Wednesday we went night skiing with my mission friend Rob. Actually we snowboarded. His friend Tony skied. Here's some pics:
Rob gets stylish...taking the big way off...
Ash, Me, and Rob
Ash and I spent the weekend down in Moab this weekend. Here are some notes:
Broken Tent
We pulled into our campsite, started putting our tent poles together and one split. Duct tape got it fixed for the night. Luckily it's a good brand so we'll get a replacement. 
It was such a cold night that we woke up and went to Denny's at like 7 in the morning. After we got warmed up we headed up to Slickrock Trail.
Riding:
Here are some highlights:
Ash did amazing-she decided she would learn to ride clipless on Slickrock trail...which one fellow cyclist called "brave"...2/3 through the ride Ashleigh was calling it "stupid." She had three wrecks...all of which were stalls and not getting unclipped. She found it really humorous when she finished and realized that her chainring had caught her left calf. 
Yup that's on the left one...
Well, they weren't quite $500... that's after tax cost. They have kangaroo leather uppers, custom formable carbon midsole (that means you bake 'em in the oven and they mold to your foot), and boa closure. And they are light!!! and comfy!!! and stiff!!! They are my first new mountain shoes since I bought some AXO's from Racer before there was a Racer's shop, like 6 years ago or so. Nice...
And no, I didn't pay the full $500 for them. Or even close.
Apparently Ash and I only go snowboarding to look good - as proven by these pictures:
Well, this picture proves that Ashleigh doesn't just make poses but actually is a good snowboarder:
I don't know exactly what she's doing, but it looked good and she didn't crash. I crash a lot, however: Watch this -
Okay that was not me. Thank goodness.
This is my brother in law:
He lives in Santa Cruz, CA. It's warm there. Not 55 degrees warm, 70 degrees warm. I'm so jealous. He did a DH race last week. I'm jealous.
Actually, they are the ugliest anythings ever.
Yes, I own some. Ashleigh thought it would be fun to get me the bottoms. I'm not planning on getting the matching top. Now you know what kinda unders I have. Lucky.
The first run of the year happened on March 1st.
Ash
Our boards are pretty dirty now from all the dirty snowmelt.
Our Felts showed up over the weekend. Got Ash's built up Thursday, she's gonna keep it stock. It's got a good setup so why mess with it? Because it's fun. These are only the third and fourth brand new bikes I've ever bought - and mine was the first time I ever parted out a brand new bike. My upgrades are going to be:
Sram X.0 Twist shifters
Sram X.9 rear derailleur
Cannondale EX2 crankset - 29/44t
Sram Force front derailleur
Formula Oro K24 disc brakes
Sram 990 cassette
I'm also going to have to something about the bars. The riser bar is super narrow and is an uncomfy bend. I don't want to go all Geoff Kabush wide but a comfy bar is a necessity. I think I'm gonna need a 400mm seatpost too. New wheels are on the list but probably won't happen this year.
Well hopefully the new stuff will get on it in a couple of weeks and the riding can begin!
I went on my first group ride of the year. First real ride of the year. I know, I suck. Anyway, I went 40 miles and had a blast. It's great to go riding with buddies. I was on my cross bike, and as a personal note to my friend/rival/teammate, who is in shape, my ride was tougher than yours because my rear brake was rubbing the entire ride. True. You can ask Racer. It was driving him crazy. Hopefully I will go many more group rides. They are fun. And cool.
The way it's been snowing I was dying to ride today. Luckily it snowed enough that Ash got school off since the canyon was closed all morning. After class I hit up Sundance and had amazing boarding all afternoon. 17 inches of fresh pow-pow changes the entire face of sundance. What's more, is the high winds kept blowing the snow over into bishop's bowl, making for fresh tracks almost every ride. The highlight was cruising down Bishop's with the sun to my back, watching my shadow disappear as every curve sent 50 foot dust trails behind me. Amazing, picturesque day up at Sundance. Knee to thigh deep powder won't make me complain.
I daresay that I may no longer be the killer hiller. I know, it hurts me too. I weigh more now than I ever have, and I've been on, like, 5 serious road rides in the last six months. The only justification that I have is, that, at least I haven't been sitting on my couch all six months. I have gotten some sweet downhill biking in, raced 4 cross races (no I didn't count those as the serious rides), and learned to rip it on a snowboard.
That said, last weekend I was down at Brian Head with my family. We had a swell time in a chill cabin, and Ash, my cousin Jeff and I had a sweet day of riding. We found this cliff that appears below in video. Keep in mind that this is about the worst angle possible of it and makes it look kinda lame, but this was a 5 footish drop to 60 degrees from horizontalish landing. We rode it all day.
