I last owned a derailleur, it should be a
lesson in patience.

Previously this week I spent some time exploring the innards of my bicycle transmissions; Shimano Nexus and Alfine 8spd Internal Gear Hubs..I've been wondering for half a decade what's inside...The Nexus is retirement age from use in my daily driver-4th gear skips on occasion, could actually be a shifter problem. The Alfine8 had been used for my trail bike for a whole season before a steep Mill Creek hill climb spun it/s Axle backwards this fall, stripping it. My fault, In my laziness and rush to ride, I neglected to install two non-turn washers, and just went on with one.

Oh Moderation

2011-03-27T22:27:00.005-06:00

	Kenny Rogers - Just Dropped In .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

I'm slowly stepping back into the ski boots this week: Wednesday dawn patrol on Mt Aire, and today some leisurely, warm weather, bluebird powder turns in silver fork. I really want to go back up soon, but maybe my ankle wants a few rest days....I knew this would happen. Here's todays video capture of Stephen, in my hardware limited half minute edit style. Back at the Solitude parking lot, much tailgate gathering was going on. Sombrero Paco wielded his plastic six shooter, insisting I eat one of his Burritos. Steve and I agreed to the offer we couldn't refuse.

You Might Be a Mad Scientist If......

2011-03-25T20:49:00.008-06:00

Your day looks like this

This is an update on my custom molded bicycle saddle project. Presently I have about a month of light-medium duty city riding on my first, duct-tape, prototype. I am now tinkering with household junk for some proof of concept work. It is quite fun. There were a lot of aromatic hours tinkering with beeswax melting and molding. I just laid up my first epoxy-fiberglass mold this morning, I'll have a fun surprise waiting for me when I crack open the mold this evening.

Varnish

2011-03-14T22:43:00.001-06:00

Sis and I took the exhausting IKEA trip this past weekend, and we brought home some wood furniture. With my ankle injury I have to distract myself from normal activities-so I decided to attempt adding color to the new furniture. I hate to cover up wood grain. After some significant time developing the right linseed oil & paint emulsions, I was pleased with the end result. While these colors look great on the neutral front porch, they are overwhelming against my mostly white kitchen. What does all of this mean? I am spending too much time at home, and look forward to getting out and about soon.

"HIppy Truck"

2011-02-28T16:03:00.001-07:00

Cycle Truck, Cargo Bike, Front Loader, Cargo Commuter are all fine names for this contraption of mine ,but Beth Jordan put it best with "Hippy Truck". Well, after over two years in want, I finally own one, thanks to Merlin @ Utilitarian Transports, near Minneapolis. It is not finished, no rear brake. I have enjoyed riding it this week, but I've got to vegetate if I ever want to ski again. I believe I'm suffering from what the SanFran Ankle and Foot Center are calling Peroneal Tendonitis. If all goes well, I'll be saving 30% by writing this vehicle off as a church vehicle during 2011. Who needs groceries delivered?...currently, with my ankle, that would be me.

In other news, Marc Murry has passed away this week. I used to attend daycare with Marc, his mother taught me in Kindergarten, and his sister raced snow planks with me in high school. I'm not certain of the exact cause, but I suspect it was linked in some way to Leukemia, which he had once defeated. Rest in peace Marc, and I wish your family well.

Boise by Bus

2011-02-14T11:59:00.005-07:00

funny advertisement in Boise paper

Thursday morning I embarked on my second inter-state, mass transit voyage away from Salt Lake City, and once again was challenged by my desire to trust in Utah Transit Authority's local network. My new roof is 4 blocks from a UTA light rail station, which travels to the Greyhound bus station. The hound insisted I arrive 1 hour before my bus's departure @ 6:45AM. Internet access is not yet connected at my home, I took it in faith that the train runs early, and walked to the station at 5AM. While I could have made it east to the University at that time, the next west bound train would be 30min late. My 4 block walk briskly turned into a 3 mile, backpack-jog across downtown to arrive by 5:45AM.

It is a shame that UTA cannot get me to/from my prime downtown location to the bus station or the airport in time for daily, regularly scheduled, morning or evening bus/airplane routes. In my opinion, UTA has so much potential and with a little research and refinement towards route planning and an overall system with increased user-friendliness, could do much better with the resources it has, try finding a route using the UTA website, then compare it with google maps. Now that I am 3 miles closer to the Bicycle Transit Center, I will plan on securely parking my bike there the next time I leave UT via mass transit.

Boise has OBVIOUS boundaries
for it's bicycle dismount areas
SLC???

Recently there has been some discussion about the possibility of repealing the -no cycling on sidewalks ordinance- in select downtown SLC areas. Personally, I don't think it is unreasonable to limit cycling among choice pedestrian business areas. Enforcement and fines without any noticeable boundaries is the status quo for Salt Lake City, and it is unjust. 5 minutes after stepping off a Greyhound bus in Boise, it was clear to me which sidewalks are not bicycle friendly. SLC???

I had some downtime in downtown Boise ID, while I waited for my brother to pick me up. I had time to mail my valentine and take in a healthy level of bicycle activity among the relatively calm streets of downtown Boise, ID. I don't want to discredit the efforts of Boise locals, but I have to wonder what a Tour De Fat stop in Salt Lake City could do for bicycling in my city. Anybody from SLC have any interest towards a summer Boise visit Tour De Fat Boise this summer of 2011?

Laundering

2011-02-04T14:59:00.008-07:00

A day's work

I'll admit, I am spoiled, and I have never lived in a house without laundry machines somewhere within the structure. The house I am moving to is in a great location, but has proved challenging to outfit with laundry capabilities. The only dryer power (220V) is in the kitchen, precisely where I imagine placing a small dining table, and there is no outside vent hookup. There is a laundry room, with washer hookup fixtures, but no 220V outlet or outside dryer venting. In Colorado, I lived with a fairly slow dryer, and I got used to de-linting, then hanging clothes to dry, it was harder to shrink my clothes. A 220V dryer with no outside vent can make the house humid in a hurry, it is probably better that I don't have an inside vented, fog inducing, 220V dryer where my kitchen hang out zone should be.

Being Two Places At Once

2011-02-02T15:13:00.002-07:00

While unloading Van load #1 a neighbor dropped everything to
help me unpack-I mean get in my way. With full arms it was
difficult to keep this friendly out of the house.

It was an exhaustive search for housing to meet the criteria of myself and my sister and dog (who are moving from NY). You can feel Utah's population growth when you look for housing. As of yesterday I live in two places, for two months. The new address is a small, ancient house near downtown Salt Lake City. In a perfect world I would find a subleaser and a great job nearby....I've got my work cut out for me. The land lady, whose youngest kids are in their 40's, tells me I'm clean cut and could pass for Morman-I am glad it is winter and I kept my hat on.

While the exterior property layout is slick, the interior layout is....not. I'll trick it out, because I love the location-one block towards downtown from Liberty Park. I am excited to live with my big sister, whom I have not seen regularly since I moved west in 2006. Stef plans on driving to SLC from NY in late February, I do worry about her catching a weather window crossing WY in February. Lunch break is over, big stuff is moved, I just have one last van load of two bikes and the small, detailed stuff you sort of haul in buckets, and sort later when it is in a pile in your new living room.

Creative Propoganda

2011-01-29T18:00:00.001-07:00

Bicycle lights are like pants at work-brilliant!

Strategies for Getting Around Without Bike Lights (or Pants) from BICYCLE TRANSPORTATION ALLIANCE on Vimeo.

Merely Mortal

2011-01-24T17:37:00.003-07:00

Two weeks ago a pain began in my left foot.....on Saturday morning I was hobbling. Some research points to one of two prognos-i.

1: tendonitis
2: 5th metatarsal stress fracture.
-they both share an owie location

Don't ask me how it happened-obviously it hurts more in the confines of a plastic ski boot, but I don't specifically know of an acute cause. I won't jinx myself with a recovery time estimate, that's bad luck.

This morning I put a lot of work into acquiring the "wallking boot" on my left foot, and it really helps. At first, I thought I would be able to get one of these at CVS, the pharmacy, home med supply store, etc-not really. I'm glad I didn't order one online and wait for it to show up in the mail, and I'm grateful the busy orthopedic office managed to sell me one without a doctor's appointment or an insurance driven-4x cost markup.

