Wandering Leg Syndrome

Things To Blog About

2012-01-28T21:09:00.003-06:00

I've been gone for awhile. I'm back-ish. I don't have a computer so it's hard to blog (my mac blew up in a glorious ball of flame about a month ago).

Anyway, I feel like at times I have may let the blog get a little too personal. That was the main reason "Kansas City" was deleted. It wasn't anything that shouldn't have been read by the people it was meant for, just not something that was meant for the blogosphere and could have been edited better. For the record nothing bad was ever said about anyone, it was just too long of a diatribe that wasn't needed.

The thing is, I want this blog to be personal. The few of you who read this know the day to day grind and I am glad you do, but... for 2012 I want it to be more activity oriented. Races, experiences, days on the mountain, that kind of thing.

So here is my 2012 promise to you who are left reading. It will be filled with hard mtb races, road races that I finished poorly at, cx races that I dominated, 5ks that Neta and I finished together, huge whippers taken off sport cliffs, epic powder days with great friends and general grumblings about how much my legs hurt after a 14er.

So here's to you that still have this on RSS or whatever google uses to update you. I'm here and thanks for reading.

Kansas City

2011-11-17T00:26:00.003-06:00

NVM, don't like what I wrote in hindsight. Gonna take a few and re-write it.

That Time of the Year

2011-10-06T00:31:00.003-05:00

So this week marks the 11th year of my cx racing history, feels like I just wrote the 10th anniversary diatribe. I registered for USGP Ft. Collins to start my season. Which is a race I have wanted to do for a few years now and am very excited to be apart of. Gonna rant a little bit now.

Coloradans think they are some ungodly force of nature in the athletic scene (I hear it constantly in the shop). Ever since I have moved here I have been told by everyone who races that I will be dropped, beaten and decimated because Colorado racing is that much harder. Now I hate to be a naysayer but I have raced a few CO races before in my day and while it sucks to race from 9000 to 12000 feet that is literally the only part that is harder in my opinion. The racers aren't faster, the elevation and terrain is just different. Stick a Colorado native on the Lawrence river trail in the middle of July and he won't know what to do having to stay in his big ring so long while his shorts turn into a humidified mess.

But I decided to look at the upside of the matter and registered for the category 4 race. Eff it. No one knows me here so I can't be called a sandbagger if I destroy and I can't be called worthless for my experience range if I suck. The truth of the matter is that I knew it would be a helluva lot easier to ride through the 4s than the 3s and I'm not getting a good starting position anyhow, noone knows me in the ACA and I'm not buying a license until next year. So I might as well have some fun before I get kicked out.

So here's to toeing the start line 1 more season, jumping some barriers, and hopefully being called a sandbagger. Ring an imaginary cowbell for this overexperienced cross junkie who is still hanging out at the back of the pack.

New Bike and Some Other Things

2011-09-12T00:01:00.003-05:00

So I've been doing some things here in the old colorful Colorado. Lemme tell ya about them real quick.

Last weekend Neta got her first taste of a 14,000 foot mountain with me. We did Gray's Peak at 14,2oosomething feet on Sunday afternoon. The weather forecast said we have a 0% chance of rain for the day so we took off way late, stopped in Evergreen for breakfast and finally hit the trail maybe by noon. My goal was to have the summit to ourselves because if there is one thing I hate it's sharing my hard earned summits. We totally had the summit to ourselves and spent a solid hour just basking in the thin air and sun, it was a show trying to get up the mountain with the whole world of tourists trying to come down from wherever they decided they should turn around but once we were there the mountain was empty... it was gorgeous and pristine.

I literally just recovered from the effort of 7 days ago though. I have now done the Grand Canyon, the highest peak in AZ (13ish), and many more smaller 12,000 foot peaks in the same pair of TNF trail runners all year. And they gave up the ghost about 5 hikes ago. My calves were wrecked and I got a crazy end of the season cold from the sustained impact to my body and low oxygen intake and was laid up for almost 2 days straight. Which was a mega bummer because the weather was perfect all week and I spent my off days watching cheezy netflix movies instead of ripping singletrack on my new bike.

On to the new bike. I finally pulled the trigger last month on a new mountain bike after spending the majority of the summer borrowing bikes from sales reps and coworkers after my Giant broke. After riding pretty much every platform available to me this summer I had a pretty good idea that I wanted a 5x5 26" XC bike. The rebel in me felt terrible since I have been on 29" wheels for sooo long and preached the good book to soooo many riders. I almost felt like a hypocrite and weighed deeply my options, not for my own benefit on trail but solely to save face on the bikes I've hated on for so long.
So I ended up getting a smoking deal on an Australian spec Specialized Camber Expert 26er. The Camber seemed like the perfect bike for me at 120mm of travel front and rear with some cheech 10 speed parts and decent boings on either end. The bike is technically supposed to fit between the Epic and the Stumpjumper FSR levels in the Spec lineup. But I saw it as a different beast after I rode all 3 back to back. The Camber does not get the patented Specialized "Brain" on any of it's models, regardless if it's the $1600 comp or the $8300 Carbon Pro. In theory the Brain is cool, I realize that all suspension bikes need a platform shock to pedal anywhere close to efficiently and the uber adjustability coupled with the moron proofness of the brain is excellent for the masses. But I kind of understand how suspension works and don't mind messing with it so the brain just is not my cup of tea. It makes the downhills less cush and the uphills feel like you are on your old hardtail with some ridiculous linkage that does nothing.

The Camber came stock with a Fox Triad in the rear with the pro-pedal and lockout option. I've used all of the settings on all of my favorite trails now and can honestly say that as a trail bike if I leave the bike fully open it rides like a dream up and down. If I switch on the pro-pedal it will easily hold it's own against the Epic on the uphills and punish it on the downhills. In fact the bike has the same parts spec as the 26" Epic comp from 2011 but weighs a full pound less because of the minimalist in line linkage and loss of the brain cartridge. Which brings me to my last point, the bike weighed 27.10 lbs with Shimano 515 pedals and a bottle cage bone stock. So it's a damn light bike for something that wears a $2500 pricetag. I intend to keep tearing it up on this rig til next spring and then maybe going to an SJ FSR with an RP23 as a brain replacement, but until then I am loving this budget lightweight bruiser.

So here's to new summits, new bikes and other things.
Cheers.

Things That I Can't Get Enough Of

2011-08-26T00:35:00.002-05:00

I'm gonna start this post as of today and move on backwards through time... but consider it a reverse order recap of my time in the front range the last 2.5 months.

While I was on my bike Monday morning around 7.30 a.m.ish I received a text from Joe Fox..."Haynes and I are heading your way do you have xxx and yyy, we need it for our adventure." I owned partial parts of x's and y's but none of what they were specifically looking for and none of which I could have available to them that day already having 40 miles out from my house on the bike and headed to work. So I assumed after telling them "not really" they would keep on trucking towards their adventure... 3 days on the continental divide trail. But lo and behold mere hours later I had two of my best buds standing front and center in my Specialized concept store... albeit a bit out of their element... and asking route questions to anyone who would listen.

Their route looked tough, they were looking at HUGE miles 2 days in a row and I respected them... almost more than before for taking it on. But when I mentioned that I had Wednesday and Thursday off their eyes lit up. "Maybe we can get my dads house in Vail Wednesday night," was all that I heard Joe say. And from then on I was stoked.

So Wednesday morning I drove past Leadville to the road closure at Independence pass (where the USpro cycling challenge was charging through). I unloaded my bike and prepared to climb and climb and climb to their campsite to watch the pros suffer up the climb that I had just accomplished. But for some grace of god I only had to climb up to 11,000 feet when I heard Jeremy yell out in my direction. They were coming off trail at the same time that I was crossing their path... thank god.

Once we met up everything was good, their bivys were stuffed, we watched the pros roll by and headed straight to Vail to hang out at the spa.

Now I'm sure their legs were cooked from the riding but mine equally felt like bricks. I only brought my roadbike with me to ride to the bars in Vail, not anticipating the Indy road closure that I had to crawl up before. The day before I attended a Specialized dealer event and rode a handful of the cheechest bikes man could fathom. I had the privilege of railing an sworks Epic 29...(underwhelming with the new SID, couldn't get a hold of the bike on the downhills and felt like a hardtail that weighed 3 lbs too much on the climbs), an SWorks Stumpy (amazing bike that felt like an Epic that worked in the steeps and could air it out downhill although the HA was about .5 degress too steep to inspire) and an SL4 Tarmac that killed the downhills on 50mph decents.

Bike reviews done... we chilled, drank and lived like kings in Vail. I might write some more recaps later but this whole blog is starting to get un-inspiring. I'm feeling a bit too lazy to keep it for my "own memories" since my own memories always sound better as fish stories 3 years later and a bit embellished.

So Cheers, Thanks for reading. I'll be back. Love, Slater

Front Range Livin'

2011-06-29T22:53:00.003-05:00

It's strange to think that less than a month ago I woke up under a tree in Moab staring up at the sky with the river overflowing to my right and the portal trailhead situated nicely to my left...homeless and unemployed.

Less than a month later and Neta and I have both landed full time gigs making more money than either of us has ever made before (not saying much). I'm slingin' bikes to the masses at a new Specialized concept store in some uber nice suburbs and I still haven't gotten over the ease that these people seem to have spending money on bikes. Roubaixs that will no doubt sit in garages until next years MS150 or Ride the Rockies comes about fly out the door pretty darn regularly. It's mega fun just showing up to work and talking about bikes in a city with such a huge outdoor consumer base. I rarely have to turn a wrench or build a bike since I literally have last years pro Europe BMC wrench back in the shop doing things that I didn't even know were possible to bikes and regaling us with stories about Big George during the down time.

Neta and I have a pretty big condo all to ourselves too... to fill up with all the furniture that we don't own. My helpful suggestion to Neta while looking for a place was that we might want to consider a 2nd bedroom so she doesn't have to look at all my gear flying around. Score 1 for the mancave/bikeroom.

And last but not least I've been spending a bunch of time on the bike. My ride to work is right at 10 miles on m.u.t.s. so it's pretty easy to pile on the road miles. I have to drive whenever I want to get my mtb on which is kind of lame but the riding on the front range is still as stellar as ever so it's always worth it. Been riding a bunch with baggy shorted, big hit freeride guys and as I've been telling myself for the last 4 years, I need a bigger bike. The Giant has been rad and I can ride laps to the top of the mountain while those guys push but once we get going down I have to dial it wayyy back. Found a nice sized dent on the Giant's seatstay today, no idea what from since it hasn't taken any big hits but I'll probably keep it around to race on since it's resale is gone and just buy a bigger Pitch or Enduro to attempt to destroy on the trail rides soon.

That's the haps here on the ol' front range. So here's to the suburbs, the riding, being gainfully employed and in a house.

Long Term Stability

2011-04-12T23:55:00.002-05:00

Surprise! I'm moving again, to a state with more and bigger mountains and with easier access to home. A longer ski season and still temperate enough to ride all the time.

I've told a few people thus far and the resounding question has unanimously been, "What are you going to do there?"

I didn't realize it for a few weeks (okay maybe months) but I always answered the same. "Well ultimately I want to climb the Diamond on Long's Peak this year, I heard the casual route only goes at .10- but it looks like there's a direct variation that seems a touch shorter and more straightforward that goes at .11-. Also I really miss having a real cyclocross season. I never realized it before but I really enjoy being able to participate in that sport for at least 10 weekends/year. Also I really want to ski better more consistent powder days than AZ is offering... I mean the resort here is great for what it is but I think the possibilities on bigger hills with bigger backcountry bowls are way better for where I'm at right now and maybe even learn to telemark... I mean that's where the real adventure is at."

Did that sound like a big old jumble of ideas that might spew out of a 12 year old's mouth when asked to write about what they are planning to do on their summer vacation in a short essay? It hit me probably a week ago that the majority of my life planning sounds like some variation of the above ramble.

I struggled with the idea for a while, wondering how long my adult self can keep up this charade before succumbing to the ideals that the majority of my peers have already devoted their lives to. You know the whole job stability, reliable car, nice place to live thing. I guess those things could be nice, but at the end of the day I don't see myself being able to pour that much energy into such meaningless things for at least a few (to ten) more years when I already have so much energy being devoted into making sure I get into the backcountry and see the world as often as I do right now.

I think the thing that made me realize this the most was a news article about the economy and the hardships that kids who graduated in my class are having to endure. I was reading about kids my age having to take jobs as part time waiters (GASP!!!) and move back in with their parents after failing to obtain jobs in the field of assistant sports management recordkeeping and racketeering which they had so wisely chosen to do their masters in. Which I honestly blame 1000% on their own laziness. The young, fit and willing can literally show up anywhere in America and work somewhere for something and somehow manage to pay rent.

