All Together Now

On Saturday afternoon I decided to put the new (old) Teesdale together. It took a little while, but it was generally a painless process. Some afternoon tea and listening to Robin read definitely helped the wrenching. The weekend brought nice, sunny weather, but it also made things rather wet, and I didn't want to get the new bike all dirty. So I went into the basement to ride the rollers for a little while.

Rollers are not my favorite things, and they are very easy to get sick of. But with the new bike I was quite content to spin in our chilly basement with an old dvd of the '02 Tour de France playing on my laptop. The rollers do not give any indication as to how a bike handles, but I do believe the frame fits me very well, so I'm excited about that.

We are currently in the process of receiving 2-4" of heavy, wet snow, so it does not look like I will be riding it outside anytime soon. In fact, with the way things are going I could be skiing right up until spring break. And that doesn't really sound all that bad.

Obligatory new bike shot:

Reasons to Celebrate

Tomorrow Robin and I celebrate our two year anniversary. It feels like it has been both a long and a short two year period. I do know for certain that it has been a very happy two year period, and I hope there are many more to come. We will most likely do some serious relaxing, maybe a little skiing, and then go out for a rather nice dinner at Taste on Melrose.

In other news, I scored a Tom Teesdale frame on ebay for a rather economical price. It came last Friday and I since there is still so much snow here I have just been admiring it in its frameset state while I come and go from cross country skiing. I may or may not build it up this weekend. I will offer photographic updates if I do. In the meantime, there is this nice little snapshot.

Doin the Dirty Deed

Tonight I officially entered myself in the Dirty Kanza, a 200 mile bike race on the gravel roads through the Flint Hills of Eastern Kansas. I'm pretty excited. Last year's winner said it was great.

Here are some photos of the lead pack in the light of the rising sun and a great view of the rolling grassland.


It is less than zero degrees outside right now and it is hard to believe that warm sunny days will come back, so in the meantime I will just keep skiing. And that's pretty alright with me.

Snow Day

Just minutes after beginning my Spanish test this morning, the class got word that we would learn no more that day. It was an exciting moment; it is only a shame that it did not happen sooner. I did not really mind the walk downtown, and the test would not have been too bad, but for all the people who work at the university and have a longer commute than me, it is a big bummer. Everyone knew the storm was coming, so why not cancel class early in the morning?

Oh well. I have a day off. And these were the pretty views I had on my walk home.

This is the view up my street. Note the snow covered shoes hanging from the phone line.

A foot of snow can even make garbage cans look good.

Later this afternoon I will be enjoying some hot coffee with Steve, Robin, and possibly others. After that I will try to head over to Ashton for a late afternoon ski. They started grooming right away, so conditions should be quite nice.

Hooray For Skis

I had a ski-tastic weekend, my second in a row in fact. Now, if we could only manage to keep the snow during the week somehow?

Thursday night we were somewhat surprised with an inch and a half of very fluffy snow. It made for a beautifully picturesque evening for Robin and my date night. Friday was warm though, and much of that got sticky. But at times I can be a skiing fool, so I went out to Ashton anyways. One other skiing fool had made tracks there earlier that day, but the conditions were really not that good. There was either light snow over sheets of ice or light snow with a healthy portion of grass peaking through. I spent fifteen or so minutes skiing around the course trying to find the sweet spots. I ended up just staying on the south side near the trees going back and forth, working on form and glide for about an hour. It was not great, but it was surprisingly satisfying.

Sometime early Saturday morning we got some more snow. This little storm truly was a surprise. It brought about two inches or so. So our local trails now had three and a half inches of snow over blocks of ice. Steve and I drove up to the MNRA thinking it would be groomed, but it was not. No worries though, for we brought our classic skis too. The temps were great, but it made for very sticky snow. Our skis seemed to either be caked with snow, or getting no grip. I think I can say that it was the most frustrating ski of the year. Slightly more frustrating than Friday's. But that said, it was a truly amazing day. We skied some great trails, found the nice spots, and we both managed to stay upright on the super steep and dangerously icy downhills.

Sunday did not bring more snow. I was going to go checkout Ashton, but we got word from the Eppens that the Reservoir was in great shape. So Steve and I headed back up north for some flat, but truly great, classic skiing. Here is how happy I was.

Note: photo property of bikeiowa (I suggest you go there, because there are lots of others too).

The skiing was great. We went out to the spillway that I vaguely recall crossing on my bike many years ago. The whole ski was about fifteen minutes shy of four hours. I plugged our route into a map. The whole ski was a hair over 16 miles.

It started snowing heavily right before we got back to the car. It continued for many hours and left us with 8 inches of fluffy goodness. Monday though, brought us some brief thunderstorms, but many inches still remain. So there will be more skiing. And word is brewing of a possible 6 to 10 inches Tuesday night. Think snow.