It seems stupid how taking care of one's self is complicated by the standard office-visit, insurance company protocol The dentist told me the best dental insurance is floss. I contribute to a zero deductible, accidental insurance plan but I am outright boycotting "the standard health plan" that keeps people working too hard, stressing themselves into unhealthy habits, in fear of job loss-My $50 walking boot doesn't need to cost my would-be insurance company $200. For all I know, the orthopedic office staff might be better served by my off-the-wall $10 tip for their 10 minute effort. To that I am crossing my arms as hard as I can while expelling an emphatic, child-like HUMPHHH.

Stoop View, October 25 & 27

2011-01-21T14:45:00.001-07:00

Breaking the 30 Second Barrier

2011-01-20T20:05:00.003-07:00

Today I accomplished the following video, which may make an appearance at Outdoor Retailer tomorrow and through the weekend. Last weekend I got to know Rob Lingstuyl (Ling-style) as we made the most of rolling hill terrain while ski touring from a cabin perched beyond the Wasatch range. Monday evening I recieved a curious voicemail from Rob: I have a question for you and possibly a favor to ask for the next two nights. As it turns out, Rob was making an effort to serve a request through his bicycle club. His club's Headlamp supplier, Light & Motion, is interested in boosting their product appeal to the backcountry skiing community. Skiing, and especially filming at night has been a top 10 on my curiosity list for years.....free use of a headlamp, an adequate editing computer (capable of more than 30sec video) to borrow, moonlit landscape, and an 8-hour-new foot of snow......how could I say no? Consider me appealed! Watching myself speak on camera certainly makes me feel like a U-tard!

Wanting What You've Got

2011-01-18T22:02:00.007-07:00

At the moment, I don't have any awesome imagery or stories or news ready to post, but it's time to compose something again. There are moments in life when you want something beyond your own lot. In December, being sick for 11 days, I experienced a lot of that sentiment. My January has been more occupied with what I do have.

My Mtn Momma OH $h!T kit finally got used this weekend-
took some newbie split-boarders out for a walk on the wild side.
Sean needed a phillips screwdriver (cheap knife point)
Joellyn needed a blood stopper for her bird finger.
Maybe I should waterproof matches/lighter/TP and add lighting

VIDEO HOBBY: Lately, I have been sort of want-y for nice new video stuff. A lot has changed in the 2-3 years since I acquired a High Definition camcorder. Today the standard look-what-I-did on you tube videos usually involve a wide angle, inexpensive, HD point-of-view camera and a high powered editing computer. My equipment is upside down (Middle quality hand held camcorder, 32 bit netbook computer).

Silver lining: Though my self taught '2010 Film School' was more bite than chew, my limited-30 sec-editing equipment has challenged me to be more decisive, selective, and concise in my capture and publishing of film. The 30 second pressure has shown me that I may have actually learned a thing or two about filming over the years. Tomorrow evening I have plans to try something that's been on my list for years-film some night ski touring. After the single player POV approach failed, I have been called out for a favor on this particular project. If it goes well, I could get some recognition for helping promote a bicycle light.

Grocery Getter Bicycle Is Under Construction

2011-01-12T15:29:00.005-07:00

Last night I recieved an E-mail from Marlin @ Utilitarian Transports. Marlin sent pictures of his progress on my cargo commuter frameset. During my two year search for a cycle truck, I am relieved to have found Utilitarian Transports in Washburn WI-near Minneapolis.

Custom Utilitarian Transports front rack

Spring Is Over, Time for Winter

2011-01-09T22:27:00.001-07:00

The snowpack this season has seen much spring like stability. Jan 8 is anticipated as the Wasatch Range's first weak layer of the winter season-surface hoar. Overnight the weak layer was covered in a relatively thin coat of fluff and I was able to get out on it before more loading ups the anti.

If Only I Didn't Have to Work

2011-01-07T19:21:00.010-07:00

Undoubtedly, we have all begged the question, and wondered which of our zany ideas we might explore if only wage-work didn't consume our lives. Today I began to find out. For a few years, I've wondered why a custom moulded bicycle saddle has never arrived at market. Though it would be neat to make a living at hand crafting saddles, my true motive is scientific, with the hope that the lifestyle cycling community might feel more comfortable riding long term and more often. I've done a bit of research into the topic, and there are lots of theories I want to test. My goal is to ride my first prototype saddle in February.

Rooster cackle on Gobbler's Knob

2011-01-05T14:04:00.003-07:00

I don't usually publish videos quickly, but my computer has a very limited length capacity for video, and I caught a great capture. This morning Mike invited me out for a dawn patrol with a few of his fellow Black Diamond co-workers. Unbelievable timing it was, greeting the orange sunrise up on the ridge.

Psych!

2011-01-01T22:27:00.012-07:00

Winter is here again, haven't done much ski filming in UT. Video has come up in conversation on several occasions lately, it has me pondering the fine line between art and documentation. Sure we all like to think we are special and have our own style and art. Digital imaging has certainly made the visual arts accessible to multitudes of people and very quickly. Purposed art has been somewhat diluted with an explosion of documentary images being widely shared, freely. Being a distinguished digital imaging artist in a flooded environment would certainly require interesting adaptations. Publishing decisions must require more refinement, and the finished collection needs to be concise, yet maintain contrast to be powerful. Lucky for the artist there may never be a lack of 'look at 33 similar photos of my cat' albums common on facebook. I may not realize artistic value for my films, few may watch, so documentation and sharing of experiences is important. Expression, however subtle, cannot be suppressed-satisfaction often demands expression.

New year, my monthly 2010 film project ceased to be published when I quit my job, and access to video editing hardware, I still don't have a video computer, but that's the easy part-capture, and storage come first. Below are two of my videos that came from last year's ski filming efforts. First, Powderhoars demonstrates making the best of typical front range CO winter, second shows Chris and Arron Miller un-brothers enjoying the spring Colorado fruits of hard winter training. The videos don't represent all the bad days we ski. When you are a weekend warrior you can't easily pick your days, and often you miss out when you do. Snow condition becomes a game of probability, and we all know the casino has figured the odds for us. The more you get out, more fit you'll be for tackling those big spring lines that we seemingly wait for 11 months of the year in Colorado.

Now I'm in Utah! Here's a Utah ski video Chris Miller and I made a few years ago documenting our March2008 weekend trip. We drove fom Boulder CO, Redcoat flew in from......any number of places.

Inexpensive Kids Bikes this Holiday Season @ your Local Non Profit Bicycle Shop!

2010-12-19T13:29:00.002-07:00

This is a video documenting a fun current, unofficial event in California. If you watch Klunkers, a film about the history of mountain biking, you will know about the race called "repack". After each run a rider would need to repack their overly stressed wheel hubs with grease.

Indecision

2010-12-15T21:39:00.003-07:00

One foot of new snow overnight, cold temps in the AM, no gloppy-sticky snow travel issues today-getting out!-again no known local friends available to ski with. You meet all kinds of friendly folks in the Wasatch, but a ski partner is somebody you plan to ski with, and I often experience trouble getting people to commit to such plans. Around 1PM-ish I froze in suspended animation, standing alone on a ridge extending east of Flagstaff Mtn. It is strange how strong the pucker can be while ski touring alone through avalanche terrain. Cowards would call me a ninny for openly sharing such silly, trivial internal mental conflicts.

Looking at Western flank of Toledo Bowl from Flagstaff Mtn- I really wanted
this line. Just behind is Mt Superior, I wondered if anybody had attempted
S Face of Superior today.
Visibility not good, but conditions could have been in.

I was Frodo, by myself, wearing an invisibility ring on that ridge-strange thoughts, urges and all.
Read more »

Skin Up, Skin Down

2010-12-07T23:58:00.002-07:00

Despite a generous helping of early season snow, I may wait a lil' while for full on turns missions. Like any good paint job, skiing great lines is all about the prep work-you have to be able to get there. Saturday, amid our recent warm spell, I didn't expect to find much 'pliable' snow, so my out the door mission would be to ski up to Gobbler's Knob. At the tailgate, a pair of skiers kindly inquired if I was from out of town (I was dressed to ski, but looking at maps/guidebooks). I was kindly informed I had driven past the Butler Fork and was parked across from Reynolds Fork. The pair were headed for a line on Kessler peak called God's Lawnmower, just across the street from Gobbler's. Gobb's would have to wait for another day, when I didn't miss the parking space. After previously (March 2008) skiing up Argenta slide path and down the East Couloir of Kessler peak, I was intrigued to explore other sides of the mountain. Avi rose spelled predominantly GO, a great day to explore the unknown alone.

