Back in the Saddle

Last weekend I got tired of fighting the ice and snow on the bike and decided to go snowboarding instead. The northeast has been getting pounded with snow this year and the month of February brought several new feet of the white stuff. We packed the trusty Subaru wagon with all our gear, hit the local coffee shop, and made tracks for New Hampshire.

I should note that I have been on a five year hiatus from the sport and really wasn’t sure what to expect of my skills. The first lift chair was a bit humbling as I watched a bunch of teenagers hurling themselves 20 feet in the air while spinning like an out of control helicopter. I leaned over to my buddy Jim to confirm what I was witnessing and he nonchalantly explained that all the little bastards were doing this stuff now.

I quickly managed to put that image out of my head as I departed the lift, strapped in, and heading down the mountain. The first couple of turns were a bit sketchy but strangely enough I somehow managed to summons my younger snowboarding self and survived the first run with minimal damage.

As my mountain descents accumulated so did my confidence, however the beauty of snowboarding is that confidence has nothing to do with staying upright. The real trick to the sport is maintaining just the right amount of rail pressure; either heal or toe. My half decade of downtime along with a few good runs was no match for this lesson and I quickly found myself doing a 50 yard ass slide. On the good news front my colon has never felt any better as a result of the snow enema.

At the end of the day we managed to log in about 5 hours of snow sliding without incurring any major injuries. All of the recent yoga clearly paid dividends as the aches and pains were surprisingly non existent even days after the ride. Lastly the 2 feet of snow in my ass has all but melted. To commemorate my day on the hill I added some footage of
Jeremy Jones giving some avalanche riding tips.

Lucky #7

Hard to believe that it's already March and this makes post #7. The last few weeks have been challenging from a training perspective as both my wife and I have been battling colds. Feeling somewhat better, I decided that I needed to get out for some spin time just to keep the spirits up.

As usual this week's ride consisted of 2 participants; Steve and myself. The weather was a balmy 42 degrees with no wind in the air. The trail conditions were muddy and slick as the sun rays failed to penetrate through the forest's natural defense. Some might question why even bother heading out if you know that the trail conditions are poor? I guess the best response is that a bad day of riding is still better than a good day on the couch.

Steve and I rode for about an hour and half and spent an additional 20 minutes of unplanned hiking with our bikes on our backs after some poor navigation on my part. The camera is still on the mend, and so there is no pictures this week.

On the good news front, Steve has offered up his video camera which should add some spice to future posts. There is also some ongoing discussion about resurrecting the annual Freetown big bang MTB race however more to come on that in the future. In the meantime, I just wanted to get something out to at least document last week's ride.