my wknd.

ski season, picked up right where it left off.
Followed my nose to the goods on Friday.
Rinse and repeat on Saturday, but with
new stix. Canaan Valley was a ghost town,
I took advantage, fully. More pics here.

Friday, natural love:

Saturday, rinse & repeat:

hmmmm....

from Dave's weather site:

Nov 25 - Sharply colder with a few flurries overnight, then snow resumed during the morning and continued all day and evening.  Snow fell heavily much of the time from late morning through the evening.  Total snowfall this month so far makes it the second snowiest November in the past 64 years, based on Canaan Valley's official observations.  The most snow ever in November was 55 inches in 1995.

 

(emphasis mine.)

Remember the winter of 95/96?

just saying.....booyah.  ?

(please Ullr, pleazzzzzzzzzzzzze.)

unreal.

so, we've gone from bikes to skis 

with absolutely no interlude, this'll 

help keep off the Holidaze ballast.  

Roundtop opens Friday, might as

well go pick up my pass, maybe 

make a few afternoon turns.

Bro's are here, whoot! sweet flexin'

ski, and light.  G3 Ascents are now 

on the way, just need to find some 

cheap skins.....and a plane ticket.

Gratuitous partial quiver shot:

ya know, nothing beats a good ski tour.  

go out and make it what you want, just like 

a bike ride.  Do what it takes to get out there.

Do some exploring, get turned around but 

never backtrack, cuz you're not really lost, yet.  

Work yourself  into that quiet spot,

find those thin places, stop and listen 

to the trees.  Turn an hourish scouting 

lap into a 4hour loop before succumbing

to the howls of the powder hounds and 

venturing into shin deep windbuffed 

powwypowpow.  Three shaky baby deer 

turns, then get comfortable with gravity

and let the ski work.....ohhhh baby, 

ohhh baby.

Meesnaux, open for season.

from 60's to this....

that was fun.

oh shit!

I guess it's fo rizzle!

hat. is. in. the. ring.

feel like I should write something

witty, or insightful.

vote for ME!

i like beer.

yeah baybee, yeahhhhh

here we go

from NWS, fkna!

This Afternoon: Snow showers likely. Cloudy, with a high near 29. West wind around 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Tonight: Snow showers. Low around 18. West wind between 16 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

Friday: Snow showers, mainly before 4pm. High near 20. Northwest wind around 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.

plans...again.

here we go....I should be prepping ski gear, 

digging thru closets, looking for gloves,

goggles, base layers....but I feel the urge to 

start thinking about next year's "thing to do."  

NUE was this year, it was fun, saw lots of new 

sights, new riding budds met, experiences 

shared, good times.

good times.  

and now I sit here with this idea that's been 

bouncing around for years and I'm absorbing 

maps and pulling up memories and tweakin' 

on Goggle Earth to finally get the ball rolling 

on a connected self supported ridgeline multi 

day tour fest.  figure out the route, arrange 

the shuttle, winkwink Mumbles.  Park the car at B, get

dropped off at A and try to follow a plan to get 

back to B in the time allotted.  Hit it in a few 

3-4day segements, then lay it down from A to B 

to C to D to E.....those fuckers won't let us on 

the AT, time to figure out the alternate.

Uni-tational!!

(photo c: thanks Branch!)Invitational/Unis = good times.

Podiumed for DFL in the Invitational,

3rd to last, 18 something. Trevor kept the

DFL honors in the hometown after stripping

his fixie hub dropping thru the WV gnar.

Timmy R took top dog 6 Packer with a

smokin' 6:30ish run. Dizzam!

I think I won Uni's, depends which lap you count. Qwik pre ride with Tim and Pat, not quite able to finish my HopDevil before the group parade lap. Then a qwik splash of SPARKS! to top off the the tank before we all longingly look at each other and Thomas says Go!

Tim winds it up and I jump onto his wheel. This is gonna be fun! Rippiin' pace into the start/finish chute, happy when Tim checks up a bit before the plunge, hold about 2 bike lengths back, perfect trusting buffer. Hear scrapage and voices behind, herd is thinning. Just watch Tim.

Never had the pleasure of following Tim fixed before. We rode a bit in passing during his fixed hundo, but not together. Now I can only wait until he makes a mistake, which I doubt will happen. Plunge to the park border, slam the left and into the rocky chicane. Pick the line that matches the pedal stroke. Hear more noise behind, then the sensed presence isn't there. Off the front now. Hit some open pedaling, Tim answers the question of how hard are we gonna ride this thang? OHhhhh, we're hammering this shit, ok.

Time to hold on. Just ride smooth and keep on it. ride that 2-4length gap, adjust the pace for the mo and flow, and the loop turns up-ish. Hit a torquey fast corner and Tim's bike makes noise, his pace drops to zero and I see slack chain. Damn, reallly hate seeing that. "Come on, get it and let's go....." I huff out.

Hold the pace steady gunnin', come thru the chute solo for the start of lap 2. Hammer down, keep that pace rolling. Pick the prefered line, or the option, it's all about where the feet will fall. You recognize the height to avoid. You can see where your unavoidable steps fall in 2, 3, maybe 4 strokes out. Pick the line and adjust, constantly, improvise. Sometimes you gotta just slam that pedal and take the hit, just keep pedaling. Hit the climby bit again. Vurp up some odd combination of Spark's and Hop Devil, yummy.

Pedal harder. Avoid the race ending step up and ride the ledge instead, wuss. First coherent thing I hear is Aimee say "One. more. lap." as I hit the start/finish. Number of race laps wasn't quite firmed out at the start, anywhere from 3 to 6 was possible. But this was only lap 3, so it's countin' for sure. Thru the crowd, the pelting begins, empty cans, a splash of Old Mil to the face, refreshing.

