Killing Butterflies
· Jun 25, 11:32 AM
Butterflies are actually kind of big. When you hit many of them at 35-40mph descending on a bike they hurt a little. Not a bad kind of hurt, but I wouldn’t want to take one in the face.
Nice Weather
· Jun 9, 06:29 PM
We’ve had some really phenomenal weather here recently. Rain for 3 or 4 days last week including a couple of good thunderstorms. But that was nothing compared to this afternoon. Today was one of those rain-and-hail-bouncing-off-the-pavement-and-the-sky-turns-dark-at-2pm sort of storms. Awesome.
In Search of Snow
· Jun 7, 03:11 PM
Ever since last Spring’s epic crust cruise, I’ve wanted to go back to McKenzie pass and ski more of the lava flow. In particular, the North Side and Belknap Crater looked so wide open and fun. I almost went last weekend, but was turned off a bit by the warm temps. When Lars floated the idea of going out there yesterday afternoon I was immediately interested. When I woke up this morning to see an overnight low of 38 in Sisters and 34 up at Bachelor I was, as they say, all in.
We decided that since the road is currently open to bikes but not cars, we would make it a proper adventure and ride up to the snow with our skis on our backs.
Pictures, Crust Skiing and PPP
· May 27, 09:29 PM
Given the spectacular days of skiing we’ve had for the last three weeks I really should have a bunch of pictures to post and make you all jealous that you haven’t been getting up to Bachelor frequently. But I don’t. Fortunately a lot of people have been here skiing the last 10 days (thank you for the grooming USST) and they have the pictures to prove it.
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Spring Time
· Apr 19, 03:37 PM
Sorry to have been away from the posting for a while. I got myself a twitter account, and while I can’t say I’ve been prolific, the little bit of muttering I’ve done has seemed to sap the energy I would normally devote to the blog. Or it could just be that I’m lazy.
Today was the second warm day of spring here in Bend, though with temps heading above 80 tomorrow, it might be less like spring and more like summer. In fact the whole week has been pretty nice, and I’ve been able to get out and enjoy it a little. I got in two days of Alpine skiing (trying hard to make the spring path worth the $129, I haven’t figured out what my goal should be in terms of runs or vertical, but since Bachelor let’s me track both, I figure a goal is in order… please offer suggestions in the comments), a short run (did my legs ever feel shaky after that one!) a crust ski on the Bachelor trails yesterday and a bike ride today. Pretty excellent really.
I think tomorrow I may try to re-acquaint myself with paddling in preparation of the upcoming multi-sport event that grips Bend with a wild fever. If anyone has or knows of a TT bike in town for me to borrow, I’m all ears.
Back to work this week, and I’ll do my best to stay active. Training starts up again for real in about 10 days, so it would be good to be ready. Just have to come up with a good plan for the year between now and then.
Wax of the Day: Skate Skis
· Jan 12, 09:50 PM
And no, I don’t mean skate skis in the sense that I meant last week. In Alaska LF6/ZR1 on my best skate skis gave excellent kick out of the track. Here, well, skate skis are the wax of the day because trying to classic ski is practically a waste of time. No one ever said waxing was going to be easy at Whistler Olympic Park was going to be easy, but the last couple of days have been downright ridiculous.
Cold and Dark
· Jan 1, 11:45 AM
I was off the plane for just over 16 hours before I saw any natural light. We got sunrise proper this morning at 10:15 or so, were skiing by a little after 11, back to the house around 1:30, had some lunch and relaxing and now it’s basically dark. Short days up here without the sun. Welcome to Alaska.
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