I had a great time, finally feeling comfortable and good at snowboarding. On the last run of the day however, I got eaten alive... by the mountain.
Ash and I were cruisin down and ended up in the terrain park. Ash took off and hit a nice 3 foot step-down kicker and sped away, leaving me up at the top, debating what I should do with the rest of my life. Should I hit the jump, and die a terrible death? Or should I skip it, and live my life out as the world's biggest wimp? Of course, I chose the first, and unfortunately for my bum bum, did not die. I hit the jump at a good speed, at least I thought ( I had no clue, I've never hit a jump before), and next thing I knew, My butt was below my board and my board was sideways. Oh, and I was falling from the sky six feet above the icy sheet of snow. Ouch. Pain shot from my bum through my leg. I limp-boarded to the lodge and was glad it was time to go home. I sat on the couch the rest of the day and watched X-Games athletes make my jump look like a little anthill.
Anyway, just so everyone who misses me on Saturday group rides knows that I'm not just sitting on the couch, here is proof that I'm not just making this snowboarding thing up. Try not to laugh to hard.
For about the last month I have felt guilty of not bike commuting. It doesn't matter that it's only 15 degrees when I leave in the mornings, or that it has been 15 degrees or snowing when I leave school. I rode in that stuff last year, and now for some reason, "having class" is a reasonable excuse for not riding. Well, yesterday morning, I felt like biking the 8 or so miles to school. It wasn't that cold, or that far in the cold, for that matter. But I drove. Walking outside and turning a key and riding in a warm car is so easy. Well, in possibly the most guilt-striking moment of my life, I saw a fellow cyclist/friend/rival/bowling instructor/only one who reads this blog riding to school as I parked my car. Wow, I thought, That looks cold. Good thing he only lives 4 blocks from campus. And that's what I told him. His reply was, and I quote: "Not to split hairs, but its actually 4 miles..." Oh crap, I thought, during the second most guilt-striking moment of my life, he just moved... So that afternoon, I decided that I would not be outdone...
I decided I would commute to work. And this is how, fellow cyclist, I outdid you:
1. You were on your XC 29er. A nice, efficient bike. I rode my 35 pound, inefficient downhill bike. I even switched the propedal off. My tires weigh more than your tires and wheels.
2. Your bike has an efficient body position. My low seat position is comfortable, but far from efficient. It is also bad for my knees.
3. I was wearing more clothes than you were. I had no less than 5 layers on the top. More layers equals more weight. Plus, being so bundled up and working so hard on my inefficient bike made me sweat a lot.
4. You probably only had the books you needed for the day in your messenger bag. It looked pretty empty to me. I had all of my textbooks, and my laptop in my bag.
5. You were riding on the road, where the snow had cleared. Friend, that is what road bikes are for. If you commute on a mountain bike you should be willing to ride in the snow crud on the side of the road. I did. In fact, I aimed for it. I also took a trip through the park and 8 inches of snow on the grass.
6. Okay, rival, do you see that I'm tougher than you now? My commute was so difficult. Of course I'm going to leave out the fact that my commute to work is 1.1 miles long. We will leave out the fact that you have probably ridden more this week than I have in the last six months. We will leave out the fact that you could crush my body with your bare hands, and leave it on the side of the road, bloody and mangled, and of course that you could shove my face into your cogs and then use my teeth as decorations on your bike. We will leave out the fact that you have more bikes than I do spokes, and that you somehow figure out how to ride them all. It would be neat if you could ride them all at once.
Yes, fellow commuter, you are tough. And you have inspired me. I am going to commute to school too. Then my commute actually will be tough. I'm going to train. And lift. Then, if I'm lucky, I may be quick enough to eat your dust, instead of lagging so far behind that it has already settled.
P.S. Friend, I am saving my pennies, one at a time, so I can someday own a 29er too. Then I will be a little bit more like you.
Now if that doesn't sound appetizing I don't know what does. How did I ever discover this delicious combination? It all started in 2006 at the Utah Summer Games Stage Race. My best cycling friend, Dan, and I headed down there for a great time. Anyway, after the hillclimb Thursday night we went for some food. We were camping so we decided to get some bagels for breakfast. Then one of us came up with the great idea of getting slim fast for some extra calories. Well, it worked. That next day we traded off wins and second place finishes in the crit and time trial (And yes, I outsprinted Daniel Nelson! I will never forget this moment since it was the first time it ever happened and the last time it ever will). However, Dan puked at the TT while eating a bagel. Gross. Next day at the road race both of us bonked. Slim Fast is gross.
