A Skier's Year in Idle Thought

The year of a skier is full of maudlin little milestones. In my case, I pass the first one in late July or early August, while cleaning out the cat’s litter box in the basement. Directly overhead are the shiny top-skins of skis resting base-up in the rafters. They catch my eye meaningfully for the first time since I stowed them there in April. Not long now. Actually it still is long now, but it’s late enough in the calendar year that I can give myself permission to start thinking about it. The buyer’s guide issues of Ski and Skiing will be out in a couple of weeks. In public I sometimes turn up my nose at these mags, but I pore over them hungrily in the privacy of the bathroom, where no one on EpicSki can watch.

Late in October I take down all the skis and inspect them carefully to determine which ones need to go to the doctor because of injuries sustained on late-season obstacles. On a crisp day when the thermometer testifies conclusively to summer’s end, I take them to the shop, and spend much longer there than filling out the work tickets really requires.

There is the day I first set up the tuning bench and touch up the skis that did not need serious medical attention. Eventually there is the first day of the season. Usually this is better than I expect, but only because I have carefully set low expectations. It is the second day when my ego takes the big hit, as off-season fantasies about how good I had gotten the season before encounter the real but forgotten hurdles of joint-stiffening cold, heavy gear, and muscle memory that will never forget a litany of skiing movements I learned when I was six and twelve and eighteen. Some of these habits are good – I can snowplow in the lift corral with the best of them. But many will need to be laboriously beaten down again this season. This in-my-face evidence of aging becomes tiresome, a decade or so into the brave new world of modern equipment and technique.

The first week in January marks the start of the beer league. Many of the acquaintances from my workplace, who got me started on this years ago, have become close friends. The signature artificial sweet odors of disinfectant, layers of damp old paint, and leaky plumbing in the cramped and ancient men’s room at Shawnee Peak now trigger an improbable nostalgia, when I encounter them for the first time each year.

In February or March a day comes when I realize I’m skiing well again. An après-ski beer and high spirited trash talk with ski buddies, fueled by memories of a few high-quality turns, seems like a bigger gift than might seem reasonable to a non-skier. At that point a satisfying richness of days before the end of the season appears in front of me. Life is so good. Let’s plan the next big trip.

That richness of days is deceptive, though. Here we are again, now, today; so surprisingly, so predictably. “What did you think? Spring wouldn’t come this year?” my wife asks. I am postponing the day when I clean off the bench, but it is coming soon - perhaps this weekend. Maybe I have one more day on the hill, maybe not. It depends on many things beyond my control. Within two weeks, the skis will be back in the cellar.

Two days ago my dad, were he still living, would have turned 100. Forty-five years ago he taught me to ski on the slopes of Wildcat and Mt. Cranmore. I remember him putting the skis away carefully in the rafters, when that ceiling seemed impossibly high to me. My own son, taller than I am already, knows this whole routine too by now. Cheers, Dad. You done good.

Open

This is it. Summer's window doesn't magically open on July fourth and stay open 'til Labor Day, like a dairy bar's. In this state of reduced expectations, when any month of the year can breed a clutch of cold, rainy weeks, it doesn't pay to wait. Right now is when the days are long and the sun is strong. It's time for me to take the bug dope in hand and get out there, before I find myself muttering unattractively about how the light is shot.


[image is of a Gretchen Dow Simpson print, "Cottage Street II"]

A Nice Day

Sometimes saying you had "a nice day" isn't a platitude or just an end-run around the disappointing details you know no one is interested in hearing. Sometimes it means exactly what it says. I had a nice day today. Slept well, got up not too early, had a proper Maine June breakfast - bagels, smoked Maine salmon, local strawberries. (Okay, so maybe the bagels and lox reveal it to be a proper suburban Portland June breakfast.) From nine to noon Tristan and I joined Brian Danz and the local NEMBA crew building some new singletrack in West Falmouth. Tristan had such a sense of pride at his contribution, he zipped out into the woods behind our house after lunch and started raking out a new trail. (He did come in after a half hour or so and reported that "it's a lot harder when you're all by yourself.") I hung a mirror and some shades in the guest room. Grilled some sausages the old-fashioned way, on a little charcoal grill. Parsleyed egg noodles and fresh peas and some inexpensive wine that really understood me, notwithstanding my profound snobbishness. Bit of unapologetic Facebooking. A nice day.

Carpe Regnum (Kingdom Trails Gush)

The MOAC folks had planned to spend the Columbus Day weekend up at Kingdom Trails in northeastern Vermont, near Burke Mountain. They'd rented a nice house to stay in. (Thanks, Andrew!) Originally, Aaron and I had decided that the big October release meant that we could not attend. Then, late in the game, we learned that there was still room at the house. We decided that the two of us would carpool up there after the deployment, early on Saturday afternoon. Well, Saturday early afternoon turned into late afternoon, then into early evening, then into full-on night and we were still here at work. Not only were we exhausted, but Aaron did not feel well. So we called Wendy and told her we regretted that we had to bail.

Sunday morning I woke up at 6:00, and started thinking about the fact that my car was sitting out in the driveway, packed with all my bike gear and a whole bunch of food, still in the cooler. "Look, you're going to be grumpy for the next two days if you don't go, so just leave," said my wife perspicaciously. So I did. At around 11:00, after a beautiful drive through the White Mountains, buying my $10 pass, and changing into my shorts, I pulled into one of the scenic Kingdom Trails parking lots where I was supposed to meet the MOACers. That's when the temperature dropped about ten degrees and it started raining and sleeting. Hard. Fortunately that was the low point of the weekend. It cleared up quickly and half an hour later we were riding in sunshine, albeit over somewhat slick downed leaves, roots, and mud.