A year ago I didn't even know that I would be in Flagstaff, I knew I had life goals for the next year of my life. Mainly those goals were to get solid on 5.11, begin to work 5.12, bag some desert towers and ride some epic singletrack. Check, check, check and check. All of which I accomplished after showing up jobless in a city 1000 miles away from home with no connections and just asking real nicely if I can sling lattes part time and maybe sell some backpacks and North Face jackets.

So where am I going with this?

1. I am moving again and have goals for the next direction of my life.
2. Said goals pertain to nothing but my own well-being and happiness
3. I don't understand why my generation is making such a big deal out of a bad economy when there are things to see and a great excuse to stay poor and untethered.
4. My perception of real life might be a bit skewed from the status quo

So here's to the young, the dumb, the waiters who for some reason moved back in with their parents, new mountains, longer powder seasons and the Diamond (that's a real thing and I am looking for a partner in crime for it)

This is Bat Country

2011-03-28T22:09:00.004-06:00

I was somewhere near Nevada, maybe 20 miles from the border, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember feeling light headed and then suddenly there was a terrible noise all around. Like Jim Morrison’s nails clawing down a bottle of Jackie D trying to keep the lizard king alive while Janice Joplin screeched and howled at him about dying young. Bright lights abounded, blindingly searing over the blank desert mountain ahead while I thought to myself, “Fuck man, this can’t be Vegas already. I’m still an hour out.”

But indeed it was that wretched wino filled shit hole of a city I had such fond memories of. Time slipped through my fingers, what had it been? 1 year? The last 4 years of memories of craggin’ in Arkansas had been a trip in itself, likely never to be seen again from like-minded pirates. But less than 1 year ago I was throwing myself head first at god knows what desert mountain with THESE god forsaken stone bandits? And I somehow convinced myself I should come back…

Let me paraphrase, while these young wildabeasts that I was to meet were on spring break from the flatlands I decided to take a spring break of my own and head to the desert for a week to join them in their quest to bag crags and search out how much of the desert dust I truly have in my bones. “For research”, I told my boss. But in all reality it was for the same depraved state of being that we all venture into things that we are never too sure were ever good but we have somehow vanquished into memories of fondness and bliss, maybe due to the booze.

I had plans to see the week out of the back of my van. The party wagon quickly became transformed into a poor man’s desert palace, more luxurious than a night on the far side of the strip but mobile enough to invade those poor yuppie bastards should a band of us pirates decide to infiltrate their basecamp of high rises and $400 rooms.

I want you to feel the full effect of the back of the party wagon. I’m talking about two bags of the North Face persuasion, 35 quickdraws of the sport variety, 1 quilt, 2 thermarests, 2 ropes, at least 50 feet of assorted webbing, puffy belay jackets, Gore-Tex everything, half a dozen of anything I might want to snack on, rigged Christmas lights that never quite worked… Also, a fifth of whiskey, 30 odd beers, and at least 5 people shoved into the back at all hours of the night until I kicked them out screaming. “disperse you filthy animals and take your empties with you.” Not that I needed all of that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious gear collection the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

Regardless we cragged hard, I spent all of my days attempting feeble red-points on things well below a stone worthy Slater. But I couldn’t give up a grade! How could I! Less than 6 months ago I was redpointing hard 11! And now I have been relinquished to a shell of a climber with overgrown thighs from too new of a mountain bike and too great of a ski season, not remembering how to pull evenly on slopers and unable to make my fingers close around crimps. My feet jammed into the wall and slid, listening to $100 worth of rubber slowly disintegrating around my toes whilst I kicked myself, “you know how to place feet, now get on with this before you waste any more of your belayers time.”

Craggin up a chimney

Regardless, I spent my days cragging hard until an impending storm began to take place around the desert peaks. “TO THE STRIP!” exclaimed the small posse I had been cragging with for the last few days and goddamnit I was glad to hear it. “The strip at last. I thought you boys were going to make my fingers fall off and my biceps rupture to an inverted skeletal structure.”

Right in time for the biggest contradiction of spring break history we arrived in Vegas to see the storm in force. The cheapest room on the strip was procured at the Sahara and we set out on our venture. Tallboys of the Tallest varieties dangling from our mitts, spliff dangling from my compatriots mouth nervously looking around like he might see the fuzz at any minute, much like a young man would while emulating Clint Eastwood smoking a green bean at the family dinner table, “get that out of your mouth and don’t let me ever see it again young man!”

Penny slots was the cheer of the night, the waitress at the Belagio hated my hails from aisles away, “DRINK GIRL!” As she looked at us in dismay adorned in our gritty Carhartts, puffy jackets, sunburned faces and disheveled hair while ordering free PBR by the bucket, looking around the room at all the customers she might one day have and their nice suits. I couldn’t help but proclaim, “let’s get down to brass tacks, how much for the ape.” She handed me my drink and failed to return after that point of the night, luckily we were already blitzkreiged enough to be on such a swank hotel’s secutiry watch list and we didn’t last much longer after that. Tossing pennies across the lobby floor of a hotel that you can’t afford to stay, drink or gamble at just waiting for some poor sucker to pick them up while swaying side to side on one of the plushest lobby couches I have ever sat on is truly a great way to play “where’s the climbers” of security work.

And as we hailed a cab back to our own hotel, where the seedy and unruly were truly found I once again heard my close compatriot whisper into the cab driver’s ear, “less than $10 across town and I have a great tip for you.” Unfortunately that goddamn animal didn’t speak a lick of English. And as we arrived back to the great 1950’s staple of the strip I once again heard the same murmur but this time in my ear, “As your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown bottle in my shaving kit. You won't need much, just a tiny taste.”

Vegas 2011.

(Dear Mom/Aunts/Whomever else is too old to have seen or read Fear and Loathing… It’s a play off a book/movie. So calm down, my generation gets that it’s not real)

The Goat Man Cometh

2010-12-14T23:53:00.004-06:00

2011 race season is knocking on the door and I'm getting pretty amped. Which is pretty dope since I haven't been amped proper for a race season in a few years. I think it's a combination of a fresh scene, fresh scenery, new people and an excuse to keep racing sport class.

I am really relishing in the happenstance that has become my racing as of recent. It seems that living up high and riding only marginally is much better training for the 3/4 level than living down low and training hard. Breathing easy and never being out of contention of a top 10 when competing with all of the Phoenix crew has been great so I am very stoked to start racing seriously this season...err as seriously as Slater gets.

For those out of the loop the Fisher is long gone. It was my most loyal companion the last 4 years and served me very well. It proved that it could rail corners and blow freewheels with aplomb, it saw too many hard miles for any bike with such little maintenance given to it yet still refused to crack a downtube like the rest of her production run sisters.

AA at Big Poppi ordered me up a XTC 29er 1 to race on this season and I am beyond excited. The XT/SLX 30spd group will be beyond the nicest component group I have ever bought and the Fox fork felt beastly the last few times I have demoed one so I have very high hopes that this bike will blow me away and show me that piloting one of the first production design 29ers is not an ideal way to operate in 2011.

Murdered out

Back to the race season. Apparently the big race scene starts here in January in PHX and the series just continues down there til it gets hot and then snakes it's way back up into the mountains chasing the cooler temps til the summertime. So that's pretty cool, something like 11 races total. I've been laying down hard road miles since I ordered the Giant in an attempt to come back into form enough to justify this bike and a race entry fee.

It's working pretty well though. I went and rode mountain bikes for the first time in a month last weekend, it was mid 70s and sunny and everything went great. I borrowed Johnny G's old Cannondale hardtail for the ride. It was a sketchy bike down there to say the least. The front shock was blown, I haven't been on a little wheeled race bike since 2006 and I felt like I was falling over the front wheel the entire time. I rode with all of the local shop rats, a few of my fellow backcountry outfitters and the local big shot tri-coach and... I didn't get dropped, didn't hurt too bad, and was right there at the front on the pavement group sprint back to the cars (I have no idea what we were sprinting for but it was still fun to mix it up).

1996 called, it wants it's sketchy excuse for a mountain bike back

Everyone else was either on a 29er with a 100mm fork or a 5" fs beast, I looked very out of place on this bike trying to bomb sketch desert downhills with these guys. But I lived to tell the tale, rode some gnar brah super secret "locals only" trail and got to watch 12ish guys absolutely shred in the desert.

So here's to the race season, the desert, sketchy riding and borrowed bikes.

The Race Flyer

2010-10-25T21:51:00.004-05:00

The Masses: "Slater, all of your stories are about climbing and we don't understand what you are talking about anymore."

Slater: "Hold on. I'll go race a bike, drink a bunch of cheap beer and recant my tales amongst the internets."

I've wanted to tell this story for a while, I've had a few chances that seemed fair enough. But this one seems the most opportune for myself. I want a cautionary warning, this is long. This is 10 years worth of tales wrapped into a blog post. It might be worth reading, it might not be. But if you've been reading the climbing non-sense leading up to this you can probably hang on for a minute.

Last weekend marked my 10th season racing cyclocross bikes. First off I would like a moment of recognition for my former neighbor Steve Songer for indelibly ruining this sport by handing his 12 year old neighbor a race flyer and teaching him how to dismount on the 2000 nationals cross course. He might have thought he was doing the sport good back then by distracting a 12 year old from building 6 foot tall dirt jumps behind his house (that were probably ruining his view of the park) and putting that kid in spandex, but little did he know that kid would turn into me.

This tale starts back farther than I care to admit for as slow as I am. But I was indoctrinated into the sport of cyclocross in September of 2000. I had been racing mountain bikes for a season and did well as a junior, I can remember climbing the ski hill at Snow Creek and getting lapped by Steve Tilford when he was still humble enough to race local mtb events. But I didn't really know what I wanted to do with the sport. I loved BMX racing, I loved the pain of MTB racing and I didn't know anything about road bikes besides the fact that the dude who lived 2 houses down had a dope Litespeed and Lance Armstrong had just finished dominating his 2nd tour.

Well that dude who lived 2 houses down from me handed me a race flyer after I started hanging out in his driveway talking bikes with him. Come October I had somewhat learned about cyclocross through the internets and Steve. This is how my first race went...

12 year old me: I would like to enter the juniors race
Jeremy Haynes: Well I'm a pompous asshole, lemme give you shit for five minutes about how you don't have hair on your legs so you don't need to shave yet and then we can fill out an entry form
12 year old me: ok....
Jeremy: Holy shit you have a lot of hair on your legs (I still think Jer might be gay for commenting on a 12 year old's leg hair)

Needless to say that race got me hooked. It was 40 degrees out and I was wearing my only pair of cycling shorts coupled with a long sleeve KU cycling Tshirt. I finished right behind Theresa Jarsemkoski on her brand new white and red Redline. I could barely clip back into my Nashbar brand clipless pedals and my 30lb Fuji was agonizing to lift over the barriers. Jeremy Haynes screamed encouragement like I had never heard before from the sidelines, donned in his Bontrager sweater and goofy hat, "eye of the tiger baby."

Less than a month later I was registered for cx nationals, the first held in KC. It was a bust for me but the experience of the race was beyond good. It was cold, an ice-storm had left the course that I had ridden no less than 50 times un-rideable and it made 2008 nationals look like a cakewalk as far as I'm concerned.

That next season we transformed LBCR to the Museum Cycling Team, I had jerseys for both. I got to watch Steve and everything else I liked about that team disappear to different teams, they decided to go hit up KCBC and then form Team X/360. I watched it happen and as an aspiring junior I knew I wasn't going many places without a piggyback. I can still remember the next season. I assume teams were starting to talk about re-organization, and if not than certain people just did great things for me.

I can remember the phone ringing while I was at the kitchen table doing god knows what as a 13 year old and I can remember my mom asking me to come take the phone from her. But whatever happened after that I have no idea. Jeremy Haynes had called my house and wanted to know if I wanted to race for the new Boulevard/Midwest Cyclery Team. As a kid I felt about as pro as it could get. He wanted my kit sizes and commitments, and I was as down as it could get.

The next few years I sandbagged it out. I was a 5'11 14 year old and just kept entering junior races and taking the wins (as long as they started around the same time as the C race). I was pretty damn good at racing against the Men's C and collecting a prize wherever I ended up... not gonna lie it was normally pretty well.

But eventually Dean Parker showed up with a neighbor kid of his own... Chris Hall. And that kid started battling right quick. We all know how that story ends up. Cat 1 license v Cat 4 license...circa now.

I caught a case of the "fumes" pretty hard around the same time that he showed up. The car fumes of things that sprint faster than 28mph and the perfumes that are prettier than a new Cannondale. I still showed up for races once in a while, I never did well but I was always stoked to come out early and help pound stakes. That's what cross was built on, or what I always thought it was built on. Pound stakes, shake the homeless man off the bench, race before the cops show up.

10 years later and you get a founding father of god knows what kind of Bad Goat cross team that resembles the old Midwest/Boulevard crew but with an entire team less than 29 years old and enough CO2 generated kegs to power an atom bomb (is that what those run on...), race promoter, series organizer and general team of miscreants.

