Family

I've been thinking about this topic for a while... my brother has recently decided to move to upstate New York, about 3 1/2 hours drive from here. If you know my family well, you would realize that for a while I was the farthest away of all my extended family members when I lived in MA, a whole 1/2 hour from my hometown. Some of my cousins have begun to migrate a bit, but I still consider myself extremely fortunate in that I've had really close ties to most of my family members.

In the last few years, my "sports career" has rebuilt some of that closeness. I've written about this in the past, as parts of my family has joined me in races or biking or just working out in general. Matt has been a big part of that, joining me in Volleyball, Mooseman and Winding trails triathlon, canoe races, racquetball, and just riding in general. I know it's the right decision for him, he and his wife are exploring an experience that they have wanted to try for a long time. I'm going to spend the next month or so before he leaves trying to get in as much fun as I can, and then I'll try to find ways to connect for bike rides or races somewhere between here and there when I can.

Hold on to your family wherever and however you can.

P.S. Matt, do you want to go mountain biking on Saturday?

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Not quite...

You should watch this video first... I didn't quite make it.

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MTB Video??

Attempting to show a video from my ride this weekend...

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Wrench work

As I mentioned, my front derailleur snapped off during my crash at Killington last week. I ordered a new one, and just installed it this week. It wasn't as hard as I figured, essentially you bolt it on, attach the cable while in the lowest chain ring and then tune the shifting with the two screws.


It's a pretty good feeling to do more and more of my own bike maintenance! I'm ready to try it out a bit this weekend.

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Killington Recap

I drove up late Friday night to crash at my uncle's house in anticipation of mountain biking at Killington Ski Resort on Saturday. There was a big group on hand to spend the day bombing down the mountain and trying not to crash... at least trying not to crash too badly.





A few cousins, a second cousin, my dentist and a few other friends were all ready to go at 10 when the lift opened.



We did spend a bit of time before leaving the house lubing the bikes and lowering our seats. It's much easier to stay way back and not go over the handle bars if your seat as low and since we didn't foresee a lot of pedaling we decided it would be the best way to go. It was a beautiful day, so pretty much no matter how much riding we were going to get in it was going to be a great time.

Headed up the lift, and trying to plan our route. The first run was great, but we got a bit separated and turned around so that we had to do a bit of uphill backtracking. We decided on a bit tougher trail for the second run and ended up staying in the black diamond area for the rest of the day.



The trail was steep and twisty, mostly all single-track and a blast!












This was the play area... we spent a few minutes there in between runs while we were waiting for another group. It was kind of fun, hitting the seesaw and log ride in the middle... especially when Kevin wiped out waiting for the see saw to come down on the other side :)





Yeah... did I mention it was a beautiful day?? Most of the trails where in the woods, but you would occasionally head across the ski trails.
It was perfect shorts weather... although having some pants on would probably have protected my legs a bit better later in the day!

My cousin Kevin crossing one of the many bridges... this one he made it across. Later in the day he would skid off a bridge and end up covered in leaves and mud :)
Here's my crash site... I caught the pedal of my bike on a tree root while hauling down the trail. The root stopped my bike, but not me! If you look closely, you can see the root behind Bruce's shoulder (the guy standing in blue). I'm sitting about where I landed, so you can get an idea of how far I flew through the air.



I lay there for a while, pretty convinced I had broken my leg, but fortunately no permanent damage occurred, to me anyway. My knee swelled up pretty bad and I'm banged and scraped up on my left side. I also snapped the front derailleur off of my bike... oh well, more maintenance to learn :)



Overall, a fantastic time and beautiful day! I can't wait to do it again, unfortunately it will have to wait until next year as Killington is closed to bikes now as they get ready for ski season.

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Christmas yet?

I want one of these!!

http://www.adorama.com/CZVN.html?sid=122425493311847

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Pics from Killington

Just a couple... I'll have to write up a recap with more...

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Mooseman 2009

Time to register for Mooseman again! http://www.timbermantri.com/moosemanregister.html If you're interested in a great weekend, this is the place to be in early June.

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Wow

Killington was a blast!!

What a beautiful day, it was sunny and warm and we had a great time. We spent the whole day hitting fun trails that were steep and challenging but not impossible. Unfortunately, I ended up a bit bruised and battered by a freak crash but overall it was great. My buddy Shawn took a bunch of pictures and has promised to send them to me so I will post them when I get them.

In the meantime, here's a brief description of my crash since I'm sure that's all you guys care about :) I was headed down a relatively smooth section of trail and let the bike run. Although the trail was decently wide and smooth, there was a root across it which snagged on my pedal as I was going past. This of course, stopped my bike rather quickly, but it didn't help me stop at all. Before I knew what was happening I was airborne! Judging by how far from the root I was when I finally could sit up, I flew about 15-20 feet. I landed on my left side pretty hard and was sort of stunned. I lay there thinking my leg was broken, and being unable to even talk for a few minutes. Fortunately, nothing was broken although I do have some pretty good scrapes and my knee swelled up nicely. The crash also snapped off my front derailleur, so I had to disconnect the cable and ride in the small ring for the rest of the day. The good thing was it was close to the last run of the day, so it didn't affect me all that much.

We took one more easy run as a cool down and called it a day! I can't believe it took me this long to head up there and ride, I'll definitely be doing it again next year!

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Change of venue!

Instead of Case Mountain... we're headed to Killington in Vermont!

I promise to take lots of pictures, this should be a blast! I've always wanted to go, but haven't yet had the chance.
http://www.killington.com/summer/events/mountain_biking/maps/Mountain_Bike_Map.pdf

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Volleyball League

Signed back up for Volleyball again, it will be nice to have a little competition going... It's been a bit tough to get up early and hit the gym lately, hopefully after my long weekend away I'll be able to get motivated again.

Planning a mountain bike outing Saturday morning at Case Mountain, so I have that to look forward to at least :)

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My life lately...

Sorry for the lack of posts... I did sign up for Volleyball, but much of what I've been doing lately is stressing about work...

http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chdet=1222977600000&chddm=16703&q=NYSE:HIG&ntsp=0

Stock price from over $100 bucks this this past spring to $34 at the moment. Not a particularly comforting situation.

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