Now that it's warm, I've been on my bicycle working towards my first century ride for the season. I'd like to dedicate this post to the guy cycling next to me for a few blocks in town. While I rode as far away from the light rail tracks in the street that paralleled our route, this rider decided to show his brazen disrespect for the rails, meandering left and right over them.
Several of us riding with him warned that you need to cross tracks at a much deeper angle, to which he laughed. One block later I watched as his front tire got stuck in the rail gully sending him flying off his bike, over the handle bars, head first into the trunk of the car in front of him.
Miraculously he was fine, although his bicycle wheel was now bent fairly substantially.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Season Review
I apologize for the silence on posting, it's been a rather fast paced month of April, more on that later though.
It seems odd to be saying this in May, but a look back on the 2007-2008 season has left me really surprised. Despite being placed on the disabled list and being rather broken for a large part of it, I still managed to get in a good 55 days on the snow this season. Most actually coming after my accident, despite my inability to hard charge down the slopes.
This past weekend marked the end of the season for the local resorts, with all of them having their big party blast to end the winter. What makes it odd really though, the resort is closing with an estimated 180" of snow found at the mid-mountain marker. That is 180 inches, or 15 feet, of snow still available for your riding pleasure. The local road signs are still covered, the snow berms are still impossible to see over, and there has yet to be any signs of ground break. For a resort that typically has a mid-mountain depth of 80-90 inches, this season has been anything but normal.
With all that snow, why close? A couple of reasons. First of all staffing has become difficult. The foreign workers started to leave mid to late March. The month of April the resort held it's own with local staffing only. Towards the end of April, the resort starts to lose the rest of the non-permanent staff to their new seasonal jobs (rafting guides, mountain climbing/hiking/biking guides, etc). Second reason they close down, the handful of riders left don't make economic sense to continue to operate. Just as every year goes, the warmer weather results in less and less people wanting to slip into bulky cold weather gear.
Given that the resort still has a significantly large amount of snow, and history continues to repeat itself temperature wise, it will begin steadily warming over the coming days. At some point that massive amount of snow will need to melt. I think it's time to move away from the flood zones...
It seems odd to be saying this in May, but a look back on the 2007-2008 season has left me really surprised. Despite being placed on the disabled list and being rather broken for a large part of it, I still managed to get in a good 55 days on the snow this season. Most actually coming after my accident, despite my inability to hard charge down the slopes.
This past weekend marked the end of the season for the local resorts, with all of them having their big party blast to end the winter. What makes it odd really though, the resort is closing with an estimated 180" of snow found at the mid-mountain marker. That is 180 inches, or 15 feet, of snow still available for your riding pleasure. The local road signs are still covered, the snow berms are still impossible to see over, and there has yet to be any signs of ground break. For a resort that typically has a mid-mountain depth of 80-90 inches, this season has been anything but normal.
With all that snow, why close? A couple of reasons. First of all staffing has become difficult. The foreign workers started to leave mid to late March. The month of April the resort held it's own with local staffing only. Towards the end of April, the resort starts to lose the rest of the non-permanent staff to their new seasonal jobs (rafting guides, mountain climbing/hiking/biking guides, etc). Second reason they close down, the handful of riders left don't make economic sense to continue to operate. Just as every year goes, the warmer weather results in less and less people wanting to slip into bulky cold weather gear.
Given that the resort still has a significantly large amount of snow, and history continues to repeat itself temperature wise, it will begin steadily warming over the coming days. At some point that massive amount of snow will need to melt. I think it's time to move away from the flood zones...
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