Balance

It's March ? for real ? No weather system that has passed through our burg has resembled anything like winter. Not the winter I grew up with anyway...."why, I walked 5 miles each way to the bus stop through waist deep"......but I digress. Perhaps we've swept a nice light, bone dry couple of inches of the white stuff off our sidewalk no more than few times since the solstice. It's so tempting to keep riding, which I've been doing by commuting faithfully and partaking in a handful of lunch break races in Ute Valley Park. The "problem" is I love snow and relish some downtime off the bike to mentally recharge the batteries and change up the game a tad.

This winter has made it soooo easy to clamp on to the out of sight, out of mind mentality and just grab a bike and take in some trail rides vs. a trek to Summit county. The scenario I'd like to avoid is the arrival of Spring and sensing immediate pangs of regret by not snowshoeing, nordic skiing, making snow angels....etc, etc. So we did force ourselves to load up and head for the hills last weekend spending a few days playing with gravity at Keystone and it was all that and more. I grow very tired of the local "natives" returning a quizzical blank stare back to me when I've just told them I just came back from the mountains despite the fact that it hasn't dumped in the last 36 hours. Trust me, the worst ski day in Colorado and still better than most of the best days back East. I've paid good money to sit on a chairlift in the pouring rain back there and don't ever wish to repeat that scene. Be grateful for what your are served, that's the lesson I took with from the East. So, yes the snow at Keystone was not very fresh, but it was white and very very fast and the views didn't suck either.

Apologies for not updating here for the past few weeks...I've got heaps of excuses, work is getting in the way, watching the TOC, skiing on the weekend. Other interesting tidbits of news. I am in the process of building up a beautiful Independent Fabrication Planet Cross steel frame. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this is will be the forth IF I've owned. Thankfully the geometry matches up ridiculously close to the Jamis so will use this primarily as a dirt road bike which is completely necessary in the quiver here and will definitely use it on some super rough courses ( yes, Louisville Rec Center....I'm looking at you ). Also, all around super nice person and former World Champ mountain biker/Colorado Springs resident Alison Dunlap will be returning to the cyclocross scene this fall. We're almost blushing with the stable of cross talent down here ( Gully, KFC, and Alison )

Thanks for reading!
Shotty