Last Chair: 7/22/11

Okay, here's my tweets for the week. If you want to get this stuff in (semi) real time, follow me on twitter. And for that matter, friend me on facebook (where my presence is a little more family oriented and sometimes political). Here we go:

The Famous Internet Skiers have been busy, posting this report and this report, both from Utah.

I was into some of the more "intellectual" posts this week. Here's a post from someone who came back to bicycling after a long hiatus, only to find it drastically different. And here's a post on "getting back your inner ski bum" by patronizing local mountains and helping local people.

And here's a funny internet post that leads to a funny thread.

Video this week is from Nimbus Independant (there's a skippable ad at the beginning). If you like Rap music and huge air, then this is for you. If not, the Meatheads teaser must be coming out soon . . .


More Ski Videos

The Secret of Golf

My grandfather had two rules for golf. The first rule was “miss ‘em straight”; meaning, if you hit a bad shot, at least make sure the bad shot was in the general direction of the target. The second rule was “learn how to listen to the grass grow”. That one was a little bit more complicated. I guess I could have chalked it up to general weirdness (he also suggested washing your hands with “hot soap and water”), but I really think it was meant as more of a statement of grand philosophy.

I’m not someone you would call “relaxed.” I’m always thinking, fidgeting, or thinking about fidgeting. I like to be constantly bombarded with stuff – information, music, pictures, stories, etc. It’s not that I can’t relax (I relax with the best of them). I just seem to do a lot of stuff while I’m relaxing. Last night, after I got done mowing my lawn, I decided to just lay out on the couch. Before I knew it, I was drinking a beer, watching the Tour de France on TV, flipping back and forth to the Mets game, facebooking, texting Ace, and browsing internet message boards. Not exactly the tranquility that I had in mind. Since golf is a lot like life (but more complicated), I really have to teach myself to listen to the grass grow when I’m not on the golf course (since I seem to have learned to do it on the course – 37,38,38,38 for my last four 9’s).

One of the things that helped me this year is not dwelling on my last shot. It’s awful easy to screw up your next shot because you’re thinking about how horrible the previous shot was. In golf, your mind works better when it has a short memory: logical forgetfulness. The way I got there was a bit of a mental shift. Instead of thinking “I’m in this damn bunker because my last shot was so shitty”, I’ve started thinking: “Here I am in this bunker, how can I get this shot close?” It’s not a very drastic change, and it can easily be applied to other areas in life. Instead of thinking, “Damn, my relationship sucks because of this shitty thing I did”, it’s better to think: “Okay, here’s the situation I’m in now, how can I make it better?” The quicker you can make the transition from reflection to preparation, the easier it is to move on.

Another thing that has helped me this year is that I always make sure that I’m well fed (usually a sandwich before the round). And I always have a beer around the 4th hole. Somehow it’s easier to listen to the grass grow when I’m not starving and sober. Ace will tell you, when I’m hungry, it’s like a Snickers commercial. Also, it has been found that heavy drinking is more healthy than totally abstaining from drinking, possibly because of social reasons. So who’s up for a margarita!?!?

Finally, right before I swing, I think to myself: “It’s perfect”. I don’t know if this actually does anything, but I generally find that if I have a bad thought – “I’m going to slice it into the trees”, “I’m going to chunk this chip 2 feet in front of me”, “I’m going to hit it in that pond” – it almost always comes true. So, I figured that the opposite couldn’t hurt. I think this seems to work for me off the course as well. When I have a bad feeling walking into a casino, I generally lose money. But when I expect to win, I seem to do pretty well. I think this is one of the reasons that people accepted “The Force” as a possibility in Star Wars. The mind is pretty powerful, and it doesn’t seem too far fetched to believe that an enormous intergalactic planet-sized space station can be destroyed because some teenage kid trusted his “feelings” on the final shot.