I always thought this story was worth sharing since there aren't that many kids who came up in the true hay day of KC cross racing. I could tell you about last weekend's race, but it wasn't more than another round of top tens, or the last 5.12 but this is better in my opinion.

So here's to the dudes who made the KC cross scene rain hard... at least for me. Cheers, Steve and Jeremy.

The Story of the Weekend

2010-10-13T00:45:00.002-05:00

My weekend was overall un-eventful (continue reading if you will). But I have a story that makes me chuckle, bluegrass and wine. So let the tales regale your eye parts.

Sunday was my only day off from work last week so John, Matt and I went to the pit for a day of sport craggin. We had a pretty darn good day. I warmed up on a solid 5.10d, retrieved the leftover anchor via a 5.11C direct next to said previous route and then watched John Boy try and flail up the 5.9 pocket pull Popeye. John never got to the top and we had to lower him about 10 feet from the anchors. I told both Matt and John prior to the route that I had no desire to climb the damn thing again so one of them would have to finish it and get the gear back. Well Matt cleaned it up after John and came on back to the dirt.

Here's where the gettin' gets good. It was a well known fact from the minute that we got into the car that I would be laying down a fatty onsight attempt on True Value, which is a stellar 5.11a that is very overhung and not my kind of climbing style at the moment. But for some reason after John Boy got lowered off his 5.9 bail he thought that he should just walk back to the car.... with all of my quickdraws hanging off of him. Matt and I thought that he was taking a piss or petting a skink or whatever the hell he does in the woods. So we continued to flake the rope and tie in, sure that he would show back up.

Well he did show back up, around bolt number 5 of this 9 bolt route. I have 6 draws to start the climb, it required 9. I decided that I could just make 2 alpine draws out of the webbing and lockers in my pack and run out the last bolt to the top.

Here's why it sucks (but is still funny) while I was building this draw out of lockers, I only remembered to construct said lockers but not unlock them. The crux move on this route is about 10 feet above the last bolt, and if you count the roof as vertical feet it would have been a solid 15 feet to the last bolt (30 foot fall before rope stretch). So I hit the crux and am hanging on a 3 finger sidepull with maybe one toe solid on the roof bottom, I pull the rope to clip and when I go to clip absolutely nothing happens because the gate will not come undone. I am at my limit and I start screaming at Matt "TAKE, TAKE, TAKE!" as I start running down the wall in what I am sure will be an ankle breaker.

I live through the ordeal and have to pull the crux 3 times. Once as the original clip, once to retrieve the original and once to place a new unlocked draw. All the while John Boy shows up smiling halfway through the crux and offers to "throw my draws up to me." It was by far the most strenuous .11a of my life and I am beyond frustrated that I didn't onsight, but it will still fall clean. Hopefully in the next week.

So here's to your weekly wine rant, walking off with my g*darn gear and making due with whatever is left in the pack.

The Mountain Life Proper

2010-09-24T22:20:00.004-05:00

I've been waiting a while for a week like the past, one that really embodies the spirit of the mountain. A stellar realization of what one can truly accomplish and be at elevation if you will, and I think the last week finally made the good stuff rain hard. Not to downplay the epic tales of mountaindom that have precluded this, but they really can't touch what has been happening these last 7 days. So sit back, crack a cold one and enjoy the yarns that I intend to spin.

So I went to work at Babbitt's Backcountry last week. It's the "Sunflower" of Flagstaff minus the bikes. I'm back to doing what I love and working with like minded pirates. Mind you it's no career but careers seldom come with this many accounts to pro-deal. So I can deal for now.

Over the weekend I worked the three day long Flagstaff bluegrass festival "Pickin' in the Pines" at my coffee shops vendor booth. It was a solid 12 hour day everyday. And by solid 12 hour day I mean I hung out, sold food, drank a lot on the job, and got to party down in the outdoor amphitheatre proper when the good music was playing. I raged to Nolan McKelvey with my white boy dancing and led a charge up to the stage for some dancing with the Seldom Scene. Every night that I left the amphitheatre I wandered back downtown to find out what band was playing a side gig where and explore the bluegrass bar scene. Not a lot of sleep but soooo good.

Regardless of the whole sleep situation I took Monday and Tuesday off to go climbing in Paradise Forks. I got hooked up with this old school trad climber named Stan and I was beyond stoked to start trad-climbing again. Paradise Forks is one of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen and the whole canyon was empty except for some Europeans who had traveled specifically to climb the stellar hand-cracks. Nobody around Flagstaff trad-climbs and it's kind of an anomile. This town is surrounded by old school trad areas that are beyond amazing, but all the kids my age want nothing to do with anything that isn't 5.13 sport climbing or V8 bouldering... or approaches longer than 5 minutes.

I'm not much of a crack climber, and by not much I mean I have no crack climbing form. I was desperate for a micro-crimp or an edge to pull on but all these cracks had to offer was jams upon jams. It was described by everyone as "Indian Creek without proper ratings." You see back in the day the rating system stopped at 5.9. So anything that was hard was just called 5.9+... and we climbed a lot of 5.9+. I spent a solid two days after that excursion not being able to lift my hands above shoulder height, my feet were bloody from attempting to jam my tiny sport shoes sideways into cracks and I was mentally exhausted. But G-Dang I had more fun craggin' at the Forks than I have had since I started climbing. I know where my future in this sport is and it lies in tiny finger cracks and TCU's.

Our Austrian climbing associate sending hard on the stellar Paradise Forks hand cracks.

So that's how you live the mountain life. You shuck and jive as a North Face shill, sling the lattes at bluegrass festivals, party hard with the band whence the festival comes to a stop, and crag at the most scenic old school canyon in the southwest. Now you'll have to excuse me, I have to go sort gear for another day of redpointing 5.11 at Jack's Canyon.

So here's to livin' the life proper.

A Climbing Bum's Tales

2010-09-16T02:17:00.005-05:00

Who wants to know about the last week of my life? Because I want to tell you about it.

So the last word from me was that I was jobless and restless. So I took my restless nature and went climbing. Here's the rundown (just of the fun things, not the endless job hunt).

I hit the pit headfirst on Wednesday with a climbing fervor reserved for the young and frustrated. I got a handful of onsights and killed a project of mine with aplomb. It was a good day. I won't go on since everyone has already heard about the pit.
Thursday and Friday I got out on the bike hard. Rode myself into the ground both on the road and mountain respectively but nothing too epic to report besides I rode fast and hard and all day.

View from the anchors at Slide Rock Canyon

Saturday: I heard tell of some bolted rock down in Sedona at Slide Rock state park. So I dragged Matt out to check it out. We had little info besides, "bolted rock, up on the hill, above the creek." But oh my goodness, once we found the rock it was good. The lines were bold, 90 foot sandstone overlooking a 400 foot drop into a canyon, spires coming out of the side of the desert floor and more exposure than I have seen in a while. It was a true day of onsight climbing. We literally had no idea what any of the climbs went at, they all felt 5.10ish (but everything feels 5.10ish to me since I could honestly care less what a rock goes at). All of the climbs went clean and all of them were absolutely gorgeous. It was my first visit south to Sedona and I can see why it is such a tourist trap, it is literally one of the most gorgeous towns I have ever seen in my life. Everyone should make a pilgrimage just to see this tiny mountain town, that good...

True onsights go without beta, I don't care what the rest of the sport climbers say.

Saturday night I raged too hard with John boy so I'll skip Sunday altogether. But Monday I met up with some kids from Phoenix down at Jack's Canyon to climb. Jack's is about 30 miles south of Winslow, of Eagles fame, and is a sport climber resort. Hundreds of bolted lines in a pretty small canyon to tear up. It just so happened that my partner for the day was just beginning to push into 5.13s, while I myself had never even seen anyone climb 5.13. We spent the morning with me projecting 5.12 and him cleaning up whatever wouldn't go for me. It was a damn hard day on the rock and it felt sooo good to start climbing at or beyond my limit again. We climbed for a total of 10 hours and 12 routes, all were good, most went clean, life was good.

Tuesday I got a call from that job that I thought I lost/quit. They wanted me to come work for the day. I'm broke so I said "sure why not." Well, 1 day turned into 2 days turned into me working their booth at the local bluegrass festival all weekend. Add onto that and the local downtown gear dispensery called to hire me this morning. So I went from jobless climbing bum to double job/52 hr a week working employed person in less than 24 hours. I guess it cuts into the freewheeling climbing bum life that I was so fond of but at least I can pay some bills this month.

So here's to the life, making the dollas rain when you need it and big money sendin'

Labor Day Bundy Wedding Weekend

2010-09-08T02:07:00.005-05:00

Early wake up call Friday morning as I packed the rest of my belongings and headed the 1.5 miles to the Flagstaff airport to shuttle a rickety old jet to the Phoenix airport for a rather eventful wedding weekend back in the old KS. I'm a rather inept airport patron and was worried that I would get utterly lost once descending upon PHX. But everything went off without a hitch and I was ahead of schedule arriving at MCI. There was a lovely young Neta awaiting me at the gate who rushed me straight off to Topeka so I could obtain a tux and do some damage to ol' T-Town.

After the tux was obtained I donned my classy wedding rehearsal getup of jeans, flip-flops and polo only to become the most under dressed rehearsal attendee. Felt a bit awkward until we got to the dinner and began drinking copious amounts of Blind Tiger's delicious American Pale. From then on the party raged in preparation for the next days festivities.

I won the game of "who knows Bundy and Kristen the best." Partly from my own knowledge
and partly because Kelsey screamed out all of her answers.

Wedding day: I awoke and scrambled downstairs only to find a car full of waiting groomsmen and their groom who apparently rebounded faster than me... or were just more used to an early wake up call than me. Regardless they wanted to get hiking and I volunteered to be the guide for the morning at the Topeka Governer's Mansion Trails. I might add that I volunteered my services as guide the night before while imbibing copiously only because the proposed morning destination of Perry Lake sounded utterly miserable to drive out to. I have no business guiding at or even riding this clusterfrag of trails by myself seeing as I have only ridden there twice. But as a verbose young outdoorsman will tell anyone after a few, "sure I can get us there and back." Regardless, we got back somehow and all was good.

That afternoon was a blur of business. I showed up to meet everyone for pictures missing my studs and suspenders and wearing the wrong shoes. Fixed the aforementioned problems and started bombing through wedding procedures. Once I stepped onto the stage (or whatever they call the thing at the front of a church...alter?) the proceeding was a blur. Kristen and Bundy were there and I could look out into the crowd and see every one of my best friends placed in the back where those damn miscreants belong. The whole thing went off without a hitch, Kristen looked absolutely enamored with her groom and although I couldn't see Mr. Bundy's face from my top-step I'm sure the emotion was the same. Kelsey Miller Fink was an amazing better half of my march out of the church and then things got wild.

We had fun and looked damn good.

Reception: My boat of flatland pirates were ready to rage. I got announced like royalty to the reception hall and took my place at the head table. After nabbing a quick scotch and heading back to the table with beer in hand (making a quick stop to adorn Neta with girly red booze) the feast was presented upon us. I leaned over to the dj and said "classy, jazz, Dean Martin, make it rain" and so was done. After dinner was done I made quick rounds and went to meet my table of fellow friends. We quickly turned the 8 person table into a 20 person, and mind you they happened to pick the table closest to the open bar. After things got wild and we danced and partied and danced some more we somehow ended up just being a large group of people standing next to the open bar for the rest of the night. We don't need a full bar, just a man with a stand and we can pretend.

Sunday: I somehow managed to make it downstairs in time to hand my tux off to Kristen's parents, gave the new Bundy family a quick hug and started shoving everything I owned into a bag so Neta and I could check out in time.

As I was driving home that morning I received a text from my boss at the coffee shop. It said "Your schedule has changed, call me as soon as you can." I procrastinated a while since I had to go see my parents and still was in no shape to talk to an employer of mine. Eventually I called him back and received some pretty lame news. Apparently the coffeeshop/restaurant was no longer serving dinner and they were cutting hours. By the time I called him back he had already laid off two cooks, a barista and slashed everyone's hours in half. He sounded frazzled and mystified how they were losing money and obviously felt bad. Half of me was prepared for it, but the other half wanted to scream and yell at him for his poor business model of serving lobster tail in a coffee shop but only between the hours of 4pm and 8pm... you didn't realize you were bleeding money sooner? Because we all did.

Regardless I had been thinking about this moment a lot lately, and wasn't really heartbroken and almost felt relieved. When he told me that he could probably work me 10-15 hours that week I chuckled over the phone, thanked him and then told him that I would only be coming into work that week to be collecting my check. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was foolishness, maybe it was just plain naivety but I didn't feel the need to work for a business who didn't have the foresight to give employees more than 12 hours notice that they would lose their income.