Anyway, fast forward to 2007 12 hours of sundance. When we were registering a couple weeks before the race, I joked "I'll bring the slim fast" The joke was on us, because by the end of the race, most of the slim fast was gone. In fact, a case minus one can of slim fast was gone. No wonder I felt sick the entire day.
Well this morning, as I was running late for class, I realized I was starving coz I had only eaten a bagel for breakfast. I wouldn't have panicked but we were doing group work and I didn't want to be the hungry group grouch. I saw the one remaining can on the fridge and guzzled it down. Now I don't feel good. Slim Fast is gross. Very gross. And it doesn't get you skinnier, especially when you supplement your diet with it. Just don't buy it. Avoid those old tin can shakes!
Yuck.
Helmets save lives. If anyone doesn't believe me, they should be shot. Or allowed to ride until they find out firsthandedly that helmets really do save lives. Either way they'd die.
Let me tell you about my history:
1- When I was in 2nd grade I crashed on my 70's style bmxer going down the wordperfect hill in Orem. I was trying to keep up with dad. I broke my jaw, got stitches across my chin, and had 3 inch square road rashes on my elbows and knees. Luckily, I was wearing a kiddie helmet and the top half of my head... and more importantly the grey stuff inside, came out unscathed.
2- I was riding on the road when I was 18. A big, lifted pickup stopped at a stop sign, and I had the right of way(it was a 2 way stop). The driver "thought I was going slower than I was" and went, right as I crossed in front of him. Luckily for my body, his front wheel got to my rear wheel right as I hit the grill of his truck. Lineman style. (Football and bikes mix like oil and water). Unluckily for my head, his front wheel got to my rear wheel first and whiplashed my head to the ground. Helmet cracked in two, I walked away unhurt.
3- Wakeboarding, post mission - crashed head first, board came around and caught the back of my head. Stitches. Also happened to my sister and my cousin within 1 year. Helmets are cheaper than stitches.
4- Sundance Spin, Intermountain Cup 2006 - I was leading the sport category. Endo-ed on a sketchy descent landing on my head. Finishing second with a cracked helmet is better than a bloody concussion (as in a concussion and a lot of blood, not as in "I'm English").
Which brings us to now. I know, I know. By now you're all thinking that I should be a rep for Bell, or at least a spokesperson. Before I go any further, I'm not saying helmets are for every occasion. One time I went golfing with my cousins and my aunt made one of my cousins wear a helmet ( he was suffering from a very serious concussion). Now, I don't think that's necessarily necessary, but a lot of times helmets are good. Biking, wakeboarding, longboarding, motorcycling, racing cars, playing football, snowboarding, etc. are all good sports to wear a helmet during. This brings us to...
5-Now, I wouldn't have imagined wearing a helmet snowboarding, but my wife insists. Good thing too, since I avoided two concussions this weekend by wearing one. First, I caught an edge at Sundance on rough snow that was underlying the 3-4 inches of nice smooth powder. And landed on my head. Second, I hit a sweet jump at Park City on Saturday but the tail end of my board caught a branch during takeoff, whipping, again, my head into the ground. The second one hurt worse than the first, and I almost decided to walk down the mountain. I didn't. I boarded the pain away. I still thought I had a concussion, even when I got home. Which reminded me again of why helmets are good.
Helmets are good. If you still don't believe me, well, then you should. Helmets are good. Do you believe me now?
Ya know that old Barenaked Ladies song? Do you remember the BNLs? They were the type of band that would have been really cool to BYU students back when the Counting Crows were cool. (CC still are cool. These guys aren't) Anyway, I had this song stuck in my head when I was searching for The March by Kymani Marley on iTunes. I didn't know who Kymani Marley was either until he opened last week at the Van Halen concert I went to. End's up he's Bob Marley's son, and he rocks it reggae style too. Anyways I downloaded the million dollars song and it comes on shuffle every now and then. Here's what I'd do with my million dollars:
1. Buy a Look 595, and a Look 986 and a Yeti 4x.
2. Buy my wife a Felt Redemption and a Bianchi Lei Silvia
3. Buy a pair of Mazda 3 hatchbacks.
4. Geez, that's like only $150,000 tops. I'd definitely give 20% of it to different charities(one of which would be the Charity for Dan Nelson going Pro)...
5. Help fund an indoor velodrome (it's cold outside and I would be riding right now on this track), and buy a track bike
6. Invest the rest so I could buy a house when I know where we want to settle down.
7. Hire a coach so I'd feel bad about not training.
oh yeah,
and I'd be rich.