I don’t really think that these steps are what my grandfather had in mind to improve your golf game. Otherwise, he would have just said that the secret is a short memory, food, confidence and alcohol. Wait a minute . . . Maybe that is the secret to a great golf game!! And a great date! For that matter, it might be the secret to a great business meeting, wedding, bowling tournament, poker game, bachelor party, sporting event, or parole board hearing! I mean, sure, this type of lifestyle might turn us into a nation of fat, forgetful, overoptimistic drunks, but some people would say that we’re already there. Which brings me back to the Grandpa’s first rule: As long as we’re going in the general direction we want to go in, it’s okay to miss every once in a while. Just make sure your next move is perfect.

Trip Report (MTB): Pine Hill Park - Rutland, VT

After 50 miles on the road bike on Saturday, we got back in the woods on Sunday. Pine Hill Park in Rutland is a great spot for us for a couple of reasons:

1. It's in easy day trip range, less than two hours from our house, and about an hour from our friends' house
2. The fast, flowy trails are a nice change from the rooty, rocky technicality of SMBA (which has been in great shape lately, by the way).

After a sweet breakfast at the Big Apple Diner, we pulled in around 11:30. It was hot. Really hot. And the way that Pine Hill is set up, you start climbing from the parking lot, and don't stop climbing until you get to the top right corner of the map:

We rode up and up and up (Lower Ledges to Upper Ledges to Droopy Muffin to Jersey Turnpike to Strong Angel to Stegosaurus).  When you finally reach the top, you're rewarded with a pretty sweet view:

We were glad to be done climbing for a while, though.  It was time to play.  We rode Overlook to Underdog - a fast descent with some fun features.  Then we climbed up Salamander to PA4J (really fun going from north to south).  All the trails were well marked and fun to ride:

They have a bunch of really cool bridges:

We rode Lonely Rock, Rembrandt's Brush, Halfpipe (favorite trail there), Sisyphus, Svelte Tiger, Vista Trail, and then we started making our way back down.  We got a lot of miles in, but it only took us about 2 and a half hours.  Must be getting a little faster.

Not much else to say about Pine Hill, except that it's pretty perfect for families, beginners, or just people looking to take a hiatus from breaking their bodies on crazy technical rocks.  I had the GoPro with me, so I shot some footage and made a little video.  I'm thinking that I'm going to start bringing my video camera mountain biking, just so I can get some different angles to break up the monotony if I decide to make a year end video.  Anyway, here's the vid:

Last Chair: 7/15/11

Slow week on the old internets, but here's a couple of links that I found interesting (and posted on my twitter feed - which appears on the right).

Here's one that I didn't put on the feed: A really cool Trip Report from skiing Mt. Shasta over the 4th of July weekend.

For biking links, I liked this shirt from the Tour de France and this Trip Report from the Dolomites.

And for life/motivation: here's 29 life lessons learned from travelling the world.

Video this week is the teaser for the Tuckerman Ravine segment of the upcoming Warren Miller movie.  looks like they got some pretty good shots:

Edit: Damn embed isn't working . . . Here's the link, I'll fix mine when they fix their embed code.

Trip Report (MTB): Millstone Hill - Barre, VT

I seem to do a lot more mountain bike Trip Reports than skiing Trip Reports. I think there's a couple of reasons: 1. Most of my ski days are at one mountain, whereas my weekend mountain biking trips are a little more varied (on weekdays, I stick to the Stables) and 2. I'm still kind of new to this mountain biking thing. So these places might be kind of old hat for some people, but for me, they're new and exciting. Anyway, on with the report:

We decided to make our excursion to Millstone a day trip, which, as it turned out, was pretty ambitious. We drove the 45 minutes up to our friends' house, loaded our bikes into the big pickup, and drove 2 and a half hours to the trail center, pulling into the parking lot at around 12:30. The shopkeep seemed pretty cool, and directed us to "an easy sixteen mile loop that you can do in about 3 hours". The route was highlighted on the trail map, and marked with arrows the whole way around. We said it sounded good, geared up, and started riding. The initial climb was a little steeper than we expected, but we were rewarded with a pretty sweet view.