Kessler Peak, N face, taken from Circle All Peak, Dec 7, 2010. 'God's
Lawnmower' is the path at left, the voluptuous Argenta path on right.
You can see the 'mower' driving down Big Cottonwood Canyon
around the curve @ Butler fork

Despite skin glopping, separate ascent routes, I met the pair at the top, along the eastern edge of the 'mower'. We descended, bushwacked, dabbed across the creek, and hitch hiked back to the cars, and all was merry (snow wise, it turned to crap around 9K and down).

Immediately after skiing, I got a refund for blowing a zipper again on my second pair of new North Face Various Guide Pants. Someday, I hope to find ski pants I cannot over heat in, destroy, or attend a disco in (huge bell bottoms)

Read more »

Never Ski Alone-a skiing Autobiography

2010-12-06T01:47:00.015-07:00

Tangential photo, but evidence that not EVERY bike left at the 2100 South
TRAX station for a week gets stolen.That is my beach cruiser, locked to a light
pole with a 1/2" thick, combination cable lock-through seat rails too (Wed-wed,
during Turkey time) Could the snow have anything to do with theft
deterrence?

There are bike lockers (background) but they are yearly rentals, I only needed a
week,and this bike may not have fit inside. I could have left my bike secure at
the new Bicycle Transit Center, but it would have been after hours and added
a lot of time to my already long airport trip. Maybe the new airport rail will
make flying at 11PM easier in 2012.

This started as a blog post emphasizing the vast amount of fun people I randomly find while ski touring alone in the Wasatch. It turned into a long 25year autobiographical account of my life skiing. It is long, but the auto prefix means I wrote it.....It's not so bad, you could be reading the non-auto biography of Sarah Pallin.

I've always had the urge to go skiing. It is just the way I grew up. In his "younger" days, after working a full week, my father would change hats. He ran the ski rental shop friday nights for free family skiing-those were the days. As the youngest of three, my parents preferred free skiing to weekend daycare. My first upright winter was spent in alpine ski boots. (this is where my mom finds that funny 80's ski photo, and I post it).

My very first trophy came from NASTAR Giant Slalom race at age 6 (I skied between/through the flagged poles-not around them). My father encouraged me to join a ski race program, but it just didn't click with me. I quit and took adult ski lessons at age 10.

In the mid nineties, I was the youngest teen in a house with three, the mountain was lit by halogen after dark. After work, my mother was eerily eager to drive me 1 mile to and fro that same local ski bump, Song Mountain.  I always had pockets containing pay phone quarters and zip-lock PBJ for dinner-often on the chairlift. As a teen in the mid nineties, I did learn to snowboard;) Tully High school sponsored an alpine ski racing team, which competed at a varsity level in New York State Section III.  At 15, along with normal public school kids, I was ready to race.  The team did some physical prep work at the mountain-lifting weights, running, and hiking. To make it on time, I would get off the school bus at home, kick start the fat tire dirt bike, and take snow machine trails to the best parking spot-in the grass next to the bar.  The motorbike was for commuting to my summer hay farm job-which almost funded skiing.

Year one of college I went off to find real mountains in Montana. My sights were on Backcountry Skiing. On my birthday, mid october, a Bozeman local living in my dorm kindly took me to the top of bridger to ski the first storm. I put on insulated logging boots and packed heavy slalom gear, changing boots atop a powder slope-this gear would not due. The same week I rode my Bozeman police impounded mountain bike across town to the annual fall ski swap. I lucked out and pedaled home with well loved, tall plastic telemark boots and 205cm, double cambered, steel edge XC skis. My student season lift pass was more expensive than my first telemark setup. Hauling the skis in my 6' truck bed was an art. I passed up skiing Bridger's upper realm to learn the telemark turn on the groomers. 205cm is a lot of ski to cross up in a snowplow, but you'll never fit that uphill tip past the downhill heel. Carving non-skid turns with this setup was a very exciting personal accomplishment. The same generous local later strapped a beacon on me and took me to some Bridger side country.  Snowshoeing up a skin track wearing telemark boots is tough work!

It turned out that calculus couldn't hold a candle to Montana sunshine, college resumed back in Syracuse-great town for studying. The first few winters back in NY I found chairlifts rather expensive, small, lonely, bland. I have no trouble with being alone, but noting is worse than feeling alone among a crowd.  I found myself spending long days alone traversing the deciduous forests via snowshoe or xc skis.  Paying state tuition, I had the rare opportunity to race on a NCAA alpine ski team.  My third? year, I had a poor student's bank roll from summers at the paper mills, and financial aid finally came through. Fit from a running routine, and an experienced, skilled technical skier, I was no race course specialist, or rich. Nonetheless, I missed the "thwap" of slalom gates from 11th grade, so I bought a fresh pair of slalom skis and trained in my carhart/camo rain gear. It was rather satisfying to participate in a large group of skilled skiers-a fun group. Winter break was insane-I had to work to pay for training and school. The days consisted of 12hrs in ski boots: teaching lessons and bashing gates.  Each night involved some heavy frat style binge drinking-I had to compensate for my lack of semester session partying. I was in a hospital bed during slalom time trials-as if I could have made the 1/100second cut without a speed suit. My spleen was swollen-game over, I'm not a rich kid.

After racing was finally dead, I sold my slalom skis to afford a spring break trip to Lake Tahoe to ski with my 83year old Wisconson great Uncle, his kids, and my Idaho brother. An incredible, life changing trip! I found my NY telemark skis no match for the sierra chairlifts, I bought some demo skis. I later bought skins, and began exploring the Adirondack backcountry. After a three + hour commute to mountains, 4 hours of bitter cold, blind bushwacking, you would be lucky to find natural terrain capable of turns-sketchy slide paths-and you needed two pairs of mittens to make it there. There was a classic 6 hour drive with my roommate to ski Mad River Glen on a powder day. On Easter Weekend I went on an SU outing club trip to camp at the base of Mount Washington, and make some descents in Tuckerman's Ravine- I had to branch off from most of my group to take laps with some crazy french speaking kanucks. Another life changing trip. After skiing real mountains, I lamented my life in hazy, wet, flatland Central New York-mountains were all so far away.

My last year of college I was wearing thin, sick of counting beans (engineering) and in desperate need of motivation to graduate.  I found my motivated distraction in training with the Song Mountain Volunteer Ski Patrol-I was going to graduate and head west to be a career ski patroller. Somehow I managed to pass my engineering classes while completing my National Ski Patrol candidate training.  I became a certified NSP member, and completed an Avalanche level 1 course that same winter. The following winter I ended up working at Safeway in Boulder Colorado without an automobile. The bus serviced Eldora ski resort, perfect.  While volunteering my time one cold Christmas eve, I was physically cornered and reprimanded by the professional patrol director; I neglected to shave my beard-not cool! He's lucky I'm not an impulsive man.

I walked away from dress codes, long solitary bus commutes, volunteering to help those more privelaged than myself, and hanging out with paranoid, stressball ski cops. I walked away from corporate ski resort culture.  That week I was hired as a bike courier, where I met some fun ski touring friends. I haven't been especially drawn to chairlifts since.  In Boulder Colorado, I felt like a dirtbag, a skier in a climbing town-disrupting the "quiet mountain community". Truth is, you can't stay in Boulder forever-almost have to be a rich kid. Throughout my long history of skiing, I've became quite accostumed to skiing alone, though everbody frowns on it.  In the Wasatch, I'm finding great difficulty in skiing alone. I consistently find all walks of friendly folks to ski tour with. In the city I am finding a lot of average american idiots, whom are not allowed into places like Boulder. The easy ski access, precise avi forecasting, stable-er snowpack gives Salt Lake City locals a U-TARD reputation. It is just that easy.