Regardless I went in today to collect my check and ex boss-man started talking at me just as much as he normally did. I listened for a minute but didn't let him finish his ramblings for once, just politely cut him off and said "Thank you for the job. I have a college degree and this awesome resume to go pass around." Shook his hand and went home and hit the job trail. I'm rather resolute to not get back in the coffee business right now, I'm rather sure I could land another coffee shop gig tomorrow but I have also been thinking a lot lately that working in a coffee shop after graduating college with nothing but coffee shop experience out of my 20s is only going to pigeon hole me into a field that has no income or long term stability.

Regardless I had an awesome weekend seeing two of the greatest people I have ever known get hitched. Followed by a hard realization that I am on the hunt for a real career and a life. Not just a job and a lot of playing. I foresee a lot of PBR and grilled cheese in this future job hunt...

So here's to celebrating two of my favorite people, my other favorite people who celebrated with me, cheap beer and hard roads.

Holes, Ska and Summits

2010-08-31T02:19:00.004-05:00

It was a clear and sunny Wednesday morning and I had made big plans to summit Arizona's roof with Senor Giles. I awoke with a dry mouth and a dull ache from the Tuesday night fiesta that comes with the college kids moving back into town only to find a sketchy roommate who bailed on an epic to go play bikes with some new roadie companion... can't hate on a man for wanting new friends but give a fool some warning.

Regardless I hit Matt's phone and said "Pit, today is the day 5.12 onsight." He said cool, packed his gear and called me back 15 minutes later. "Uhh, my truck has a broken out window. I can't climb." I didn't understand the correlation between the two. I climb when I'm frustrated, ecstatic or ambivalent... but he needed to console his truck or something so he bailed and left me with my day off to ponder what the bejeezus I can do with my day off work flying solo.

As I was driving aimlessly around town I came across the city limits. There was a sign that said "Grand Canyon: North Rim 124 miles." I took a quick inventory of the party wagon (gas, water, phone, boots, ipod). Cranked the Johnny Cash and blazed a trail down old Route 66 to witness the grandness of this hole for myself. I blew past the national park (by accident not purpose) and continued to the north rim proper, what awaited me was a giant desert filled with nothing and a big hole in the middle. Not a soul was in sight and as I parked my car and wandered off through the dust. I realized that not many people have the opportunity to see the Canyon proper, alone, surrounded by absolutely nobody. I spent a good hour and a half wandering around until I found a good boulder overlooking the canyon that looked like a proper sittin' spot. From there I watched the sun slowly fade behind the sandstone towers that surround the hole and let the dust of the desert settle into my bones before returning to town feeling fulfilled and refreshed.

Stolen pic but it looked like this, minus the rainbow, plus my presence.

Thursday and Friday were pretty much a wash, I'm sure I did some drinkin' or something but nothing worth bragging about.

Saturday night however... I slung the lattes until close and booked it out of the shop at the speed of sound. One of my favorite bands of my youth was playing a free show on campus and be damned if I missed it. I've seen Less Than Jake no less than 3 times as memory serves and every show has been memorable to say the least (that's where that story stops). Regardless this washed up late 90s ska band played a set that was almost identical to the last time I saw them at 15 years old, right down to their two encore songs. Classic and made me feel right back in jr. high, even though I was surrounded by 18 year olds who were solely at the show because they hadn't found enough friends at freshman orientation to know where the booze is at.

This dude has literally looked like this since I saw him at Warped Tour 2000. Something about my childhood likes that.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday: I once again made plans with John boy to hit the roof of Arizona and be damned if I was going to let him bail again. I was awake at 8 and ready to go. The weather was gusty and abnormally cool to say the least. I started texting John at 9 telling him to get up and get to the mt. Fast forward 2 hours and somehow John managed to get out of bed and I harassed, threatened to do the hike solo and lied long enough about the 70% chance of t-storms that we were bound for the trailhead. Finally got to hiking around 11:15, with my stomach churning with excitement and fear knowing that we might break treeline in the middle of a wicked storm.

Broke treeline around 1:45. Not many people were summiting Humphrey's that day which I thought seemed odd as it's a pretty moderate, albeit time consuming, 10 mile hike and we somehow managed to stay out of the wet. Figured it out once we got up there though. It seemed that with every 100 feet of elevation and exposure we gained above treeline the wind would crank it up another 10mph. We went from steady 60mph hurt on the first false summit, to steady 75mph on the second and finally got stuck with 95mph gusts making the final steep 100 meter push vertical to the summit. It was cold and miserable up there but the experience was soooo worth it. Most guide books warn that any weekend you will be battling up to 100 other people getting to the top, we had the summit to ourselves the entire 30 minutes we were there. Not too shabby at all.

So here's to great holes, great heights and washed up musicians who still make me smile.

Racin' Bikes

2010-08-22T01:00:00.002-05:00

I has no pickthures, sorry.

I raced a bike today, first time racing a mtb since RIM last summer. The Absolute Bikes Classic MTB Race up on the snowbowl mountain, I was amped. I've dropped 10 lbs since I've moved here, held onto the fast group rides, ridden harder than I have for a long time and felt prepared.

And I'm pretty sure I was. The race was two 10 mile laps, 6 miles up, 2 miles flat, 2 miles descending. And I felt great on everything that wasn't riding straight up a wall. Once we got the steep part of the climb settled I started railing past people in the tech corners and flying through the short downhill sections. And then the big downhill started. Somehow I had ridden into the pro/expert women's race and was cruising with a Luna racer on the downhill trading 30mph bombs as we could sneak past each other in the corners. One of us missed a turn and neither realized it until we ended up on a dirt road that was definitely not part of the course. There were two beginner riders standing in the middle of the road, scratching their heads and wondering how they got there as well...

Needless to say I was beyond furious, a 4 mile detour left me well out of contention for that top 10 spot (out of a giant 60 man field) that I put myself in the pain locker for just moments before. I rolled back into the start area with my timing chip already in my hand and just tossed it at the course timer uttering the words, "Fuck this race." I don't think I have ever been more furious in a race situation in my life, I tried to hunt down the promoter to express to him how much of a worthless hack he was for not being able to tape a course (among other qualms I held with the unorganized cluster). But he must have been hiding behind his douche bush somewhere because he was nowhere to be found.

I wanted to yell and scream and scream and punch, but I'm glad there was no one to be found to take that out on. The best description of the cat who was promoting this race was a Jeremy Haynes with absolutely none of the wit/tact or talent and who I have no affiliation with. He was trying so hard to be old school and put on an old school mtb race, but this was a 300 rider race and it ended up just being a waste of my money. And just to clarify, I know Jeremy doesn't read this blog (so I'm safe), and I have known that asshat way too long to dislike him, but those of you who haven't may relate to the sentiment.

Anyways, I'm glad I couldn't find anyone to scream at. Because Flagstaff is a tiny town and even though the bike community is big, I still have no business burning bridges quite yet.

Regardless, I went to work after the race for 9 hours and calmed down. I came home and opened a beer and watched 180 South. I would highly recommend all of my adventuring buddies to check this flick out, it put me in a better mood. It really expressed adventure in the purest way possible through conservation, surfing and climbing. Made me happy and reminded me why I still play in the woods after such a bust of a day.

Anyways, I'm back to the normal tipsy, happy, blogging Slater. I'm going to the Pit tomorrow to burn off any left over resentment on the limsetsone and life is still good in the lodgepole pines.

So here's to now.

Work Hard Play Hard

2010-08-14T01:12:00.005-05:00

WOOOHOOOOO! I got off work at 5pm today, out the door while the suns still shining! I was that stoked for about 2.7 seconds before I realized how hard I have been on my body in the last few weeks. Time for a rest night.
But y'all get a quick recap of the week anyways...

I've been gettin' after it like it's made to be got after since the last update. Most everyday I have had to work a 12-9 or some variation ending well past 9 since the service industry rarely is telling of actual scheduling. But the late wake-ups mean I can pump out a quick 7-8 on the feet or a nice road ride before work, accompanied by 2 hangboard workouts a day in my never ending quest to send those 5.12s and running around my coffee shop like a madman...

Those things are only the beginning to the end of this story though, the real detriment to the temple of Slater began Wednesday afternoon. I got hooked up rather well and was scheduled a nice short, non-closing shift at work followed by a Thursday off. Well... the Wednesdays in Flagstaff are the Thursdays in Lawrence, the two bars that are dirty enough to still get a loyal college kid following (tourist free) in the summer run .25 cent drink specials and throw raging parties. So we raged, it's pretty rad that I've met enough people already that I am already running into/garnishing a crew of nightlifers and like minded individuals into my life.

Long story short, the limit ordering at the bar is "3 drinks" per person and the .25 special at the Greenroom runs from 8-10pm and then starts again at 11, so every time one ventures to the bar they are "forced" to order a double and a beer, just in case they can't get a drink again before the specials end... And since I'm a pirate of a goat and know a little bit about math, I have determined that for that one $6 bottle or Barton's gin that serves 16 drinks I am officially dominating their rent check for that bar since there is no way I will let them ever make money off of me... if I drink it all fast enough and boogie down to the 80's jams pumping in the backgound.

So Happy to be on something less runout finally.

Whew, not a short story at all. BUT Thursday was my day off of work so I had to do something with it. Took the Dudesons back to the Pit after a quick cancellation (due to massive hangovers ) of the Southwest's destination sport climbing crag of Jack's Canyon. Climbing is pretty rad right now because I get to pick out lines, lead them, set up a top rope and then just sit back and tan while the other dudesons give it a shot and try to work out the kinks.

Yup, I live here.

I had a full day scheduled and 4 5.10D routes that I wanted to run down. 5.10D proved to be about the edge of my sanity for the day and I got scaredddddddd on a 20 foot runout under a ledge that I could not see the next bolt from. Regardless I was the only one who could lead that day so I kept setting up ropes and slowly unraveling until I called it quits for my own mental health.

Woke up today and headed out for work, thinking that I was closing the place down. Negative once again, only had to work until five. I'm pretty sure that mindset works well as long as I know when to show up. So I was stoked that I would be off of work in time to catch the Yonder Mountain String Band jammin out at the amphitheatre up the street. But 6 tacos and a handful of Dale's later and I was just quite motivated enough to walk out on my porch to see if I could hear anything, alas all I could hear was awkward reverb and too much traffic trying to get to my side of the mountain. A noble attem

Tomorrow is attempt #3 of hanging with John Boy's new roadie team in the hammerfest Saturday ride, hopefully no rain so I can actually show up this week. I think it's gonna be good, regardless of how it turns out. I obtained phone numbers of the other cyclists pre-ride tonight so we could meet up, toast and talk about how slow I am tomorrow night.

So here's to pushing the body until it needs an ice bath, hating on it some more, numbing the pain, and then hurting it again.

P.S. Happy Bachelor Party Bundy, sorry I couldn't be there bud.

Life As It Should Be Lived

2010-08-08T22:42:00.005-05:00

Warning: This is the true story of my weekend. Reading these tales or any following this may cause jealousy, envy or the insatiable urge to move west. Read at your own risk.

Saturday: Started rather uneventfully. I drank too much wine with my neighbor during a thunderstorm that knocked out our cable and provided a light show big enough to make the mountain smell like burnt ozone the night before. So I was plenty relieved when I awoke to go hammer with the locals on the Saturday morning road ride and I found nothing but more rain that didn't look like it would let up anytime soon. Back to bed I went until it was time to sling the lattes at noon.

I slung the lattes until about nine o'clock and hustled home to change out of clothes that smell of burnt espresso beans and hop on the cross bike to cruise downtown. Met up with Senor Giles and our new bud Jason at the Rendezvous. Jason seems like the man to know in the bike world here, he runs one of the largest bike teams in Phoenix and seems to know who's who and what's what.

When I entered the Rendezvous martini bar I encountered the same phenomena that I seem to encounter every time I enter a martini bar... they can't remember what an actual martini looks like. It's an interesting conundrum that I have encountered more than a few times in my life. They have a shiny menu full of drinks that taste like chocolate, or lemons or apples but when walking to the bar and uttering the words, "martini, dirty, Gordons" the bartender returns a blank stare and runs to find whoever is in charge of the joint. Regardless I got a drink and spent a few of the strong ones flowing prose with Jason and Johnny about bikes, motorcycles, cars and life.

The Piano Room's logo. A small door off an alleyway is the only entrance, and inside looks just as much like a 1940's speakeasy as their logo gives away.

Afterwards we stumbled to the billards room so my compatriots could experience a joint cutthroat schooling. And then quickly headed back to the street and ended up in the piano bar. Piano bar made me feel like Dean Martin, it was old school and too classy for a boy like me. They served infused alcohol and their bar didn't have a bottom shelf, no tourists and the bartender knows your first name without having ever been introduced... too good. What's a boy to do but take on the Habanero infused tequila challenge. It was harsh, hot and oh so complex. Felt like a king for the return voyage home.