The fun part about this trail system is that there were several points like this - places to step off the trail, relax, and check out a sweet view.  Then, it's right back to singletrack:

Lots of fun trails, and lots of up and down (more than we're used to at SMBA).  There's some fun little spots to explore, including the Black Lagoon:

And the Green Lagoon:

The really "cool" parts are the areas on the trail map marked with a snowflake. In these areas, a breeze blows through old mine tailings that retain snow and cold from the winter (even in July!). Nice cool down on a hot day.  We cruised around the southern part of the map on a really cool trail called "Fellowship Ring".  Plenty more views:

After riding Boiler Maker (fun) and TNT (technical, some hike-a-bike, but doable if we worked hard at it), we had done about 8.5 miles of the 16 mile loop, and it had taken us 3 hours.  

We decided to just ride a little more, doing Zig Zag (a fun downhill trail) and Froot Loop, then heading back to the trail center.  First, though, we had to stop at Inspiration Point:

All in all, we did 10 miles in about 3 hours and 45 minutes.  Not bad, but I don't feel like we even put a dent in the map.  I  really want to go back and ride the northeast corner of the map, and there's some newer trails (like Rollercoaster) that look totally sick.  After riding, we drank some Maple Soda as a recovery drink:

To really get into this place, we need to spend a couple of days here - riding about 6 hours a day.  Apparently, there's a Bed & Breakfast in town with rooms for $40 a night.  Definitely have to put it on the calendar this fall.  On the way home, we stopped at the Inn at Long Trail for food and Guinness.  Here's a black lagoon I can really get into:

Brilliant!

Last Chair: 7/8/11

Well, I missed another week.  Pshhh, whatever.  My twitter feed appears on the right, and this is the part of the week when I review my favorite links (most of which I just put up because I've been so busy).  Here we go:

I liked the idea of listing the Greatest 5 Moments in your life (inspired by this post).  These two bike photo trip reports (one road, one mountain) inspire me to go create some moments for my list.

This post is so awesome, it mad me mad.  Hot chicks, skiing, live music, and partying.  God, I miss skiing . . .

There are new teasers out from Matchstick, Level 1, and TGR.  The downloads are pretty slow, though . . . I must not be the only one missing skiing.

The video for this week, however, is the documentation of an epic trip. This is the kind of life changing experience that could make a top 5 list.

Bikerafting Alaska's Lost Coast: Yakutat to Glacier Bay. from lacemine29 on Vimeo.

Passion

I’ve been thinking a lot about “passion.” What is it that makes someone passionate? How do we increase passion? Why do we lose our passion? Who are the most passionate people we know? What are they passionate about, and why are they so passionate about it?

Some of the most passionate skiers I’ve met are people who came to the sport later in life. I don’t know if it’s about “making up for lost time”, or just trying to get better at a new sport, but a lot of people who started skiing in their 30s, 40s, or 50s are out there every time I’m at the mountain – learning, evolving, progressing. When they feel like they’ve gone as far as they can go, they take a lesson to try to move up to the next level. When they have an injury or a setback, they come back from it even stronger than before. They start out as non skiers, move on to become gapers, progress further to become average weekend warriors, and then start touching the higher echelons of the sport.

I feel like I’m going through this evolution with mountain biking. The first time we went, Ace and I looked at each other and said “Is this what mountain biking is like?” “It’s so hard!” “Why are we so bruised and broken?” But, for some reason, we kept at it. Now, I feel like I have really developed a "passion" for it. When I see a tough section, instead of looking at it with dread and despair, I see it as a challenge. I want to be good enough to ride it. I want to be stronger, too. Road bike rides have gone from a way to get exercise to mountain bike-specific muscle training. I’ve been reading books and watching instructional videos trying to refine technique.

But WHY? Why do some people develop a passion for something, and other people find it to be just another enjoyable activity? After our first ride, Ace and I could’ve just said “That was fun”, and relaxed for a couple of months – similar to the people who ski once or twice a year, put the skis away, and move on to other things. But we didn’t do that. We rode again later that week. And twice the next week. And three times the week after that. Now, we ride our mountain bikes every weekend and a couple of times during the week – just like skiing.

I was thinking about this when I read an article on the Independent Fabrication Custom Bicycles blog. After recounting a harrowing crash during a 214 km “Gentleman’s Race”, the author (“G.”) spends some time in a hospital and reflects on why people push themselves the way they do. What is it that drives people (especially those in the industry)?