Yesterday I had the morning off so I headed up to Sundance. I got a few good runs in on bad snow but I learned a lot. I'm trying hard to concentrate on the basics. Today Ash and I hit up Snowbird. One thing I got over this week was crashing. I decided I'd just need to crash sometimes. So I crashed a lot. But now I'm trying to make good turns and riding well and not getting intimidated. Ash hit a few cool jumps which are inspiring. I'm excited that I'm getting more and more comfortable, and even more excited that I've already been to three resorts!
enjoying our "costs its weight in gold" food at Brighton
My Trance is becoming a little more hardcore this week. I sold my double (22/32/bash) crankset a couple weeks ago when I thought I was going to sell the Trance in order to cut costs on repairing the fork (which I am now completely rebuilding). So I decided to take the opportunity to put a single with a chainguide on th it. I bought a RaceFace Evolve DH crank, E 13 chainguide and also decided to get rid of the Saint derailleur and put on SRAM X9. Getting everything all set up was very frustrating but hopefully will be worth it in the end.
Here is the BB with the ISCG adapter going on. Got to love that Gold, baby! I ended up having to put the adapter (which acts like a BB spacer on 68mm BB shells) on the inside of the other spacer in order to get the chainline. This made for some clearance issues with the linkage and I had to file down the backside of the adapter. All of this by trial and error of course...
RaceFace's downhill cranksets have extra 1mm spacer that go on the spindle, which you can move from one side to another in order to line up the chainring and the chainguide. This was frustrating, because the spindle fit into the BB cups like... well, it didn't fit. It needed some love taps to get in. And out. And in again. And out and in over and over. Anyway, the white guide and bashguard look sweet with the white frame, much better than the "black hole" look I had going before.
Ahh!!! SRAM... I love it. After riding my bro-in-laws SX with SRAM X0 I was sold. I got the X9 stuff and it shifts better than my Saint stuff ever did... thank goodness, since the Saint stuff shifted like crap! You'll notice that there is still part of the old Saint RD holding the wheel on. The Saint derailleur mounted to the axle and held the wheel tight. The threaded nuts needed to replace this upper part are impossible to find, so this fat piece will have to do... until my DT RMS quick release comes in.
Here's the back end view. The derailleur was easy to brake apart but the upper piece still needed some "machining" (hacksaw and file) to clear the SRAM derailleur. Yes, that's an 11-21t cassette. Only for die-hard roadies. I think I'll end up with an 11-26 on here.
As you can see in the top photo, there is a rag sticking out of the top right of the fork. That is where the damper goes, which is still awaiting it's rebuild. Looks simple enough, but the guys at Fox told me it was almost impossible to do well. Well, after that chainguide mess, I'm feeling pretty invinsible, so we'll see how it goes. To bad I'm gonna have to wait for winter to end to test ride this all....
I've had two cross races so far this year, my first race up in Heber went well, I got out a bit slow and ended up passing people the whole race finishing 9th.
The next week at RMR was nuts. A crash at the first barrier - and a resulting brake problem - took me down from the top 10 to last. More trouble came a lap later, when my shoe came undone and I got pushed into a pole holding the course tape. Two setbacks set me way back. I set a goal to pass at least one person a lap and ended up 14th out 28 finishers.
It's been a slow week for me, school's been taking over my riding time. I did get out a few days and am planning on a great 4+ hour ride tomorrow, and a twilight ride tonight. I did however get my mountain bike built up again as a single speed and had a great ride on it last Saturday. I forgot how fun mountain biking is.
I feel bad that I don't get to post a new picture of my 2007 race bike, coz I'll be riding the same one this year, but I'm happy that I get to get a few upgrades, probably drivetrain stuff, but possibly some carbon tubulars if I find the right deal. Mostly I don't care, I just want to race and ride as much as possible.
Today we had a team ride at Elevate in Orem, which is an awesome facility! They had about 8 computrainers that we all rode on while watching the '06 tour on the projection screen. I rode about 2 hours which was about all I could handle. I was riding single which meant I really relied on trainer resistence, which the computrainers were great at. After about two hours I went out with Matt to do hills. Unfortunately, with my gear ratio I couldn't make it up the steep foothills in Provo we planned on doing. So we did some smaller hills, 9th east a few times, and then came back home. It was a good ride but I think I'm going to put my gears back on. 
Well, here we are in the middle of an abnormally cold January, where it hasn't gotten above 20 for a week. Sometimes you just have to get out and today I couldn't resist. It was only 10 degrees so I bundled up and went out. I only had time for a 45 minute ride, but at the end I was still warm enough to keep going . . . which measn I'll have no problem getting out in this insane cold anymore! I was out on my road bike that I've got set up as a single speed right now. I've got it at a 50 x 18, which is a great all around gearing.