Sunday: WOOOOOHOOOOO, day off work. God bless the Christians who run my coffee bar for shutting the place down one day a week. I guzzled water, coffee and bread with a vengance to quell the remaining tequila and headed to the the Pit to climb. My goal for the day was to finally climb 5.11 in style in this state. Didn't happen. Hopped on 5.10D Popeye and got a very solid and clean redpoint. Returned to the dirt and got sketched out by the starting moves on the .11c I had been scoping since the belay station was only big enough to hold a belayer and a fall from the first bolt would result in both of us tumbling a solid 40 feet. So I moved a little farther over and attempted to lead a very stout overhung 5.10D, felt good until the top and could not figure out what to do. I had no beta on this route, didn't know the rating and couldn't figure out the final five foot sequence to get to the bolts. So I scooted over and climbed the chimney adjacent, set up an anchor and gave it a top rope rehearsal. Solid, the sequence that I had a go at on lead were solid 5.11+ moves, rapping off of it showed me a neat little sidepull that turned it back into 5.10d. Sent it clean but it took forrrreeevvvver.

Top-rope master Johnny trying to work .10d. He's making progress and has learned to give a solid lead belay.

After the few solid burns we got we decided to quit fighting the trafiic circus that is The Pit on the weekends and go ride bikes. But by the time we hiked out of the canyon and back to the car it was decided that we were too tired, hungry and sunburnt to ride. So downtown we headed. Scooped up some grub on the patio of local badass burrito eatery The Black Bean and listened to the live bluegrass tunes coming from the stage not 20 foot ahead of us.

I think the overall moral of the story that I told myself this afternoon went something like this, "Here I am, sitting at a delicious local eatery (as a new local), 7000ft in the air, listening to live tunes, watching the old hippies dance and drink, with chalk still on my hands from the absolutely gorgeous limestone burn I just sent less than an hour ago. This is about as good as life gets."

So here's to solid rock, good buds, good booze, good food, good music and the sweet mountain air.

The Good Life

2010-08-03T04:19:00.002-05:00

So I have promised a few people that I would finish a bottle of wine and have at this blog with the fervor and wit reserved the days of yore. Well... I didn't. And quite honestly, I find it rather unmanly to finish a bottle of California's finest/cheapest merlot at home when one lives with another dudeson, so I really don't see that situation occuring anytime soon.

Regardless I feel the need to regale the readership with tales of my current mountain town.

I've been here for almost three solid weeks. I'm doing what I love to bring home the bacon (slinging lattes where lattes need to be slunged) and the cool mountain air is as amazing to live in as I always envisioned.

THE RIDING: To start, our nearest singletrack is less than 1 mile away via the cities ultra-expansive multi-use trail. 42 miles of ultra-drainable desert dirt/gravel line all of the streets to make this the most impressive bike city I have ever encountered. And only 1 mile to the right of my doorstep drops me off in front of the cities after work superflowy loop. 10ish miles of singletrack provide everything from bomber 40 mph doubletrack to a technical loop that rivals Clintion's white trail. The best part though... it is never, ever, ever muddy. We have had days with flash flood warnings in the last week. And instead of turning the trails into mush, it turns into velcro infused hardpack.

Aside from the super close riding, the rest of the riding resides between 3 and 7 miles away and has proven to blow the mind on the decents (the ascents are less mind blowing but I'm sure once my elevation lungs are about me they will be equally glorious.)

Don't let the Goats hear me say this but the road riding here is equally amazing. Once outside of the city limits you can climb and climb and climb until you are done. And then bomb back down. Climbing 2o miles uphill to be rewarded with 60mph downhills can be quite entertaining to say the least.

THE CLIMBING: It's here, it's all here. My first few weeks were spent traveling around solo with a pack filled with shoes and chalk, freesoloing whatever looked freesoloable. I met some cool locals who threw a harness at me during my first visit to "Petit Verdon" and let me use their rope while I was eyeballing a 70 foot line that I was looking at just hanging out ropeless. Very chill people up in the thin mountain air, giving some stranger a belay on their gear.

Last weekend I taught our next door neighbor how to use all of his gym climbing gear to get out in the wilderness and found an even better belay buddy. And tomorrow, hoping the weather holds, Johnny will be learning his first outdoor on rope commands.

THE PEOPLE: They're all like me (or us). Everyone rides a mountain bike, everyone climbs, everyone drinks good beer with a pirate like thirst. I've sat outside the locals spots and listened to the hardmen spin yarns of epics on El Cap, Mt. Whitney or that last gnarly local race. The outdoorsmen run this town, and in a town this size that is a refreshing feeling.

So here's to the blog, the town and having life at your fingertips.

Roadie Rant Thursday

2010-06-10T23:03:00.004-05:00

So I wasn't sure if I should post this or not and have marinated in it since I got off my bike tonight, my first instinct about the matter was to rage hard in regards but after a shower and some food I thought it best to not act hastily. Here I am three hours later still pissed about it, yes it is incredibly petty and yes we have all probably experienced it but...

The last few Thursday nights I've been riding Lawrence's local "Vomit Comet" road ride. Known for being a 25 mile long absolute hammerfest. I really enjoy this ride since it gives me the chance to sit in a crazy fast group, ride at my limit, make a few hard efforts at the front and get popped out the back knowing that I actually did some bike riding that night.

Well tonight went about the same as every Thursday. I led the group out of town for a bit rolling at a decent warm up clip, Adam Mills and some tri-dude dragged us out to the turn off and split and the ride was officially on. There was an incredible lack of work sharing with pulls tonight and about half the crew was just sitting in the back sucking wheel, now I'm all for that tactic if I am riding in a BIG social group ride. But this is the damn comet, it's over in an hour, go to the front and take a damn pull or come back when you are fit enough to at least try.

Regardless of that I took a few more pulls and got spit out the back around the half way marker as Thom Leonard absolutely motored up the rollers. After I got spit off I turned the pace wayyy down and recovered for a few miles. About a half mile ahead of me I could see a female GP Velotek rider (one of the aforementioned sitter inners) had just got spit out too. I figured I would keep the pace slow for a bit, recover and then go catch her and ride in together.

Here's where the story really starts: about mile 16 I catch her on a climb and as I ride up beside I say hello and smile, she doesn't even acknowledge my existence just keeps cranking. So I think to myself "Hey self, I bet she's just too far in the pain locker to say hello back. Why don't you let her sit on your wheel up this climb." So that's what I did. And then continued to let her sit back there for a few more climbs while she yo-yo'ed back and forth. Good deed for the day is done.

After we turn onto north 1400 to cruise back into town I shut down the pace and once again ride beside her and say "Think the wind shifted on us? That hurt a little bit." With a grin cocked and a chuckle. This time she acknowledged my existence with a scowl and a corner of the eye glance. At this point I am fuming, in my head I am screaming, "I just dragged you around for the last few miles and you are well aware that we are on the same group ride because I am well aware that you were sandbagging around behind my wheel for a good portion of it."

To put the icing on the cake, when we reach the traditional "group sprint" end she comes motoring along past me around 26 mph with the full on metronome body bob and maybe a 50rpm cadence. So I once again cruised up next to her seated and just stared as we crossed the line directly next to each other. I didn't offer my assistance by pointing out that she was wasting all of her energy bobbing around like a jack in the box or in a highly inappropriate gear for a sprint at that speed. I am fully aware that no woman wants to be told what to do, especially from a hairy legged dude on a cross bike.

But seriously roadie douche queen... wtf? You were blatantly rude to a fellow rider who not only towed you ass in the group, but also out of the group? Is this just a shitty personality trait of yours? Does the silver back of your money sucking shell of a club hold meetings on how to sit in the back of rides and not do a goddamn thing while you ride laps around a lake campground? Is this some grudge you hold against mt. bikers or cross bikes? Or did daddy just treat you poorly and now you have an aversion to strange men?

Long story short: roadie douche queen + mtb>rb + GP Velotek is effin' lame + rant = me angrily blowing an isolated incident out of the water

(I am going to commit blaspheme and quote R5 now so sit tight while type this toast.)

So here's to the pirates of the dirt, and as R5 said in regards to our scene demolishing the road scene re the Bonebener, "Beer, hotdogs, and babes: shit you never see roadies get a sniff of. While you shaved leg weenies are drinking your recovery concoctions, we're taking recovery rides with your wives." Except for whomever's wife this was...

Mountains Ahoy!

2010-06-08T22:52:00.003-05:00

I think the majority of the world has heard the news by now. But for those not in the loop, I will be a resident of Flagstaff, Arizona as of July. Scored a swank little condo with Senor Johnny G. near campus and downtown and off we go next month.

I think I get more excited to live in a mountain town every day. I've been dreaming about moving west (as every young man does) for wayyy too long now and I see this as a re-focusing of my life. I know the majority of you reading this have seen this blog since inception and watched it turn from a bike blog, to a runner's rantings, to a lazy summer bum's tales to a climber's party tales. This last year in Lawrence I have felt pretty stagnant, no real motivation to ride the same trails over and over again and even Arkansas has started to become redundant in the climbing scene.

But in Flagstaff... I will be living 6 miles away from world class sport climbing. And my local crag has many more 5.12s than 5.9s (and no 5.8-). To put this in perspective, I believe my "local crag" of HCR has about 10 5.9 and under climbs for every 5.12. Which means that if I want to continue climbing it's time for me to either put up or shut up, I can't really sit and stall at a 5.11+ limit anymore and have it be any kind of impressive or even acceptable. Which is pretty rad since I firmly believe once a climber has found their technique climbing in the 5.10-5.11 range it is rarely a challenge to come back to them after time off and becomes more instinct and rock reading, which admittedly accounts for my lack of gym time this year while I am still increasing my onsight level.

I'll also be living in a hot bed of new mtb trails and looking forward to seeing switchbacks, logrides and jumps on the local xc trails again. I have super high hopes that I can land a job that affords me a decent new XC rig this year as that has always been great motivation for me to get out and ride, coupled with the scenery and the town itself. My anticipation for new riding has already kicked in and I have had the roadie out in force the last few weeks attempting to gain the composure back that a year on a motorcycle killed in me. If things go as planned I'll be riding 24hrs of Moab this year and if they don't than I'll still be riding rad trails at home 6 mths. a year and gooseberry/moab the rest of it.

Whitewater Kayaking: This has always been one of those things that I have thought would close my triangle of things I am good at. When I reference "the triangle" I feel like a mid-90's Mountain Dew ad. But the mtb, the climbing and the whitewater have always seemed like the three most extreme outdoor activities to me since I was a kid, the pinnacles of their respective properties (land, water and air). I can hang my hat comfortably on two and apparently Flagstaff has some good stuff in the water and I am pretty stoked to see it. I suck in the water (there's not much reason to be good in it living in KS) but have high hopes that the next year will be good learning regardless.

So I have to get back to attempting to sell the motorcycle, furniture and spare parts now to make this adventure hurt financially as little as possible.

But here's to new trails, new rock, new water, new friends, new local beer and focus.

Treading the Water of Life

2010-05-25T22:15:00.003-05:00

Oh the neglected blogosphere. I'm back and after what feels like a few months of holding my breath I feel like I almost have my head above water.

Conversation point #1: I graduated college. After 5 long years they finally kicked me out with a degree in psychology with a minor in political science from the great University of Kansas. That felt amazing for a minute until the boozey haze of graduation weekend ended and I realized I still had to figure out what to do next. I've made some big steps in that direction lately and should be out of the midwest quite soon, more details later on that one.

Woot! Graduated.

Regardless graduation weekend was super rad. Mike Draper and myself hosted a co-kegger grad party. The Fink family unit made the drive up and I had all of my climber family mixed up with the old Lawrence crew and the girl for the night. Felt great to have all of my best friends in the same place for the night. It was a true rarity for my collected memories and if you came than thank you, it made my grad weekend. On Sunday I walked down the hill and enjoyed the lovely tradition that all of us Jayhawks can forever bond in, celebrated with my family and then went on a 2 man pub crawl to re-live our (now) college past.

Conversation point #2: What's a college graduate to do when they are still working at a coffee shop with no real life obligations? Go climbing of course. So last weekend I headed back to the ranch with the trio of Carol, Rachelle and Jess to send some gnar rock. John Waller was already in the great state or AR so he joined us as well and we went to sendin'. Not too much to report on the whole climbing front. I almost onsighted another 5.11 and have high hopes that .11a will be my onsight grade by the end of the summer, sounds kinda lame and sport climberish but I have come to terms with the fact that that's all I currently am for now until I get a job, build a rack and hit the mountains.

J-Dub cut his teeth on his first outdoor lead climb ever on a pretty stout 5.10b at the prophecy wall. It was a very impressive first send on the sharp end and just goes to show that once again John "Good at Everything" Waller can get the job done. I'm pretty sure if you have a conversation about it with him he will mention something about it being less hard than I am making it out to be, but a .10 for your first time out on real rock is damn impressive (don't let him tell you anything else). Overall the weekend ended up being a great way to gain some composure. We climbed in the morning, swam in the Buffalo in the afternoon, climbed again in the dark and attended a most rad wedding reception in the HCR barn.