In my career in the outdoor and bike industries I've observed two types of folks: those that are in the space, and those that are of the space. Those that are in the space are there because at one point they may have been active participants in the sport, or they may have just been intrigued by the equipment or allure of the sport overall, but for these folks it is just the way that they make their living, not the way that they live their life.

Those that are truly of the space are a different breed, and I would argue more successful for it. They are there because it is the way they choose to live their life, and the making a living part is a gift with purchase... the marriage of passion with purpose.

I may have reached the point where more often than not I am going to be the slow man, but I refuse to give up and just be in the space. If I don't actively participate, meaning if I don't actually ride, and try to ride as hard as I can, then I am not truly of the space. My purpose will lack passion, and I might as well go do something more lucrative.

And so, I will get back on the bike as soon as I can, albeit with a new helmet, and still unwilling to accept my role as the slow man.

To truly be “of the space”, you have to have passion. Drive. Desire. After 25 years of skiing, I still have that passion. I still pore over trip reports and watch ski movies (I even put one on the other day after I couldn’t find anything on television). I still get a rush on the first skiing day of the season. I still want to get better, go bigger, and push harder. When I get to a ski area, I not only want to be “of the space”, I want to start expanding to fill the space.

I was at Sugarloaf one day in 1999 or so and Jonny Moseley showed up, fresh from his gold in the 1998 Olympics. By the end of the day, almost every kid at the mountain from age 6-16 was skiing with him. Moseley in front, huge pack of kids behind him, huge group of parents behind them. It was great! Glen Plake gets the same kind of posse when he goes on his Down Home Tours. When you are truly “of the space”, it’s not only about personal growth and personal development; it’s about inspiring others to live the dream, too (whether through instruction, blogging, or just general radness).

Passion is a strange thing. It launches careers. It fuels relationships. It drives Mother Theresa, and it drives suicide bombers. It’s not a little flicker of interest. It’s not even a fire inside. It’s a full blown inferno that can’t be extinguished. But sometimes, it does get extinguished. How do we keep it up? If we have to be “of the space”, what happens when we no longer like the space we’re in? When we want to move on to a different space?

I guess I don’t have all the answers. I just know that if I ever had to quit skiing, I’d have a hard time figuring out what do with myself through the winter. There are certain feelings that you get when you’re skiing that you can’t get anywhere else. It makes me want to do whatever it takes to repeat those feelings. I don’t think the passion could ever just go away. I haven’t really developed that sense from mountain biking yet, so I guess I’m not as ultra-passionate about that.

I mean, seriously. It’s June and I’m already watching ski movies . . . It’s going to be a long summer.

Last Chair: 6/24/11

No time to do this last week, but here's my roundup of the best tweets of the week.  You can follow me on Twitter @mattchuck2, or check out the feed on the right ------->

I liked this post that answers every bike forum post ever.  Speaking of biking, there's even more mountain biking trails in Wilmington.

I like gear lists, and posts about preparation.  Here's what goes into an epic Alaskan biking and packrafting trip. And here's how to prepare for a 500 mile race on the Colorado Trail.

Still some skiing trip reports rolling in to make me jealous.  Here's a blog post from Glacier National Park and a forum post from Colorado.

Video this week is from Ski the East, when they ripped some trails near Ascutney in Vermont (someplace I hope to Mountain Bike soon).

Mountain Biking - Floodwood Pond Loop: 6/19/2011

We decided to take a weekend mountain biking trip to the Adirondacks. On Saturday, we went to Whiteface to do some downhill riding. There isn't really too much to say about it except that if we're going to be doing anymore of this, we're going to need the proper gear. That means pads, shoes, and new bikes. Our xc bikes are just not equipped for the big drops, huge boulders, and off camber root sections that are present on the upper part of the mountain. The bus-accessible lower mountain was okay, but at the end of the day, I didn't really want to do it anymore. I don't really think it's something I want to pursue anyway. A couple of people there looked like they got pretty hurt - and I like to save my injuries for ski season.