I could talk for an hour about the experience, but the short version is that, based on my day and a half of riding, Kingdom Trails is everything it's cracked up to be. I had a blast. The only minor disappointment - other than my advancing age and associated timidity - was that all the downed leaves and the recent damp weather prevented me from riding things as fast as they're obviously meant to be ridden. Certain things stand out:

First and foremost, the location is just stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. If you drove all the way over there only to stand in the field at the top of Darling Hill Road and look around you for fifteen minutes on a perfect fall day, the effort would be well worth it.



There are tons and tons of trails. Every one of them is well laid out and has great flow. They are all well marked - on paper and at every intersection.

You really feel like you’re with "your people," as Wendy says. Within ten miles of the place you start realizing that every other car has mountain bikes on it. The majority of riders are French-speaking, and there are way more women riders than we typically see here in Maine. I would say maybe a quarter to a third female, compared with 10% at best in my experience around here.

Certain trails are just totally unlike anything we have here: Sidewinder hurtles you down one steep side of a tight ravine and up the other side, like a half pipe with trees. (Andrew clipped one of these at full velocity at the bottom of the valley and was on the ground for a good ten minutes afterward. Do not follow his example.) Kitchel - apparently JUST rebuilt from the ground up - is like a roller coaster for bikes: smooth six foot high dirt berms alternating with tabletops, all descending. When Aaron rides this for the first time he's going to think he died and went to heaven. Then there is the little dirt pump track that doesn't take up much more room than a couple of tennis courts, which I had a blast playing on. Google any of these trails and you will find cool photos and videos.

Next year, going back for sure.

Things Wear Out

Sometimes things don't break, they just wear out. Look at this photo of a jockey wheel that has a couple years' use on it (left). It's a totally different size and shape from what it looked like when it was new (right). If only I could order replacement parts for ME from bikeman.com.

Last of the Fall Flowers

I picked more or less the last of the flowers. To say that the achingly beautiful stretch of weather we’ve enjoyed for a solid month now makes up for our sodden June and July is to miss the mark. Invoking a dubious fairness or balance in such things discounts the grace we’ve received. In the dry air, a sunny bank of black-eyed susans has persisted among the butterflies and grasshoppers at the bottom of our garden, seemingly unfading, week after week, against the always-blue sky and always-green grass. The mornings and evenings have gotten cooler, but in the diminishing center of every day summer still returns. Only when I went down with a pair of scissors tonight did I realize that in fact there were only a few really fresh-looking blooms left. I have not wanted to let go.

As summer progressed, the twelve-hour race at Bradbury became more and more the emotional focus of my riding life. I wanted to be in shape and ride well, but I didn’t let that desire take over totally. Maybe I should have. I didn’t ride every day, or even close to it. I never want to get to the point where a bike ride is a chore like taking out the trash or washing the dishes, but within those parameters I trained steadily. I didn’t have to take a week off riding for illness or bad weather. I did a good mix of road (for endurance and pace) and trail (for cornering reflexes, power, and braking practice). When the race came I was healthy except for two sore fingers, and I had spent as much time on the bike as I am ever going to be able to do with my philosophy, as long as I have a full-time job and a busy family. Trail conditions were excellent. I rode well. I had no crashes and no mechanical incidents. I pushed it, but stayed within myself. I don’t think I disappointed my team. I still ended up in the middle of the pack.

Now it’s a couple days later and I have cut the last of the flowers. There is a slightly let down feeling. With the rapidly increasing darkness and the inevitable deterioration of the weather, it’s all downhill from here in terms of ride frequency and fitness level. Bottom of the pack, here I come. On the other hand, I am thinking about what possibly was the most perfect day of this perfect late summer, on a road ride with Larry, Dave, and Dan, when we stopped for a swim in a crystalline lake. It was a Sunday afternoon, but no one was there except a woman walking her dog along the shore. The water was utterly still. I hesitated before wading in. I didn’t want to break the picture. It was as though everyone else had already given up on summer, but we hadn't.

I’m glad I got past the nagging selfish and small-minded feeling that stopping to swim was going to compromise the training benefit I got from that ride. I will remember that swim with my friends far better and longer and with more warmth than I would remember finishing in the lower upper middle of the pack.

Roadie Virgin No More

Joined my first ever proper roadie group ride on Monday. Real, card-carrying roadies with matching bib shorts and jerseys and slogans written on their butts. None of us MTBers posing around on skinny tires this time. (Except me, of course.) Intimidating before the ride, as hordes of people arrived for the start, apparently having stepped directly out of catalogs and magazines. Someone said 30-plus in attendance. Almost ran away, but steeled myself for a thrashing. I already survive a variety of humiliations; what's one more? First conversational exchange I had started off with a guy pointing out that I had hay sticking out of my helmet. He didn't mention the dried mud on my beat-up shoes, but I'll bet he noticed it. Very interesting cultural experience. Fun. Easy at first, then harder near the end as the novelty of serious drafting effects wore off and folks started turning up the heat. At one point as I realized I was working awfully darn hard all of a sudden, I looked down - very quickly, so as not to cause a disaster - at the cyclometer. 31mph on the flats! Good thing I didn't take the big ring off the road bike, huh? I didn't get dropped, though. I would do it again. Maybe wear the leg and arm pads next time, just to see what people would say.