Conversation Point #3: This was a while back but I know a lot of you who read this have participated in this event in the past so it's worth a mention. David Neidinger hosted the Biro 3.0 at his pad and team WallerSlate dominated. Johnny Giles' team almost showed up with some good competition but in the end proved to be choke artists. So I now have the shirt to show that I belong on the hall of fame wall with the likes of Bundy/Kristen and Schroeder/Hemphill.

So here's to growing up, climbing rocks, and combining the great sports of beer drinking and bike riding.

The Final Trip

2010-04-28T21:55:00.003-05:00

Last weekend I headed down to Horseshoe Canyone Ranch with the KURC for my fianl trip ever with these kids. It's a most giant bummer for myself to have to leave this club or rock crushing stone bandits, but apparently life has to move on.

We started the weekend on Thursday night with a Jeep full of kids who climb harder than me (the ego took a hit on that one) and partied hard until we reached HCR around 5:00 in the morning. From then we threw up some tents and slept until 11am. And then the quartet of Lesage, Spalding, Surface and I went sendin'.

This is what our campfires look life, don't be too jealous

Friday: We went craggin' at the Prophecy Wall and it was good. Got warm on a .10b and moved over to a giant roof line titled "Taliban Soup." The Soup is a hard .11D that not only requires some serious rock-reading skills but also some serious burl to pull the roof. I got hung up on a balancey, lie back in the middle of the route after not trusting the beta that was being shouted from the dirt. So it didn't go clean, but it did go and after getting shut down on Flying Elvis just a few weeks before it felt good to pull some overhangs.

After we left Prophecy we built a giant tent fort at the campground in preparation for the impending storm and went back to send town over at the north 40. Racked up some biners and ticked off another .10 over there and then went to town on Sonny Jim with Andrew Spalding, an .11b with a neat roof. Almost, almost, almost had the onsight, and damn it would have felt good to say I did it. But once again my rock reading skills proved to be the downfall for the send. Hung once and cleaned up the roof.

Saturday: Some more creatures from the north joined us just in time to watch an Arkansas tsunami wash over the Canyon. Once the sun came out we headed to the aptly named "Goat Cave" for some super overhung climbing and what I can only imagine was the only dry climbing to be found that morning. The goats were there when we arrived, hiding from the wet but they quickly dispersed as the clouds moved away. The bottom of the cave was covered in inedible cocoa pebbles and it smelled like a petting zoo (to us city boys). Regardless of the smell, the climbs were a straight burl-fest. Start overhung and climb out of a cave, that was pretty much the name of the game for everything there.

Sunday: My hands were worked, my head ached from partying too hard in the barn the night before and my balance wasn't the best in the world. Regardless if this was to be my last trip with the club I wanted to go out the same way I came in, on top of Orange Crush. To all the climbers reading this, yes I know it's a cliche to talk about this line and how rad it is but stfu. It's the tallest climb at the Ranch by far, it's a 4 star climb, it's rated so I can lead it clean and still have a ridiculous amount of fun and it has the best view of the Canyon of any crag at that place. So yes it was gorgeous, yes it was well within my limits, yes the bolts were a little too closely spaced together and yes if I climbed it at sunset I would "like totally tell you how totally gorgeous it was." I have that view on top of that rock to forever couple with the memory of my last club trip and that is something I can most definitely live with.

So here's to pushing your personal limits, sending harder than planned, the canyon, the views and those dang creatures of the Arkansas craggin' scene.

Freefallin: The tale of the weekend of the 16th

2010-04-28T21:23:00.003-05:00

Friday: I quit early from the coffee shop and raced down to the LRT to demo some Trek bikes. Rode some pretty rad squishy things. I hauled ass on a Trek Top Fuel, cruised on the Superfly 100 and hucked as much gnar as I could for the LRT on a Rumblefish. All of them were rad. I won't write a novel about the experience since I don't have the background in suspension or bikes that aren't my own to write even remotely a well thought out experience.

Saturday: Hopped on the road bike and headed out by myself. Probably the first solo road ride I have enjoyed doing in quite some time. Lawrence to Perry Lake to Clinton Lake by the day's end, all in a breezy 5mph crosswind.

Suit up!

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! I jumped the heck out of a plane. It was the most rad experience of my life by far. It was kind of the culmination of every adrenaline rush I have ever chased in my life. I liken it to going full throttle on my motorcycle straight up in the air, jumping off, taking a 5000 foot whipper and then sitting on top of a giant route trying to catch your breath.

I was pretty nervous going into the day seeing as I had a good 9 months of anticipation building up inside of me. Once the flight suit was on and I watched my altimeter climb as I sat on the metal floor of a tiny plane shaking at speed the nervousness disappeared and a calm set in, the closest I can liken it to is sitting at the base of a very runout project and knowing you can do it but knowing it's going to hurt if you don't do it right.

The minute I hucked out the door of the plane all of those feelings disappeared. I was in freefall for 30 seconds and it was the most serene 30 seconds of my life. Some people talk about getting tunnel vision when they free fall, some people say their brain blacks out, mine did the opposite. I felt a very acute awareness of my surroundings, I was cruising at 130mph through the air, looking around in awe with life, calm and happier than I think I have ever been in my life. I firmly believe that I could spend the next 50 years as a buddhist monk and I would never achieve the serenity that washed over me the second I gained composure after tumbling out of that plane.

So here's to the weekend. Long live long rides, carbon wonder bikes and jumping from way up.

Party at Graceland

2010-04-28T21:02:00.003-05:00

The first weekend of April I made my return trip to Cave Creek in Arkansas. The club took down a smaller group of kids to send hard and that is what we did. I had my sights set on a severely overhanging 5.12a named "Flying Elvis." I've been eye-f*cking this line for almost 9 months now, it is honestly one of the boldest and most beautiful lines I have ever seen AR. I got the chance to top-rope it a titch on the March trip but couldn't work the crux side pull, so this line got deep into my brain. The minute I got to Cave Creek I warmed up and went straight to Elvis. I had redpointed this thing at least a dozen times in my dreams the month leading up to tying into the sharp-end at the base of this climb, but alas those dreams did not become a reality. I flailed at the crux for probably a half hour before resigning myself to come back and try it later that day.

Flying off Elvis' Crux

Little did I know that the rest of the day would be spent with Brian Lesage climbing things that are just at or past my limit. After pulling through a .10d and then following up the most technical .11D I have ever seen in my life I was so exhausted that I could not climb a 5.10A on top-rope and felt like a soccer short, shoe renting, plastic pulling squid.

The next morning I returned to Elvis and pulled through the crux moves but my body was just too worked to clip the following bolt and move onto the juggy finish. Elvis got me good but at least I know that I got his number now.

Fear and Loathing in my Harness

2010-03-22T21:16:00.006-06:00

Spring Break 2010 brought upon a most epic adventure. 31 rock climbers from my fair university piled into a few vans and headed west to wage wars of mischief and mayhem against the unsuspecting Red Rocks Canyon Park as well as the cities of Las Vegas and Moab.

After 20 hours of sleeping shotgun in an Element I found myself right outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. Which happens to be the most desolate, trashy, over the top, wino filled crap hole that I would hope to be so lucky as to someday call my home. Anyways, after burning through that town we arrived at the doorstep of Red Rocks Natl. Park only to find that there were no camping spaces available! And just to add insult to injury the wind was whippin around 45 mph (which is the most painful thing in the world when that wind is laced with sand). Long story short, some fast shuckin' and jivin' was done by the officers. We were allowed to stay and a short trip to the bar kept us out of the wind.

The morning of day 1 bestowed upon myself the most excellent present a boy could wish for: calm sunny skies, dry dirt and warm rock. And with that day bestowed upon myself I took upon the conquest of slaying the first multi-pitch, free route of my life. Ryan Surface and I sent a mighty 600' 5.7 climb free and clean. Slaying this beast was quite possibly the most heady brew I have ever taken down. Sitting on belay anchor built with 2 smaller cams and a nut, on an edge roughly 2" larger than my ass in every direction, 500' in the air is one of the most intense, nerve racking experiences of my life. But also reaching the summit and then thanking the dirt for welcoming me back to the base at the end proved to be one of the most freeing feelings that I believe can ever be experienced.

View from the aforementioned tiny belay station.

Day 2 saw my first day of sport climbing for the trip. I hit up the Magic Bus Wall inside the park and immediately set up a slabby 5.6 warm up next to what was supposed to be "the climb" to make the day, a super slab 5.10d that looked like a sick cheese grater if my foot was to take a slip that shared an anchor with my warm up. Anyways the decision to leave the anchor and try it on TR before it was lead was made, and after that tr session nobody wanted to eff with that climb anymore. So we made our way over right and sent some cruiser 5.8/9 leads while letting the sun soak us up.

Somewhere along the next few days I hit up the black corridor and got on some semi-runout mid-high tens and hit the panty wall to throw down on even more 8s and 9s. Overall the sport climbing in Red Rock park was big, exposed and super fun. Although I can say I grew to appreciate Arkansas for having as diverse of terrain as it does. Every climb on a certain wall more or less was a different variation of the same features simply because of their height and wind exposure.

Day 4: A nice casual morning of bouldering in Calico Basin started what has to be the most mind blowing St. Patrick's Day that I will ever have in my life. Post boulder session we descended upon Vegas like the thirsty bunch of creatures that KURC is. The Sahara's pool was filled with filthified climber bums, the pre-game was rocked along with a trip to the in-n-out burger, post pre-game got rocked as well, the strip was taken with force, cops broke up a sidewalk dance party, beasts were shotgunned outside Circus Circus, things got peed on and the Belaggio horse statue may have been ridden by a German kid.

Sidewalk dance party.

Bleary eyed and dehydrated brought upon the start of day 5. I believe the events of this day went like this.
10:00 amish- Hit McDonalds for breakfast (walk since we may or may not be legal to drive) with a few of the boys that partied as hard...ish as me the night before.
10:30am - Bail on shirts and pray that the intense desert sun poolside at the Sahara can make us sweat this out.
11.15 am- Open new beers and start packing
12:00 pm-ride roller coaster on the strip
9:oo pm - wake up in Moab, Utah

So Moab went like this: It was raining and wet when we got up and sleeting shortly after, so we went into town to work up a healthy morning buzz off of Moab's own brewery while waiting for the rock to dry. Once it did dry I climbed a whole bunch of top-ropes on "wall street" and felt like I was in a gym. Super featured crack climbing right outside your car door in one of the most amazing cities in the world is pretty rad. I led another super easy crack climb just to practice my placements some more. This place literally took everything I love about climbing outdoors and mixed it with the convenience of the gym.

The next morning a big ol' lot of whatever climbers hadn't bailed on the trip yet went out to Corona arch and jumped the 'eff off the top. Not really but we rappelled off it which is almost as neat. After I did that I cruised up to the top of Portal Trail to enjoy one of the most scenic views Moab has to offer, hit the campground again, split a bottle of wine, packed camp and headed back to Lawrence.

Corona Arch adorned with our ropes.

So here's to my last Spring Break, Vegas, Moab, the KURC and the rock that keeps leading us back to these adventures.

Cave Creek Craziness

2010-03-09T16:41:00.004-06:00

Last weekend was the first warm weekend of the year for KS. Regardless I decided to get the eff out of dodge and head south to the great state of Arkansas. I think I'm just a few visits short of being able to claim dual citizenship between both forms of the Kansas.

So here's the digs. We camped at Sam's Throne but climbed at Cave Creek. I think Cave is becoming one of my favorite areas to climb "locally" since it has plenty of shiny bolts but is secluded enough with a hard enough approach that it still remains rather isolated. There definitely isn't the quantity of climbs that HCR has but seeing as how we only have the routes to share among ourselves it's pretty rad.

Saturday I really just wanted to play around on some easy 5.8-5.9 sport routes and kind of get my "lead head" back on my shoulders in preparation for spring break. That didn't work out as well as I thought it should. I did knock out a nice 5.9 to warm up on, so at that point the day was going as planned. As soon as we had rapped off the bolts from the warm up I decided that the slab to our immediate right needed to be put up. Problem: the first bolt was about 23 feet off the ground, talk about getting my lead head screwed on nice and tight.

View from the first bolt

After I scared myself witless on the slab I wandered a little further to the left and found a whole bunch of cams dangling from a tree. So what did I decide to do in this situation? Of course I racked up said cams and sent my first trad lead. No guidance, no top-rope mach-ups or rehearsals, just grab the gear and go on up.

Pluggin' my first cam on lead.

By this time in the day I realized that easing myself back into an outdoor season with a solid responsible head on my shoulders just isn't the sort of thing that I am good at. However running out my protection and praying that my gear will hold are two things I do seem to be okay at. So for my final climbs of the day I just hopped back on things that are on the upper end of my onsight level when I am in shape, and right now isn't one of those times. So I ended the weekend with two pretty flailtastic 5.10+ sport routes.

So here's to warm rock, dry dirt, and decisions that always seem to work out.