The theme here seems to be a struggle to keep skiing. It seems like I finally have it made in the shade for skiing. I've found some great local terrain, and traded Adirondacks for Tetons.  So what is the current struggle?  While moving to Boulder, my car blew up and I lived car free for the first time since I was 16.  Things happened to me. I really liked not owning an automobile, and being a bicycle courier magnified that sentiment. I became empowered in Boulder, an economic tether which tugged at me since age 16 had been miraculously severed. I no longer needed to afford a car to hold a job.  Wrenching on an old bicycle is much preferred to wrenching on an old car. Lately, skiing is the most significant and pressing use of my auto expenses. Now I feel as though skiing is causing me excessive work, less free time, less skiing, and more stress. If I didn't ski, I could very well be car free, and require 30% less income, 30% less work. The trouble is, I'm addicted.

I won't give up my van until summer, I'm here, gotta ski here now. I'm just projecting a little, plans don't always happen by accident and it's hard to have a "life" if you're not "making other plans". It is hard being completely car free in Merica land (exept Boulder, Portland), and I think for now, the single car family is the most reasonable way around it. The key word there is family, and I'm a desperado. My sister will be living with me in SLC this coming spring, and I proposed sharing a car to save some dough.  She gets the van monday through friday, I get it weekends? Also, there are some great canyon hopping ski tours, best accessed by bus.  It would be incredible to move to someplace near that bus.

It's cold.....I'm leaving

2010-11-24T19:37:00.002-07:00

Feels like colorado weather finally found me, can run but not hide. On this brisk, 10F evening, I have planned to pedal a bicycle 15min to access a train, then bus to the airport. On the flip side, I should arrive in NY before this cold snap does.

back in the car after a 3.5 hour tour, Mill B North drainage, I
casually took a lap with three women I met near the trail head
(apparently common here, never EVER would happen in CO-all dudes)
next skin up I ran into Tim, who bought my old powder skis a week ago.

Why don't I just drive to the airport? Get a cab? I've invested significant research for this trip, and non bicycle, non auto alternatives involve walking 1 hour or connecting two additional busses (colder than walking) I'm a stubborn SOB, a hippy, and it doesn't seem right that in a major city, with an extensive public transit system, and so much apparent outreach for the needy, that I should need a car to access the international airport within 20 miles from my doorstep. Things ARE changing, but a little passive resistance can only speed it up.

I've been warned there's a 20% chance my bicycle will be found intact where I locked it a week from now. In place of usual racks, UTA has personal bike lockers, rented on an annual basis-also MAY change in one year (my phone inquiry didn't hurt that cause either). The bike has had a good life, I've never had a bike stolen, maybe it is my turn. Taking one for the team.

Tire Pressure!

2010-11-21T07:00:00.016-07:00

The Arch Nemesis, Goathead seed

If you ride your bicycle where goatheads/puncture vines exist, it won't be long before you discover the inconvenience of a surprise road side thorn flat. If you are like me, this can happen as often as 25 times a year without some sort of protection. It is a big deal when you are late for appointments. My favorite thorn flat protection is tire liners(Mr. tuffy's or Stop Flats). I've been using Mr. Tuffys in all my bikes for the last few years with remarkable success, but here in Salt Lake City, the recommended sizing isn't cutting it. During my first three SLC weeks I experienced four thorn flats, which all attacked in the corners, beyond Mr. Tuffy borders.

Mr. Tuffy recommends their brown colored strip for tires larger than 26" x 2.0"
they don't come any wider. Is it any wonder I get flats from cornering over goatheads?

Most bicyclists are surprised at how many thorn flats I seem to experience, and I surprised at their lack of thorns. The prickish thorns seem to be everywhere. I take every opportunity to travel where autos don't or can't, and cannot comprehend why most riders don't utilize many of the real estate options available. Such routes can often be the quickest, quietest, safest, most pleasant, but this is often where goatheads live.

The most legitimate reason not to install tire liners is a stiffer feel for skinny (26 and smaller) tires. I suppose my tires are wide enough that I can afford to run lower pressure when the going gets stiff, and I don't notice. It all depends on your overall preference to adapt or to become the fittest.

Read more »

Video?

2010-11-16T12:22:00.009-07:00

I had a great day of ski touring saturday with some university biology folk: Jon, Tim, Kate, and Brad. Though I have no media, the Legendary Andrew McLean snuck behind my group and put our photo on his blog. Since then, I've had yet another rough go with video editing. Since the early days of HD camcorders, things have changed, and I wondered if I could publish a quick 3.5 min video without dropping $1000 for a new computer......a quick test proved I could publish HD on youtube using my minimalist 32-bit netbook computer, hooray!

I proceeded, spending nearly 10 hours editing a 3.5 min video, which I cannot seem to publish. It is hard to spend 10 hours doing anything without evaluating the merits of said action...I got really grumpy about owning a video camera. Lots of folks have my issues publishing videos from AVCHD or .MTS files in windows live movie maker. I am slowly overcoming the grumpiness. I am gladly accepting donations to promote the release of future videos, that will require a 64 bit computer ($600).

Dear Colorado:

2010-11-10T15:50:00.005-07:00

Yours Truly squinting during first sun of the day. I didn't feel
rushed to jump in by the soul-sucking Colorado jetstream I'm
familiar with, quite peaceful up there.

Though our recent breakup has left me sad and ronery, I've come to realize that we were not the best match. Yesterday was a fun powder fest, with dawn partol (before work) range. No partners for wednesday, avi forecast all green. Nobody was going to keep me from skiing mount Baldy's (11068') main chute (N side, NE facing). Parking at Alta's main lot, I chatted to the guy who parked next to me and noticed his well worn Utah Avi Center jacket. It turns out he organized the avalanche conference I attended saturday. He may have assumed I had a partner, but I was sort of surprised at his encouragement to ski the steep 900' chute by myself. This place is sooo different.

Boot Experiment

2010-11-08T22:03:00.008-07:00

Backcountry ski equipment is not cheap. Upgrading your gear every couple of years involves making complex decisions as not all gear plays nice with others. More and more I'm finding myself skiing with folks using efficient mountaineering/randonee equipment. Lately you'll see less and less telemark equipment on the big spring mountaineering routes, for good reasons. My stuff is wearing thin, and the fate of telemark ski touring is looming. On the brink of arresting the free heels, Voile made that decision easier, by simply replacing my worn out bindings with new ones-warranty. Some new boot liners could get me through the season. While checking on the status of my extra skis at the consignment shop, I found a beefier pair of telemark boot shells in my size for next to nothing. True, these boots aren't the ideal touring boots, but I have been wishing for a taller boot back over the years, riding the back seat in the old boots has been anything but comfortable. The inner tinkerer was ruling my conscious, I took the bait.

At first glance, ol stink hoof on the left appears very similar to the replacement
beefcake boot. Looking closer, Beefcake seems noticeably less tour friendly.

After placing a week-to-deliver order for new boot liners at REI, AKA-Green Giant, I had to stop in and check out a shop next to the consignment store, Inkline foot science. Initially, I was going to inquire this shop about molding my new liners. After chatting 10 minutes with the friendly, experienced folks inside, they had derived an innovative solution that had me back at Green Giant cancelling my order pronto. The shop had been open 9 days and they were eager for business. Molded footbeds, lightly used liners, and all molding/fitting services were delivered a week sooner than REI could ship new liners, at a comparable price. Scott advocated using, not clean, but NEW socks each time I ski (over 50 pairs of socks this year). Allegedly, this is the only way to thwart ol-stink-hoof syndrome while wearing 'wicking' socks. Testing begins tuesday.
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Scavenger

2010-11-03T23:05:00.006-06:00

I've always wanted to know what it would be like to be that guy with a van and no job who spends his days scavenging free stuff on craigslist. Now I know. Laurel was surprised with a huge crop of volunteer tomatoes this year. After packing a freezer full of marinera sauce, and harvesting the green maters before frost, Laurel had to invite the craigs-hood to use the rest. I used the bike for this trip, could have taken more....need a cycle truck.

Free Tomatoes.....just wait for ripeness.