Counting the pre rides, this is lap five, the loop is dialed. Options A & B are now known for either left or right approach to the pedal banging bits. Focus and pedal. Hit the fast open corridor, past the shwoopy, breezey pine slap to the right shoulder, then four pedal strokes and into a right hand turn. Four inch barkless log in the apex, slimey. Kicks me a bit to the right, eyes down, wrong. Look up, where's the trail? shit, wtf? where? shit, someone's getting close. what? shit damn, who is that? backtrack, how'd I blow that turn? dumb ass, get back on it and ride perfect.... FOCUS! damn, who's that coming? JB? he's got the motor for sure, but it's his first time fixed...don't look back, just GO! be perfect.

Here comes the Sparks again, urrmm, give it~! urp. Into the trees, tight to the barbed wire, drop the left then take the safe ledge option again, sorry Marty, and sit up thru the cheering chute. "Is that it?"

"One More Lap!" they chant. ok. was that it? Mumbles catches me as I soft pedal past the crowd. Not sure if we're still racing, he latches on and we ride mostly at barely conversational pace...."are we still racing?" I hear. huff, "I'm not sure...." huff..... Now it's an understood 'honest' pace. Work it to keep each other honest, not quite racing at this point, but no gimmee's either. Work the mo and the flow and keep the stomach contents where they belong, keep an ear open to judge the gap, then we hit the spot where Tim dropped a chain. Shhhhwuopff, and I carelessly dump the front end. Sweet grind, but the leaf covered rock eventually took me down. Step off while still moving forward and debate the cost/benefit of being a dick about letting Chris by. Are we still racing? Does it matter?

So, instead of 'clumsily' remounting the bike and blocking the line, he gets by and I latch onto his wheel. No mistakes are made and I follow Chris thru the chute to chants of "One More Lap!" Out we go for #5.....slightly more conversational pace then before, legs are starting to feel it. It's getting dark, bouncing off more and more unseen obstacles. Begin to sense a creaking presence approaching from behind....Jerimiah. He catches us at one of two spots to make a pass. He passes me, up thru some chunky rocks, it's obvious who's been on a few recent CX podiums....but Chris has enough space, holds the small gap and is into the trees before JB, door = closed.

end of lap 5, it's dark, the crowd is boisterous, and I drink a lot of the beers that were handed to me, it's a celebration. 

 Thanks everybody!

must stop.

must. stop. twitching.

skis are in transport

from Canuckistan.

I've peeked at Rockies

early season ski porn.

fuuuuuuck, I want some.

must distract.  fixed up

the Jabber, back home again.

fun Sunday, 'cakes humoring 

me on the front, 'til I'd blow 

up, inevitable.  The flow pulled

at me, that helping hand when

the pitch rolls against gravity.

Brakeless wide eyed wonderment

thru the glades..Ninja pedal skills 

were in effect, but a smidge 

tentative. 

The line easily recognizable.

must. focus.  heading down valley

on Sat for the 6Pak Invitational & 

Fixed Gear Championship of the Universe.

Run what ya brung as usual, spun out 

big mtn slum here we come....  

Hillendale?  gonna freakin' rock 

out with my cock out, how else

can you approach an event of 

such magnitude?  I'm racing for

the Ocean, biatch.  !

time to go work on that 

fucking bottom bracket, 

again.

trigger pulled

found a deal on some blems, 

soft flex, all but new, couldn't 

pass it up, not like I did last April.....

bring on the snow, 125-99-114, sexy.

pillows

yowza, jonesin'.

in threes.

the aborted MeeshowHundo.
the aborted two night trip.
the aborted 9hr attempt.

I heard that Danny Brennan turned a sub 9 fixed up in
Michigan, props, nice work. I cracked, and stoked the
ego instead, Mohican was tough, it was a long year.
100 milers from April thru Sept, a stage race, a super
fatty supported overnight, two unsupported overnights,
two new to me Classiques, handful of other Classiques
and too, too many to count Epiques.

The MeeshowHundo will happen, that's just matter of
swapping an ego stoke pay to play for a solo mission.

The aborted tour, just wasn't in the cards that wknd,
unexpected weather, flat legs and better option for after
the bail won out. Was reaching kinda far and I knew it,
no worries.

9 hours. man, that one gnaws at me. From what I know
of myself, it'll need to be a great day for it to happen.
I'm just not that dedicated. Normal trial and error will
get me close, as it has before, just need a bit more special
aligning of the stars. The route? I think the 101, it's
practically my backyard, the terrain feels like home, is
home. 25 to 30minute efforts with an immediate fall line
hammering, tempo the rest. ran 8:20 free, 9:20 fixed,
drop a tooth and split the difference. Stage race in early
July to set the table, normal prep for that leads to traditional
strength in early June. Time that for the Meeshow effort.

Want to bag few tours early, tighten up that game.
The big goals remain semi-unspoken, more beta
needed. 9hrs? If it happens, it happens, not a focus, ya
know? Short term....those new trails at Raystown
are looking sweet....anybody wanna shuttle me home
from the grand opening wknd next spring, I'll leave
here Thurs eve, meet ya'll out there sometime Saturday.....

anyone?

really?

in an article on Cyclingnews.com,
under the lead picture of theLance
is the caption:

Lance Armstrong will be working on improving his speed and power

yeah, no shit Sherlock.

voted.

longest line to vote that I've
ever been in, an hour's wait.

Normally 10, maybe 15, minutes.

Lots and lots and lots of young faces,

first timers.  Assume they were there

to vote for McPalin.

not!

dinner time, feelin' good.

last blast

caught the tail end of the fall color fest.
leaf season now upon us, over the bars 
a solid four times, lots of hidden holes.

change the vibe

plenty of this on tap for tomorrow....