Best Year Ever

2009-12-31T17:27:00.001-06:00

2009 was quite possibly the very best year for me so far in this journey of my so called “adulthood”, so I thought it deserved a little recap on the blog. I started to do a month-by-month write up but decided nobody needed to be that overloaded with my thoughts. So I made a top 20 list instead. Since most of you readers accompanied me on these journeys just feel free to add “with the greatest people in the world” to the end of your journeys.

1. Went on one of the most epic ski journeys
2. Bad Goat Racing is born.
3. Did my first running race
4. Arkansas trip #1. Oauchita style
5. Hobo’d my brains out by the river
6. Did my first duathalon
7. Arkansas trip #2. Dirty Climbin’ style
- MO trip #1 dirty float trip style
8. Dirty Kanza attempt #3
9. Became a barista
10. Became a bike shop wrench
11. Did a metric crap ton of fishing
12. “Won” the Sunflower State Games sport xc race
13. Bought a motorcycle
14. Started running excessively
15. Placed 4th at RIM (Highest finish in an endurance event)
16. MO trip #2, dirty Osceola craggin’ style
17. AR trip #3 Sam’s Throne, Cave Creek climbin’ style
18. AR trip #4 Horseshoe Canyon style
19. AR trip #5 HCR Fall Break epic
20. Eh, cyclocross

That would be a total of 8 successful adventuring trips, holy ballstastic. This list doesn’t even begin to account for half of the reasons why this year was so great but at least it’s a start. Adding in all of the nights out on the town, Pattersnap parties, graduation weekend, time spent on the bike or at the rock wall would probably put this entry out of the realm of readability. But I think there is definitely one last thing worth mentioning, none of these whimsical epics would have been even a fraction as much fun as they were without having some of the “greatest people in the world” in my friend group. Yeah that was kinda sentimental, eff off you hoboin’ dirtbags (that should even out the emotions scale). I think the readership would agree on that point seeing as a large chunk of us (or those still left) will be spending yet another New Years together tonight, I’m pretty sure that makes three in a row and I’m pretty sure each of those years has continually seen more adventuring than the last.

Y’all adventurin’ dirtbags make these epics epic and worth reading about so here’s to you and let’s get 2010 epictastically and officically opened with some gnar sendage, huckage, general Bad Goatin’.

Boss to the Cross Numero 4

2009-12-11T23:58:00.000-06:00

Boss Cross wrapped up last Sunday. Jeremy Haynes and Joe Fox showed once again that they put on a pretty rad race. I ponied up my monies to line up with the 3/4 racers for what will be my last race until the sun starts shining and I get to race real knobbies on real dirt. I pretty much just spent the entire race bobbin' around in the back of the race trying to save my energy for the epic 3 hour course tare down that Josh Stamper and Zach Dubas undertook. Early on in the first few laps I battled it out with 3 other dudes but by lap three I just kinda gave into my own head and refused to ride at anything even remotely close to an anaerobic threshold. Racing is hard and I don't have the fitness or mind for it right now, maybe some other time in the future... the course was a lot of fun just to tool around on regardless.

On the plus side the Goats have a bunch of course materials to put on their own rad race this weekend! Reports to follow.

cyclocross...?

2009-11-10T00:32:00.001-06:00

So, umm, erhm... I raced a cross bike on Saturday night at the Heartland Park cx race in Topeka.

This was to be the 4th bike ride for me (outside of the 1/2 mile jaunt to campus) since Rapture took place in August. It was also my first cat 4 race since I was a wee 14 year old lad. Two days before this race I dressed out both cross bikes in full race gear and took them for a spin to practice some cross action.

So let's sum it all up real quick: no training + no cx bike comfort time + practicing my first dismount in over 10 mths the days before the race = excellence!

I rode through a 30 minute hellstorm of a race like a pot-bellied 50 year old cat 4 racer (or a bull in a china shop, take your pick.) Things sure are different in the cat 4 races than I remember.

My first thought of the race was "Why is nobody going? This isn't how races start!" So I went hard from the back row and ended up just kinda sitting in the top 5. Sucking wheel and blowing through dirt. Until we had to turn... It was at the moment that I crashed through the tape for the first time that I remembered why bike handling skills were so important for cross racing.

From then on I just spent my time drilling the pace on the flats and climbs, running past everyone on the barriers and through the corners. Oh yeah, and in between all of that I plowed through the tape a few times, drifted sideways more than a fast & furious remake and dabbed enough to make the most beginner mt. bike racer feel like an ace. Lesson learned.

So here's to cross season, I let this surly woman slip through my fingers farther this year than I have for a long, long time. But rest assured she devil bike race, I will be back (sometime in the distant future).

Fall Break!

2009-10-20T00:33:00.005-05:00

So Horseshoe Canyon Ranch proved too difficult to stay away from and less than 20 minutes after I had finished my last midterm I found myself in an Element headed back to Arkansas. HCR played host to a gaggle of KURC members as well as most every non-southern/Cali climber in the US this weekend... suffice it to say that things got raged.

My car was the first to pull into the canyon and we had strict instruction to find the only campsite that was allowed to be reserved for the weekend. Why was it the only campsite that needed reservation you ask? Well apparently the club officers called ahead and had a conversation which I imagine going like this...

KURC: Hi this is (blank) from KURC we're bringing 25ish kids down for fall break.
HCR: Oh no!
KURC: And if you don't recall from our past trips we rage rather hard and were wondering if there was anything you can do to keep us from interfering with the normals for the weekend.
HCR: Well we don't really reserve campsites but seeing as we would like most of our guests to return and you are paying us a ton of money I guess we will open a special campsite way the eff across the canyon for ya.
KURC: Deal, we'll send Slater down first so he can have that awkward conversation with ranch management about why we specifically need that site.

So Wednesday night a fire was built and things got rowdy, let's skip to the climbing.

Thursday: I quickly split off into an anti-social group of kids who were ready to send instead of sit. We went straight to the north 40 and started playing hard on the rocks. I sent five .10s and one .9 in a day. So overall the day was an overwhelming success for a middle of the road climber like myself.

Friday: Apparently everyone got too raucous the night before so when we showed up to Magoo rock there was a giant lack of quickdraws. Seeing as I felt reasonably fine I tried to plunder enough gear to set up a route for some kids right quick and the first send of the morning happened on some awkward 10b overhang. As soon as I came down Carol whispered to me "Pres says there are draws in the club box, grab that rope and let's move." So I grabbed and move we did.
The view from Insanity's belay station.

One quick trip back to camp and I had a rather over-zealous sport rack hung off my harness and a 10.1 rope on my back. We headed straight to the Cliffs of Insanity where we continued to hang huge .8-.9 routes for the next few hours with machine like swiftness. Eventually we went looking for something more suitable for our climbing range and found the rest of the club hanging out at the Roman Wall. The majority were standing in lines waiting to flail on the top-roped .11 that I got shut down on during my last visit. So I decided to roll the dice and sack up on the only open route. Which happened to be a 85 foot .11d that I got shut down on 2 bolts from the top. Sad days for me but Crusher Paul bailed me out and rescued my draws while officially showing my climbing status up.

Saturday: Everyone slept in and I headed out with the "Ol' Boys" to see what it was like to climb with the kids who climb harder than me. Which actually translates into: I watched some more experienced climbers stand around and postulate which trad cracks they wanted to plug until someone else showed up with quickdraws and I could bail from that party and go actually climb. We headed straight over to the Prophecy wall and I immediately sent some kinda .10 that no one could second for a good 3 hours, which felt pretty good. After that I bounced back and forth between the trad cracks and the sport climbing trying not to get tied up in the wicked long lines of climbers, which I successfully did.

I got to end my day wandering around with Rowdy looking for something new. Our fellow German climbing associate commented that he would like to attempt to climb this nasty looking overhang that he didn't know if he could finish but was positive one of us could if gear needed to be retrieved. Neither myself nor Jared wanted the beta so after Julain got shut down we hopped on and attempted to send this wicked piece of overhanging slab for way longer than necessary. Unfortunately the route ended up being a .12c and I don't personally know anyone who can climb that hard, so the gear was retrieved by a nice topout on a .10a followed by a quick alpine traverse and rapp by my fellow flailer. It's rare to see us KURC kids flail but when we do it's a hoot.

About to clip the second bolt, which is where KURC got resoundingly shut down for the weekend.

Sunday: Saturday evening the club played a game called "finish whatever you brought." Which meant the majority of the kids were not ready to send hard after a long night of fireworks and tribal dancing next to a bonfire but for some unfortunate reason I was well rested and ready to go as soon as I got camp packed up. My overall goal for the weekend was a lead on Crimp Scampi. Scampi is a classic .10D that I had top-roped in prep for the Sunday session but still had a bad feeling that it was going to hurt bad. Unlike a lot of other routes at HCR this .10D actually earned it's rating and next to every move on it was actually sustained hard climbing, it definitely did not give its bolts away. Needless to say I took my first few lead whips of the weekend on this beast and it sent me flying more than a few nerve racking feet once or twice. I eventually nailed it but I can definitely say that I learned what my limits are on that route. It was seconded by Taylor who was my partner for the day who flailed just a titch less than me, but I like to think it's only because he got my beta.

So here's to my weekend home of the other Kansas, climber kids, untz and ragin' it next to a bonfire.

Horseshoe Canyon Ranch

2009-10-04T23:10:00.002-05:00

Arkansas trip #4 in the past 6 months, gotta say it feels damn good to be getting as mobile as I have been as often as I have been as of late.

Thursday night: We were way short and my status of the kid who bums rides at all times possible got destroyed. The Slatermobile had to be loaded up and head south for it's first big trip since I took ownership.

Friday: Since I got to be in charge of my own transport so we burned out of town a good 6 hours before the big caravan left. Which meant we got to HCR in time to get our evening climb on. All three of us minivaners got 3 very legit, very clean, very confidence building 5.8ish warm up leads on the North 40 before the sun started to fade on us. After we got back to camp we had more than enough time to build a gorgeous fire, eat dinner and indulge our thirst before the next wave of cars started to roll in.

Sat: We rolled out of camp before anyone else, not that we were more well rested or ready to send but we had a full sport rack and a rope so there was no need to wait for the circus that is the KURC to start tying up routes for 3 hours at a time when we could be crushing leads on our own.

Climb #1 for the day was a very runout Orange Crush (when I said full sport rack I might have been lying a bit). OC is one of the classic .9s at HCR and the biggest lead I have tagged yet (90ish feet at the bolts). After that we wandered through the far east side of the valley to grab 2 more .10 leads on Emotional Content and an awkward arete before heading to the Roman wall. The Roman wall was super exposed compared to the rest of the valley and consisted of some very hard slab that ended in some gorgeous overhangs. I immediately jumped on an .11d and got shut down by the third bolt which was super disheartening for me but I just have not had positive feelings for the crux kinda moves the AR slab has been sending my way lately. More likely my draw hanging confidence is not on par with my skill set yet and my confidence of screaming "take" on a rope just isn't there until I'm a good 40 feet up. It was my first dirty send of the weekend and I was pretty humbled coming off of it. After that I grabbed on more .9 lead and headed back to camp.

Sat Night: Ozark Cafe was descended upon by the large group of dirty miscreants from KS. We snarfed and sang at "Jazzper Saturday"... because it's in Jasper. After camp was back in play there was a serious lack of ragin' party buzz compared to the last trip. The Rossi was destroyed around the fire and since the party was lacking a smallish group of us decided to take back to the woods for some night Bouldering. Now normally I'm not one to be up for night sports activities when there is a party to be raged but something in my bones was keeping me scary sober and ready to demolish some boulders, and that we did.

Sunday: Disheartening. I woke up to the sound of rain pitter-pattering against my rainfly and another climber who had decided to go tentless for the weekend in my abode (I'm very glad I decided to bust out my 4 man for the weekend in hindsight). Nobody wanted to try and wait out the weather to get some more climbing in and I didn't feel like making the hooligans in my van wait while I bouldered with locals. So we burned up and over and got home early enough for me to accomplish the same amount with my Sunday that I had originally planned to... absolutely nothing.

So here's to metric schnoz-tons of bolted rock, ragin' it hard, and gettin' the f out of KS.

Saturday Night Ruminations

2009-09-26T20:43:00.002-05:00

The Evening: My upstairs neighbor currently has his musically talented friends over and they are absolutely having their way with their guitars, killing it on some classic rock. I just got in from a good long dark ride on the moto while trying to get my head in a proper spot and I currently have my feet up sipping a nice cool PBR, all in preparation for tomorrow.

Jump: Tomorrow I jump out of a plane. I'm in a whole new realm of surreal emotion regulation. I normally love the buzzing that starts going on in my body right before I do something that I wholeheartedly know most people think is batschnot crazy, but this is a whole new level of that. That feeling of adrenaline that most of us get right before the gun goes off at the start line, or when tying into a rope and looking 15 feet up at the first bolt has been completely on tap the last few days but multiplied by ten. I have been able to turn it on just by mentioning the word "skydive" and immediately send myself into a whole new level of adrenal rush. I don't think I have ever been this amped for anything in my life.