The green tomatoes never really turned red, more like shades of green, pink, yellow. The yellows are tasty. I hope to make some sauce soon, but no food processor, maybe a cheap blender will suffice? Maybe I'll make juice or soup.
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Charting....a course

2010-10-28T15:36:00.002-06:00

3' of snow fell in the Wasatch a few days ago. High visibility day, had to get out. With no idea where the ideal pre-season junk turns are to be had, it seemed logical that ski resorts may have some grassy terrain that could ski better than dusted boulder fields. I went with my roomie's advice to go skin up Brighton resort-furthest lift up Big Cottonwood canyon.

It turns out the fun terrain consists of scree piles, and the groomers are sort of flat for sticky afternoon powder skiing....maybe I just didn't find the good ones. The resort's labeled scree pile had a curious, large pipe suspended at the ridge line, pneumatic avi control? It felt good to get the skins on again, get the heart above 100, break 900' vert of wet snow in an hour, and enjoy a nice picnic up top. On the way out I saw some fun looking tracks down Solitude-a sign was posted on the lodge "no public use" with the forest service label...poached? Some fun terrain made keeping my eyes on the road challenging driving down past Solitude. May try for Alta tomorrow morning, might have company.

Steep!....and Knee-dy

2010-10-21T18:05:00.002-06:00

Left knee is jacked, it started in Idaho, mid August, subsided, and has come back each time I've walked down a long hill. Though I know the best treatment will be strength training/PT, it's kind of hard to believe in, how weak can my legs be? I'm paying to see an expert tomorrow, mostly to confirm what I already know, and find out if/how long it could be till I pedal or run again. Tis' quite tragic really, trying to keep head on and see past it.

Sturmey Archer B2C Winter Monster

2010-10-17T12:51:00.057-06:00

Stock Nirve 'Wild Child' before new hub.

Ever since my back started exerting pain on my soul during the summer of 2009, I switched to riding an upright bicycle 'Wild Child' on short errands. It's silly to expect much performance of a single speed beach cruiser, but I actually pedal it a lot. I try to limit my range, but on occasion I like to go a little further, and find the one gear to be a bit time consuming out on the open road (top spd 11mph). The obvious solution is a wheel with 3 interanal hub gears. Winter is coming and I'm a little un-comfortable with some of the shifty cable-hub connections I've seen on 3 speed hubs lately, I decided to give Sturmey Archer's new retro 2 speed kick back hub a try-overdrive and braking without cables! The hub arrived when I realized it would not fit in my bicycle....It occured to me this would become a real project, and hence, the report.
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Sugar House Chronicles 4

2010-10-14T22:45:00.002-06:00

Today was a great day, I found THE shortcut to town, revealed by a storm sewer utility easement. Over a plywood ditch crossing, this interesting sign appeared. I haven't told the neighbors that I am a registered ditch molester, hope I don't have to move away so soon after arrival.

This winter, I probably should not ski EVERY day, rest is good, meeting people and earning a little income is motivating me to secure some part time work in town, until I look for a longer term occupation next summer. Unfortunately, I think Voile wants a 40 hour daylight commitment, and at this time, I'm not that commited.

Pipeline Trail

2010-10-11T15:59:00.009-06:00

The new and improved back yard trails: 14 miles of riding, 6 pavement miles away! For once, I can actually pedal my mountain bike more miles than I drive it to and fro the trailhead! This trail system is not far from a bus served carpool lot.

bike is leaning against a pipe near city limits, background is overcast and foggy Mill Creek Canyon. 100' to the left, 3 wasps stung my calf-time to go home.

Vocation?

2010-10-07T00:59:00.011-06:00

First house Visitor, slippery snail climbed up the stoop slowly.
Didn't know these things lived above water. Note fingers STILL
grimy from van's emissions system repairs-Finally has UT plates!

I don't want a very serious job for a while, but I should be using my time off to consider what kind of work will sustain me the rest of my life. Part of the Salt Lake City appeal for me is the business scene. There are so many small and mid sized businesses around....some locals actually brag that the economy in Salt Lake City is strong.....diversity is a good thing. Overspecialization, monocultures, and greed driven incorporation leads to a potato (corn) blight scenario. Small companies and producers often don't posess the means or managment niche for my kind of industrial training. In Brainy Boulder Colorado, you basically need a Bachelor's diploma to clean toilets. In Salt Lake, and everywhere else USA, being over-qualified for work is a real concern.

Sugar House Chronicles 3 Festive

2010-10-04T21:21:00.010-06:00

Salt Lake City goes BIG on Halloween. There are several permanent buildings around the city dedicated to haunting visitors during september and October. On my pedal home from Radio Shack (don't ask, it's a van thing), I met Ilene, because I stood in front of her lawn too long, oogling over her Outrageous expression of haunt.

As Ilene waded through the artifical fog, a porch goul broke into song and dance, a festive jingle to the tune of of Rick James' Superfreak. I couldn't leave without documentation of the Lawn Yeti (bumble if you ask me) emerging between two skeletons from Ilene's front yard. This collection began in 1992, quite impressive.

I think I've met each member of the Autozone staff, I'm there at least 4 times each day testing my van's diagnostics codes. I can't register until all error codes go away. My newest roommate told me he registered his auto in Park City to avoid the hassle. I drive my van so darn much trying to comply with the county's smog reduction program, kinda miss actually reducing smog-pedaling. The first successful repair actually made her run noticeably smoother. I just keep telling myself owning old cars and bicycle commuting are worth offsetting the the $20K investment and 8-5-times five-to-lame death cubical requirements of owning a new vehicle.

Sugar House Chronicles 2

2010-10-03T11:16:00.004-06:00

MOVING!! I've been sleeping in my new house for one week. It's been a busy week, meeting new housemates, scouring junkyards for turn signals smashed by new roomie's mom.

Hours after meeting one of my 3 roommates, his mom had an
oops moment with my van, all fixed now.

Cleaning and fixing($10 of rent/hr) the 'frat' house, fixing flat bicycle tires and troubleshooting hubs, cooking a house dinner, trying to figure out who is or is not 'LDS' (morman), why it matters, and if/why/how I can possibly be considerate.

'LDS' is a prominent and influential christian church in Salt Lake City, and many people who do not participate seem afraid. I believe the Mormans are responsible for all the bee hive symbolism around UT, of which I am superficially fond of. Can't figure what seems so taboo about another christian church in the USA, and how adults in general cannot appreicate the company of people who have some differences from themselves, the spice of life?...variety.

Sugar House Chronicles 1

2010-09-26T21:52:00.008-06:00

Morning greeted me with DUNGEON like STALLS
in Sugar House Park,
those doors could hold back a GRIZ

Everybody I speak with about housing in the Salt Lake vally claims the Sugar House District is a great place to live, so that's where my search began. Like most nice places to live, Sugar House is a little more expnsive, so I wavered. After significant searching I found an affordable room advertised on craigslist for rent. What's more is the landlord called me back within 2 hours of my inquiry, and agreed to meet the next morning. Immediately I drove down to the neighborhood and tooled around looking for bikeable routes to the grocery store swiming pool, then van camped in Sugar House park.

Teeth brushed in Whole Foods bathroom sink, failing to squeeze in my early morning swim, hence shower, I nervously approached the house 1/2 hour early.
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Salt Lake Settler 2

2010-09-22T22:56:00.000-06:00

Atop ampitheater, soud of falling water, nearly full moon above, sweatshirt weather. Netting outback the SLC library, free AC jack charging my computer and phone. Belly full of avacado, salt, bagel sandwich topped with monster red delicious. Look up and read: Imagine, Discover, Achieve, Explore, Reflect, Revise, Expose, Listen. What a curious ordering of stereotypically inspiring words. The insprining part is I don't know what it is trying to expose.

What's inspiring me is a few months of free time to condition my body for ski season. I'm into fitness these homeless days, swimming the mile so I can shower. I often wake near Liberty park, with 1.6mi shock absorbing loop of woodchip channel. Though aerobic work rarely ever does me harm, I'm fraid it's the anerobic strength I'm lacking for ski descents these days. Five years ago I would weekly ride the chairlift(treadmill) with telemark skis four hour shifts. I'd ski with some of the best alpine ski patrollers in NY, and keep up. More recently, I can wear out the best of them touring, but after my one lift served day at Loveland this spring I was stupid sore for four days. Before anybody recognizes me at Liberty park I should get comfy being THAT GUY lunging across Liberty, and trembling one minute squats against tree trunks. I love that park! Did you know people still use rollerblades for fitness?