On Sunday, the plan was to ride the Deer Pond loop, using a different entrance (from the north, between the Fish Creek Campground and Rollins Pond Campground). But, after finding the trail with no problem, we rode nice doubletrack for a while and came out into a meadow that didn't seem to have any exit.

We kept following false paths that we thought would lead us to where we wanted to go, but they ended in dead ends (some more beautiful than others):

So, as a backup plan, we decided to just ride the Floodwood Loop, detailed here and mapped here.

Most of the riding was really sweet.  Flowing trails, not too many roots or rocks, pretty well marked (although we got sidetracked on canoe portage trails a couple of times).

It got a little muddy, and there were a couple of stream crossings that required getting off the bike, but the trail was really good all the way to Floodwood Road.

We didn't bring a map, so when we were on Floodwood Road, we debated just taking the road back to the Golf Course and riding back to the Lake House from there (an easy spin along dirt road and asphalt).  That seemed boring, though.  We saw the entrance to the other part of the trail and I knew that it was supposed to loop and bring us back to where we started, but it took a lot longer than we anticipated.  We kept thinking that stuff would start to look familiar soon, and it never did.  Also, this section (the eastern side of the loop) was a lot muddier than the other section - and looked less traveled (as in, one set of footprints and no bike tracks).  In addition, there were a couple of stream crossings that had been washed out, forcing us to walk over a couple of beaver dams.

Late in the trail (within the last mile), we actually debated going backwards, back across the beaver dams, and all the way back to the road, just so we didn't get even more lost than we already were (or thought that we were). But I rode a little further and started to hear cars, so I knew we were on the right track.  When I saw a sign for a portage to Fish Creek, we were golden.  We rode the last half mile into the campground, out the gate, and back to the house, where we had a few IPAs while we relaxed on the dock.

Mission Accomplished.

Trail Report: Irondequoit Bay Park West, Rochester, NY

I had some work to do in the Rochester area, so I booked a hotel near some bike trails, and wedged my bike into my tiny work car. After a day of driving all over the state, I got back to the hotel and got my biking gear on. The closest hotel I could find was 2.5 miles from the trailhead, so I got to ride around the streets of Rochester for a bit.

The shoulder was good the whole way, and the road riding was pretty easy (I still have my lightweight, low rolling resistance tires on from the Black Fly).  It had rained a little bit during the afternoon, but it was starting to dry out just as I left the hotel.  The entrance was tough to spot:

Here's a link to the trail map.  I came in from the Homewood Lane entrance and hopped on the "Blue" trail.  Once I got in the woods, everything was really well marked.

The singletrack was nice too.

Eventually I got into a nice stream.

I saw some fauna.

And flora.

I road the blue trail until I hit the red trail, I rode the red trail all the way around its loop, and then I played around on the orange and blue trails until I hit the road, the more official entrance off of Bay Front near a fish and game club.  There was even a map at this entrance.

I had been riding around for about an hour an a half at this point, so I thought I should start making my way back to the hotel.  I looked on the map and saw the green trail. It was really tough to find, and it wasn't marked out like the other trails, which led me to believe that it wasn't quite done yet.  If you look close in this picture, you can see the little orange flags that they used to mark the trail out.

After a technical start with roots, rocks, and stream crossings, this trail started getting really good.

Even if it wasn't completely done:

When I got back to the stream, I hopped back on the blue trail to start the trip back to the hotel.

On the way out, I got one more glimpse of that deer.  I might not be as good of a nature photographer as this guy, but at least I got the shot (albeit with my crappy point & shoot).

Back in the hotel, I figure my bike is safer in here than out in the car.

I generally don't enjoy riding alone (sort of like how I don't like skiing alone), but today was pretty fun.  I like exploring new areas, and it's good to have something to do instead of sitting around in my hotel room watching golf (although I didn't realize that Ozomatli was playing a concert for $2 in downtown Rochester - that might have been fun too).  If I have to do a lot of traveling this summer for work, I should always try to find a hotel with some riding nearby.  I generally feel much better about myself when I'm not being a fat slob, and I'm stoked to check out new riding spots.

And unlike skiing, it's free!