From my brief stint in competetive skiing, alpine racing, I noted a funny phenomenon with ski racers' bodies. Gender stereotypes are crossed. Women who rip are generally big and strong, men who meddle are of average build, but with notable, shapely, g-force bearing hips and thunder thighs. Donning tight suits and helmets, often a pony tail is the best gender indicator of a distant ski racer. I think this trend has a broader appeal among many athletic pursuits. It seems, on average that women are better suited to long distance, endurance, aerobic efforts, while men are on average suited to brute force, sprints of toxic anerobic sweating. Aerobic folks are generally built lanky like distance runners, while anerobic sprinters are thicker and meaty. The two generalizations seem to cross where men are thin and women are thick. Not exactly the beauty and the beast match ups that the fairy tales would have us seeking.
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Salt Lake Settler 1

2010-09-21T20:48:00.001-06:00

When Boulder locals got my response four years ago to the question 'what brought you here', one brow would usually lift at my primary response...'to ski'. In Salt Lake City, my response is the same, but it seems 'for a job' could elicit a similar response from the locals.

ladybugs in this town are gray, bees have enormous texas longhorn antennae.

Nomad, Vagabond, Free Spirit

2010-09-20T20:45:00.001-06:00

In the process of packing for UT, I realized that I couldn't leave behind my extra van seat. It is difficult to justify schleping because I rarely ever cart more than 5 butts in my van, it occupies valuable toy hauling space, and it doesn't work as a stand alone.....until you retrofit feet.

Justified! Dude now has a love seat in tow. Decided to document the van packing process.

2 Van seats out of the way.

futon, 2.5 pair of skis, beach cruiser, 2 extra bicycle wheels, 5 extra tires, clothes, camping stuff.......overall, I'm pretty impressed that all I own basically fits inside the van. Two bikes were carried on the trunk rack. A critical rack strap snapped in nowhere WY. Yup, I'm a road hazard for sure, van didn't corner or track too sportily while packed to the gills. I'm glad I installed helper air springs.

No worries, the strap, better known as my belt, threaded nicely into the hook and saved my two steeds from certain peril. (It could have been the Panasonic's second off of vehicle tumble.)

Bikes still there. Looking into that mirror, I'll certainly miss my front range friends. For the average joe, Boulder/Niwot is kind of like sugar mountain, can't stay there forever. Salt Lake may be larger than any city I have lived in to date. I'm excited to experience diversity, but cautious that I may become clicky with active outdoor folks narrowing my world.

Last Day Pray-er

2010-09-14T19:22:00.006-06:00

I actually captuted this photo today with the econo-phone camera my mom recently replaced. She kindly sent it as a cheap replacement for my reclaimed company phone. On the last climb home this lone mantis was rudely interrupted from a moment of quiet prayer, by my bicycle tire. After poking it with a blade of grass, it voluntarily climbed aboard. It amazes me how the mantis, relative to most insects, is fearless and/or oblivious of humans.

It felt strange leaving work today, on my last day. Despite my best efforts to give adequate notice, work late hours wraping up loose ends, I feel as though I'm somehow letting down the team. I don't believe I am actually better than anybody, but I do now believe I am somehow more capable than the position where I worked. Jobs should begin difficult and get easier the longer you work. Mine just got more stressful as I kept bottom rung work load, while accumulating more specialized responsibilities. Many people who spend a lot of time with me tell me I'm talented, and that I could make big bucks. I shrug it off. I don't believe that I should be rich because I can be. Maybe this is selfish?
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FYRE!

2010-09-08T16:58:00.007-06:00

An impressive composition by Renan Ozturk.
Four Mile Fire from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

It goes without saying that this event is unfortunate, devastating. There are many hazards among the blaze! I HOPE OUR EMERGENCY RESPONDERS ALL RETURN WELL.
In the big picture, most residents are surviving! Missing persons list down to 4. I love to play in wild places, among the unbounded and awesome forces of nature. If I could afford/choose to lose a house in it, I might own a burned house there too. Thanks to public land access; fitness, liesure time, and overall health remain the best real estate investment a person can make. -REV

De Tour De Fat 2010

2010-09-06T01:34:00.013-06:00

Since 2007, when Pete Allan organized a group benefit ride to Tour De Fat, I've been hooked on pedaling to the festival from Boulder. In 2008 I missed out-prolly for work. For 2009 Liz accompanied me pedaling my self constructed freak bike. 2010, I was pleasantly surprised to pedal up with a clan of 5 Boulderites. Saturday @ 715AM, the clan (Gary, Corin, Ryan, Brennan, this guy) assembled from three different directions @ Dodd reservoir (Niwot rd @ 73rd). 45mi and 3 smooth hours later, we met this odd fella by the name of Kid Rock. Plopping down into our shady street median, front row parade seating, the steady flow of 15,000 cyclists, costumed and contrapt-ated did not fail to entertain.

Divine Intervention

2010-09-03T10:47:00.012-06:00

I spent many hours this week preparing to meet up with Troy's classic thursday night ned ride. Monday night was improvised rear axle repairs, tuesday was a successful test run @ Betasso. Thursday I rushed out of work to haul my 'horse' across Boulder County. Leaving from Ned High parking lot with a group of 10 smooth operators, I crashed out in a duffy corner. Getting up laughting, my spirits were quelled by a folded front wheel, crooked handlebars.

Being the philosopher with pestering front tire rub, I pondered during my trail exit back to the van.

Planetary Spun!

2010-09-02T11:04:00.004-06:00

Tuesday night I rode the mon8cog 5 continuous laps around the test track: Betasso Preserve trail without drive problems. Issue resolved, $2000 mountain bike purchase averted! Mountain bike skill and equipment demand seem to undergo simultaneous growth, and I am uncomfortable with that relationship. There is no limit to how many hours of work I can spend paying for a bicycle that I am too busy working/wrenching-on to pedal. (TIME OR SPACE) Insuring an automobile during winter serves some utility, especially if it facilitates winter outings (skiing!). Without a 'horse' to 'cart' to the trailhead, I could do without an auto during summer months...I'm feeling a cycle truck build/purchase.

For the now, I'll be making the most of Front Range Colorado, Off road bicycling, while packing my bags full of excited anticipation for Wasatch Dawn patrols, and Teton NP getaways. Heck, my ID family, Silverton and Moab seem more accessible from Salt Lake City. Anybody ready for ACCESSIBLE ski touring?-flap your wings towards Salt Lake City.

Planetary Spin

2010-08-30T20:14:00.028-06:00

There I was, exploring the local Salt Lake city trails on my visit two saturdays ago. Climbing up a steep rattlesnake Gulch, 25min of profuse sweat in first gear, the excitement of exploring a trail unknown GRRRWWRVVE. My cable suddenly started rubbing on my tire. The bottom line was that I did not get very far (a blessing) and I could not get it repaired and I gave up until 9 days later. Hindsight revealed the proactive solution that could have saved me a stripped axle. Desperate tinkering and spare parts saved me buying a new hub. I probably broke even on the wrench : ride ratio in August.

Stay or Go?

2010-08-16T21:29:00.000-06:00

Epic Front Range Ride

2010-08-14T23:57:00.004-06:00

I'm on call this weekend.....so.....trail riding in cell service is limited to Betasso? After passing kidney stones last weekend, Pete (hippy) Allen was feeling good today. I decided it was time to get Pete out of town for an afternoon. Before leaving, the roommate confirmed my suspicion of Betasso being ride able on Saturdays. Pete used to ride trails in the days before pancreatitis put braces on his legs, and crippled some fingers. The plan was to ride the 3-mile a loop together. I would then ride a fast loop while Pete relaxed at the shady trail head. Sign says no bikes on Saturday.....bummer! So we packed up and drove to Heil Ranch-partially in cell service.

Pete has been riding clip in pedal bikes daily around Boulder for several years, and felt comfortable using his pedals on the trail. We decided the best gear situation would be to put Pete's custom brace-spaced step-in pedals on my mountain bike. I would then "klunk" along on my beach cruiser.

In his predicament, Pete can stand up while coasting, but not while pedaling. I was quite pleased we climbed to the service road crossing for an out and back. For me, coaster brake Klunks on mountain bike trails are usually exciting. Pete enjoyed the forced mental challenge/focus/distraction of bike handling, and steered the bike well.....at least while the wheels were turning.

There's something unique about mountain biking that can foil even the experienced step in pedaler-everybody seems to fall over in their early days of clipped pedal trail riding. Despite several stall out-fall overs, it was obvious he enjoyed being back on a trail. On his final stall out crash, Pete's head found a way around his helmet to a pointy rock. Head wounds always bleed so dramatically, I wish I had snapped a low qual cell photo of bloody Pete, but I was too concerned with concussions and logistics to bother. He got a hand down before/during head impact, and doesn't remember the impact. Despite some minor nausea, his eyes are dilating normally, post ride ice cream was digested. Those head bumps are scary, but I think he'll be okay, better call him tomorrow.

Song of Freedom

2010-08-14T22:41:00.008-06:00

I've been a fan of Chris Cornell's work throughout his various projects, and life has me feeling especially fond of Rusty Cage. Inspired by Bama's Baphomet cycles blog, I decided to randomly post some youtube music videos to my blog space.

In his golden days, Johnny Cash was able to cover it so well. You can actually comprehend the lyrics from Johnny. JC is so versatile, he covered Hurt, by NIN so well also.

In the context of versatility and covers and Johny Cash, I gotta bring up Brandi Carlile's cover of Folsom Prison. It's pretty awesome, almost seductive, to hear a woman's voice so gracefully blast through a song designed for JC's deep pipes.

Folly Fishing

2010-08-14T01:47:00.004-06:00

I just viewed the Worlds Fastest Indian, a film documenting the true story of an amazing low budget feat of human speed on a motorcycle. I was left with a desire to live as the life attributed to Burt Monro. He was so modest, so patient, kind, calm, friendly, genuine and every stranger he met miraculously wanted to help him. Everything just fell into place for him, almost as a consequence of his dedication to the odd quest.

At an economic crossroads in my life, I too, have to wonder, what is the bang I may ride out on? This morning I was thinking about what I would do if I wasn’t at my job. I wondered about my friend Cassie’s attachment to massage, and figured she must have experienced a massage and been inspired to carry on the art. I doubt my first time cleaning up poop was an inspiring experience that now gets me out of bed 5.2 mornings each week.....in the interest of moving forward, what should be?

My foremost folly would have to be skiing. I don’t remember my first skiing experience, but, I do know that ski days are the ONLY days I ever wake up before my roommates.
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Best 2010 Ski Descent

2010-07-20T12:10:00.008-06:00

May 16, Torrey's Peak, NE face-the one you see from the Bakersville exit on I-70. Chris and Aaron Millers and myself were able to skin most of the way up this 3000' face, and enjoy it's rare fertility. Back at the car we watched a dozen more plankers plunge it (they approached from Gray's peak side). An abbreviated version of this film was intended to be viewed at Aaron's Neptune ski mountaineering slideshow, but was somehow forgotten. Chris has been nagging me to publish what I have, here's what I was able to film, maybe I'll own a video editing computer some day, and actually publish crisp videos, I spend so much time on computers, it's hard to commit myself to more. (If you click on the youtube logo, you can watch in higher quality, HD 720P)

BP?.....(click to animate)

2010-07-18T11:24:00.002-06:00

Inspired, Depressed, or Possessed?

2010-07-14T18:29:00.011-06:00

I took a day off tuesday, that's the salary way of getting over time pay, just take a random day off. I shut myself in the shade of the house, it was 100 degrees+ in the sun. Shopping Sturmey Archer for new Beach cruiser internal gear hub, I found a cool revival of the kickback 2 speed coaster! In fine bike geek form I played with Sheldon Brown's RIP, online gear calculator. It was here the obsessing began over the idiotic gear overlap inherent in conventional bicycle drive trains. Sturmey Archer now offers a 3 speed internal gear hub with an 8-9 speed cassette attached, and I got curious. It actually makes overlap worse! I cursed at the engineers who can come up with nothing better than squeezing in more cogs, selling weak, narrow chains, preaching about bicycle weight, etc. Many pencil lead and scap pages later, I put it down with this sketch-a real DaVinci! If I accomplished nothing except wholey distracting myself from work, it was a great success!

Spare Change?

2010-07-09T12:44:00.000-06:00

Times, they are a changin! I've been feeling sort of stagnant in life as of late, complaining a lot about working too much, living in the lonely burbs, etc. Friends, trying to quell my wining, urge me to change something, go out on a limb, move someplace "fun", etc. It is sort of sad when your 'pack' of friends suddenly bunkers down into personal relationships, dissolves, or moves away, etc. (Tanesha and Bama, Chris and Eszter, Redcoat, Liz, Dave T. Cassie, etc. Anxiety urges one to seek distractions from attachments to our friends who have left. Some of this goes into keeping in touch via internet, but this is not the same. It takes some faith to be secure in these times of detachment....I have faith that the natural course of life is change, spontanaety, and that I should roll with it, and that nothing is fuct. My will need do nothing but to observe to find change, spontanaety.... I'm going to complain again, cause after a spontaneous, 60 hour work week, I am under house arrest for yet another beautiful weekend (on call for work), but I'm not letting that stop me from one happy hour sodie & snack @ Gurkhas with Gunbarrel John tonight. If your sewer backs up and you don't like that I responded via bicycle with a sodie on my breath, please A: allow the problem to continue, or B: file a vehement complaint with my manager....change happens ;)
A person can force a positive change by opening the window shades and letting some sun into a room. What changed in this scene? Not the room nor the sun. The person's perception expanded, and adapted to the surroundings.

My New Favorite MTB film

2010-07-07T16:55:00.003-06:00

Red Coat, who just moved his bike to Switzerland, this one is for you.

Mountain bike in Alps from Andre Santos on Vimeo.

APRIL MTB 2010 Film

2010-07-05T23:41:00.007-06:00

Hall Ranch Mountain Biking April 2010 from Evan Mitchell on Vimeo.

3 months later, I finally got around to publishing a film for April. Bama DEMONstrates, in High Definition, the fading art of aggressive hardtail mountain bike riding (Surly Instigator frame is discontinued due to full suspension competition). Hope y'all like it.

P.S. there's buttons in vimeo for increasing the viewing window and for turning high definition (720p) on or off, sometimes you have to wait a while for high def to load, and it can be beneficial to turn it off to reduce skipping.

2010-07-03T09:25:00.005-06:00

Gooney Wedding from Evan Mitchell on Vimeo.

Congratulations Chris and Eszter for getting married and promoting a fun weekend in your new home town of Crested Butte Colorado. Moving to Crested Butte without jobs is a big step, leap of faith. Many of us friends spew skepticism, but really we are just venting a deeper sadness: We'll miss the Gooneys in the front range and we are truly jealous we are not playing with them up there. I'm confident these survivors will thrive anywhere, best wishes.

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T23:03:00.003-06:00

For father I built a special bicycle wheel: It should arrive tuesday. Getting it to the truing stand was accomplished with some help from the beach cruiser and Voile Straps: like duct tape, but less sticky and more reusable. use #42
Actual Events of Dad's Day

1 The weight Loss Program: Some folks like to ride expensive, high maintenance, lightweight bicycles. Many Mericans try to shed living body mass, but I have other methods of sporty looks and increased performance: (I was told thursday evening the Gulf cleanup effort needing hair? -I actually bagged mine, where to send it?)
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Go for a Skim?

2010-06-05T19:50:00.002-06:00

Last Weekend we joked about pond skimming while corn camping in the Never Summers, looks like it's been done!

Sprung

2010-06-01T15:46:00.003-06:00

Here are some bird photos from work

09/TWENTY10 SKI LOG abbreviated (41)

2010-05-10T10:27:00.009-06:00

Last year was 39, could this weekend warrior make it to an even 50 ski days this Colorado season?

HHHHHHiiiiiiiiiiiiiSSSSSSSSSSS

2010-05-06T21:16:00.005-06:00

Been busy this month, working too much, stressing about finding partners to ski nearby mountains when I'm not working, worrying too much about bee survival, and avoiding overprotective goose dads to be. He's undoubtedly angry that the wife chose to nest on the shore of poopy pond.

MARCH 2010 FILM

2010-04-19T21:00:00.001-06:00

POWDERHOARS from Evan Mitchell on Vimeo.

Ladie's Night!

2010-04-16T14:29:00.006-06:00

By ladies I mean thousands of hard working honey bees I'll be adopting this evening. I hope they like the place. I was hoping to shoot and make a film about it. It will be hard to top the one produced by the Fruitguys. If all goes well, I'll have two days before I need to open the hive again, that means I can leave them over the weekend and go play!

Friday night I strapped the ladies to my pack on the way home from work. I bought an entire bag of marshmallows, so that I could use one as a slow release plug on the queen's cage. I felt proud for retrieving the queen cage bare handed, and executing the cork-for-mallow plug swap flawlessly! I didn't lose Queen of my own accord.

CORN HARVEST #1!

2010-04-11T20:09:00.013-06:00

Aaron and myself wait all year for steep corn snow riding. It usually begins, conveniently, at about the time ski resorts start to close down, and mountain skier traffic drops off. That time is near! There was reason to believe (warm/cold daily temp swings, CAIC) that the spring snowpack consolidation was well under way, but not complete. We didn't want to miss anything and decided to get after it this weekend. Not convinced of complete spring consolidation, we decided upon a south facing strategy, with careful timing. The south facing slopes get more solar heating, which means two things. 1 These aspects should have the highest degree of scary-winter-layer consolidation, 2 these aspects are good candidates for the first wet snow slides. So we started fairly early.

2010-04-06T10:24:00.000-06:00

The March film aboot winter backcountry skiing is mostly finished, and is due to premiere thursday evening, 7pm. The place will be Dan Adam's new basement home theatre on 55th st, south of Arapahoe ave, across from the fire station. Please bring some show and tell material if you've got any.

FOCO Weekend

2010-04-04T23:00:00.009-06:00

I went to Fort Collins this weekend to visit my friend Will. At the end of the bike path, next to the wastewater treatment plant, I saw this.....

A relaxing weekend, good timing after an exciting personal relationship was arrested friday evening.
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CU-au-Z-e

2010-03-31T16:28:00.004-06:00

a pair of cousins (Lindsay and Ryann Bagg) visited from the BIG NY this weekend, and brought with them friends from near and far to the house for dinner sunday evening. Ryan, a junior high music teacher on spring break, stayed a little longer, before heading for Nashville today.
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First Animation

2010-03-21T14:15:00.002-06:00

Anatomy of a Chain from Evan Mitchell on Vimeo.

If the Shoe-vel fits.......

2010-03-18T17:47:00.025-06:00

WARNING: Gear Gab.

My frist winter in Colorado I volunteered a few days with the Eldora ski patrol, quit (because I like wearing a beard and riding a bus) and rode my bike over to BCA. There I utilized my freshly expired NSP connection to score a discount on some BCA avi gear. All that kept me from shredding the gnar was some like minded friends and an automobile to access the percieved snowy hills. Four years later I'm lugging around this enormous shovel. It doesn't get used much because of the dreaded repack process.

Bout time for a downsized upgrade. I needed an excuse to keep the US economy going with the purchase of yet another VOILE-USA product.

Allenspark Solitude

2010-03-02T17:00:00.007-07:00

I've ski toured from Allenspark several times this season, only once with company. It seems difficult to get people out ski touring this season. Blame relationships, blame work, blame injuries, blame unemployment, blame snow conditons, but blame is a spectator sport, and I'd rather participate.

Saturday was a bluebird weather day, started up the meadow mtn trail at 8, crossed indian peaks wilderness boundary, then to the RockyM national park boundary a few hours later.
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February's film deadline is dying

2010-02-25T20:35:00.006-07:00

February's work film is running late, in the meantime, here's a little bit of ski video from my first year in Colorado. (actually takes you to photobucket)

Postage Stamp

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Procrastination and Priorities

2010-02-21T00:55:00.002-07:00

Here I am, early sunday AM, still awake because I took a long nap at 4, still have not began shooting my Feb film about work (due in exactly one week). Funny, March's film about skiing already has 7 minutes of rough cut futage. I'm feeling like the last minute college student again, putting off the last minute math homework. I'm even thinking about skiing cell phone accessible Chataqua park tomorrow, which would further advance procrastination. This time that darn teacher setting the deadline and assigning the stupid homework is....yours truly. It seems the hardest part to any project is getting to the starting line. Where to start?

Do I NEED new ski bindings?

2010-02-14T22:26:00.009-07:00

All things wear out. So my favorite US company, Voile-usa has impressed me since I purchased their touring telemark bindings over two years ago. This year I'm enjoying the use of their skis as well. The bindings carry a two year warranty, and 16 days into my third season using the bindings, a non-catastrophic failure occured.

Another Classic

2010-02-07T22:41:00.004-07:00

I had to watch this one twice, Dave Tegart asked me to post it here....Neptune is the Boulder local moutaineering shop where this video was shown following a slideshow presentation on spring ski(snowboard) mountaineering by Dr Aaron Miller. The video was published by Chris Miller and features some video captures by me.

Neptune Show 2009 from chris miller on Vimeo.

So much for Being Humble

2010-02-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

There's a fad going around on the Facebook cyber social network where a status statement is filled with a urban dictionary definition of the socializer's first name. There were a lot of mostly awesome definitions and contexts for Evan, so I humbly put them here.
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Primus - Southbound Pachyderm

2010-01-27T21:29:00.001-07:00

In rememberence of my most recent and locally infamous bicycle creation, I avert your attention to this strange "Southbound Pachyderm" video with artistic value.

Jones Pass December 2007

2010-01-24T22:31:00.000-07:00

I dug this one out of the heap. I've been organizing all my digital video footage this evening. My friend Chris recently started working for a new cat skiing guide service that may serve the area shown in my video. It could be tricky back there, the day of the film, snowmobilers were setting off all kinds of slides in signifigant cirques.
Sorting gets complicated when it was recorded on two different cameras, edited using two incompatible programs, and saved in several and sometimes multiple formats across 3.5 hard drives. Someday...I'd love to learn how to publish it all onto one DVD, but then I'd still have to keep my digital files if they were to ever be used again. I sort of wish I had purchased a good computer and legit software long ago. "I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger"

Capitalism

2010-01-23T10:24:00.001-07:00

This word has weighed heavily on my mind ever since I first learned about it 10 years ago, when my father stubbornly encouraged me to invest my hard earned money into stock, and I stubbornly refused. I found this film addressing the current state of capitalism on Vimeo, and composed a response that I think closely represents my ever present gastrointestial gripe with capitalsim.

Capitalism? from Joe Lister on Vimeo.

Capitalsm has pestered my brain over the last decade. My gut feeling refuses to trust in it, and I'm continually searching for rationale. Capitalism rewards ambitious(greedy) short term actions, I'm a long term thinker. Currently, I feel that short term-get rich quick-unchecked growth is unwise. I percieve a number of problems with unchecked growth: Quality suffers as quantity become priority 1 (nobody wants low quality products and demand/value dives). As big business grows, monopolistic tendencies grow, and the emergence of new adaptations/opportunities shrinks. Stagnation/overspecialization of the overall market leads to extinction. It is not difficult to comprehend the efficiencies of mass production in isolation. Isolation does not represent anybody, as we are all inter-dependent. On a collective, larger scale diversity needs to play a role if capitalism is to "ADAPT" and survive.

Winter Bike To Work Day

2010-01-22T10:24:00.001-07:00

Bike Away From Work Day from Evan Mitchell on Vimeo.

SNOW v GRAITY v HUMIDITY (not wind)

2010-01-08T09:00:00.004-07:00

So this cold spell, December average temp at work was 10F, has been a little sad for me. I miss riding my bike. The calm, bitter cold mornings do have a way with constructing some very beautiful and interesting water sculptures on most any surface. All the photos were taken from work, before any noticeable affect of full sun or wind.