Bike: I finally got out on my Fisher with it's brand new Bontrager Rythym. This rear wheel makes it feel like a completely different bike, the frame is still super whippy but not even close to how sketchy it was with a blown freehub laced to a 355 that hadn't been tensioned in a few years.

I'm torn between missing the racing scene right now and not missing it at all. Knowing that there are racers lining up on a cross course every weekend and missing out on it has kind of been bugging me lately, I don't think I have done as little racing as I have done this season in a good 5 years. But at the same time I am pretty resolved to travel as much as I can and take care of all the "young & free" business while I spend my last year in the aforementioned category.

So here's to jumping from way up, wheels, and Zeppelin resonating through the halls of apt. building.

Sam's Throne

2009-09-22T01:22:00.005-05:00

So I burned out of town Friday afternoon to the great state of Arkansas with a girl in an Element, a dog, a German kid, 6 climbing helmets, 4 ropes, 2 sets of draws and a loaded Terraplane ready for whatever the dirty Arkansas backwoods had to throw at me. Lucky for me that dirty backwoods treated me more than kindly for my weekend and allowed me to rage it with 20+ members of the KU rock climbing club for a short weekend of very legit climbing.

Friday: Our caravan was in the first 2 cars to arrive at Sam's Throne. I quickly threw up my tent and then proceeded to play backwoods cabana boy with a few other member's shelters. Visibility was limited to about 10 feet in front of my face due to some intense fog so it was deemed completely unnecessary to attempt the venture down to the 80 foot bluffs past sunset. A few of the other kids ripped apart a text book to start a fire with all of the damp wood while I sorted gear for the next day. After gear was sorted and fire procured we took our respective spots around the ring and slowly watched the rest of the crew trickle in well past 3am. Well... the majority of the crew made sure everyone made it there alive, I might have fallen asleep on a crash pad next to the fire until it started to rain again.

Send it Kels'....err, umm, I mean Kase. Oh whatever your name is girl with a dog and an Element.

Saturday: Sendage! Up and out around 10:30. I made an attempt to take Kasey and her dog down the dog run on the other end of the throne. I figured it would be a cakewalk since the last time I was there I went searching for more bolts via the same run but I also kinda spaced the fact that I did all of my scouting via scrambling the bluff instead of the actual trail. Needless to say the trail no longer existed due to the ice-storms last year and overgrowth and some dogs are less adept than others at making successive 3 foot ledge leaps inches away from an overhanging cliff. So we put the dog back in the car after an hour of bushwhacking and made the hike down to meet the other climbers.

The majority of the routes had just been established by the club on white trash wall and kids were just lining up to try their hand top-roping the jug-haulin' fun. 5 routes were put up and they were all very fun 5.7-5.10 range depending on what moves you wanted to utilize. And when I say fun that's pretty much all I mean, the wall was at max 50 feet and I was pretty antsy the entire time knowing that we were less than 100 yards from 80 ft. overhanging problems. Regardless we never sent the bluffs but it was a great opportunity for all of the new climbers to play outside on real rock, and making sure everyone is falling in love with the outdoors almost makes me as happy as pushing my own limits in the same setting.

Saturday night: Ozark Cafe! The whole big crew headed down hwy 123 for some grub in Jasper and I finally got to partake in some Ozark Cafe food. They were celebrating their 100 year anniversary of being open in Jasper and the place was packed with locals, climbers and paddlers. Afterward I retreated for a nap while the gang had their ritual hazing campfire only to return a few hours later to a party that was absolutely intense. That's where I will end that story.

Getting my first lead at Cave Creek.

Sunday: Cave Creek was sent. CC is a different beast altogether from the throne, all the rock is freshly bolted as this area is by far the newest climbing area established in AR. None of the climbs are below a 5.9 and almost all are overhung or laidback flakes so a lot of the crew opted out for the day and just headed home. Which was quite beneficial for myself as I obtained even more than my fair share of leading, anchor building and cleaning experience. I still feel nervous doing all of these things but I'm a big believer in the "if it isn't scary than you aren't doing it right" philosophy.

So once again here's to the Dirty Arkansas Backwoods, climbers and sending it like a gnar brah.

being busy isn't a problem when you are busy with life being amazing

2009-09-13T23:12:00.004-05:00

That's the overall feeling toward my weekend. I am about as wore out as anyone could ever be but it is possibly the best feeling anyone could have being as worn out and overwhelmed as I am from the events that transpired this weekend.

Here's the run-down, still no picktchers and yes I have searched under my couch cushions for my camera charger.

Friday: Close down the coffee shop and book it to Banff. Kelsey and Adam Fink made the drive from OK to pretend like they were still Jayhawks and rage it with John Waller and I for the evening. I must say that I am always super stoked to have my friends who have moved away come back and visit.

If you don't know what Banff is than here is the short and sweet: there is a place in Alberta called Banff, these Kanuks like both mountain culture and skiing. So they took it upon themselves to create a film festival. Anyone who is anyone in the "stuff Slater is into" movie making genre then submits their movies to the Banff committee, they vote and take the good stuff on tour to Lawrence KS.

Saturday: I awoke on my futon covered in remotes controls to a buzzing phone call from Young Adam across the room. Breakfast was taken down at Wheatfields and jet-skis were soon mounted. This was probably the highlight of my weekend. The Fink's stand-up Jetskis allowed me to absolutely throttle my body and make some absolutely amazing 40mph bailouts skipping like a pebble for more than a few yards, while Waller's sit down ski allowed me to comfortably scare the bejeezus out of the brunette I was trying to impress for the day. Regardless I got sideways a lot, and it was rad.

Saturday evening: The Stamper's were sneaked into day number 2 of a sold-out Banff and I battled to stay awake after a day of roasting in the sun and using up all of my adrenaline. Afterward we hit up the Bocce Bar only to find out the Bocce court had been rented out to a private party... lame.

I feel like everyone had the same sentiment about Saturday evening. Which was: we had almost everyone together from the old crew (we were missing a Bundy and a Schroeder) but we could not rally to have the crazy times we did just a few years ago for the life of us. Maybe it's because we had ridden ourselves into the ground on some jetskis or that Allie and Josh had to drive 100 miles (and Kelsey and Adam 400ish) or that Pattersnap had just returned from S.C. on a plane, I don't really know what the defining factor was but all of those probably played a pretty big role in all of us calling it quits pretty durn early that evening.

Sunday: Slept in late and headed to the City Market with Mr. Waller. The plan was to meet up with the Stampers, Pattersnap and Jaime and the Apels for lunch at the Blue Nile for some of the most amazing food ever in the world and a glass of Delirium's Noctorum (not only some of the best Ethiopian food but the best Belgian beer ever tasted). The plan worked out except that everyone's favorite restaurant didn't have their Sunday liquor license, so we only got half of our favorite foodie experience in the Midwest. After lunch we headed down to Liberty Memorial and watched the professional bike racers duke it out in the final day of the Tour of Missouri. They went fast, it was pretty neat but I couldn't tell you anything other than that since I don't really follow pro racing.

After that circus was over Waller and I headed to the great Cycle City to meet some of the fastest Italians bike racers in the world. They signed a cool poster for me, so even though I can't remember their multi-million dollar names I will forever have their signature's adorning my walls.

So here's to Banff, Jetskis, professional bike racing and the friends who are into all of the above... cheers.

Labor Day Weekend

2009-09-07T23:28:00.002-05:00

Sooo my three day weekend is over and I spent it doing whatever the fragment that I wanted to, it worked out well. My camera charger has been missing for almost a month now so if anyone is wondering why my blog lacks pitchers of my own... this is why. Regardless I'm gonna tell you all about it anyway.

Friday: Pulled my normal closing shift at the coffee shop and went to meet Jaimie and Pattersnap at El Mez. It was endlessly delectable as always and I am never one to scoff at a chance to catch up with any of the posse. Stories were quickly exchanged, SSWC was bailed on and tequila was ingested in frozen form.

I was pretty resolved to call it quits after that for the night in order to prepare for the next day's trip but a quick call from the coffee shop crew for another gathering of margaritas proved to be too tempting. By the time I arrived "margaritas" had just become "tequila shots." On the plus side I have become rather adept in using the term "I think it's time for me to leave." On the negative side: that term normally only gets used after I have tripped over something large.

Saturday: Headed to Trapper's climbing area in Osceola, MO with the climbing club. The crew was rather large for the weekend and as soon as we hit the cliff area a juggy 5.7 was established. It was never said out loud but I'm guessing this was done to get the massive amounts of new climbers out of our hair for a few hours while waiting in line to send their first real outdoor rock. Regardless I had a lot of fun, I met an awesome crew of people. Some who had a plethora of outdoor experience and could easily trade war stories with me and some whose biggest outdoor adventure was on par with out 200 yard hike to the bolted rock we encountered that day; regardless they all seemed stoked to be there and seeing more kids out in the woods instead of playing video games makes me happy.

I sent a "legit 5.9," hangdogged an 11a and an 11d and overall had a great time. If anyone is wondering what those numbers mean, don't worry I do know what they mean and when all is said and done they are worthless. So take that sentence as "I climbed up some steep rocks."

Sat Eve: After a long day of climbing the same crew headed out to do some camping at a climber's family farm. All in all it was rad, met the rest of the kids who I was too busy to meet earlier in the day (gotta send while the sendin' is good). Sat by a fire and downed a bottle of Flying Pig Pinot Grigio out of the Slater Special Reserve cabinet. Promptly fell asleep in the back of the new Slater-mobile and slept for a solid 10 hours after pulling the newly patented "trip over a large obvious object and bid the gang goodnight" move.

Sunday: Had a cousin and her man visiting from CO so I made the trek to KC to procure a washing machine while my pops cooked up some of his competition worthy BBQ for us. Feasted on pulled pork, ribs and beans. Saw my extended family and heard more than a few stories I wish that I hadn't (my family seem rather lax with their story telling now that I am a full-fledged adult).

Monday: Also dubbed the "do whatever Slater wants to" day. I woke up around noon which is mind-blowing for my early rising self. Putted around the internet and got on with the real meat of the day. Fired up the motorbike and headed out to dog knows where. Ended up with around 3 hours and 112 miles on the beast. Laid out on the Perry Dam hill and watched the sail boats roll by, ripped around the dam race course and then headed out to explore some back-country roads.

So here's to Margaritas, limestone, bbq and v-twins.

Back to the Grind

2009-09-02T01:05:00.003-05:00

The month of August was super-busy and super stressful for me so the blog has been completely neglected, lucky for anyone left still reading this thing Sept. - Dec. promises to be even more busy and stressful so get ready for chronic blog neglect.

Here's the short and sweet:

Rapture in Misery: Not only did I finish but I did relatively well. 4th according to the computer, somewhere around 4th according to common sense. I felt pretty good about this since I have never really had any warm weather August form. There isn't really any race report to go along with this but there is a rather neat story: My freehub finally blew on my Stan's wheelset (saw it coming) during my first lap, so I ran/jogged/coasted my bike back to the pit and switched rides. The neat part is I did my 4 remaining laps on the first race bike I ever built as a kid. I resurrected my 2000 Fuji Nevada frame the day before the race with a smattering of vintage LX, Spec and Bontrager house brand parts so that my little brother could ride it to class at JCCC. My plan was to cruise a lap with it just to "make sure" everything was working.

Well everything worked but I sure learned a few lessons:
1. I can't pilot 26" wheels anymore, I have better form on my Monocog riding home from Louise's after a barrage of Schooners.
2. I'm definitely not as flexible as I used to be. The frame is a 21" and I ran it with a 90mm stem, when I used it as my race bike it sported a 120mm stem. Ouch!

3. 1.9" tires make me focus too much on terrain. Things I am used to bombing on 2.4" Mt. Kings threw me over the bars on skinny little Karmas.

Wheels up!

The rest of the Goats rocked out as well but if you read this than you probably already hit up that account.

Marathons: I started training for one. Not gonna lie, it was pretty rad. I ran a lot. Short runs, hill intervals, long weekend runs. I was feeling pretty dedicated to the cause (I also blame this for the reason I showed any form at RIM). Unfortunately my planner only went through August and the marathon was in October... fall break for us KU kids. Which means I had to make the decision whether to go climbing at Horseshoe Canyon with the club or run the KC marathon. Weighing my options I quickly determined that a climbing road trip with friends to sweet natural rock covered in bolts lends itself more to my lifestyle choices than spending my 4 day vacation focusing on 4ish hours of excruciating pain. There goes 1.5 months of training down the drain.

School: Definitely not going to graduate in Decmber as planned. I learned a valuable lesson regarding my "wishing myself into awesomeness" attitude; it doesn't make me learn Spanish. So instead of graduating with a BA in December, I'm looking towards a BGS with a minor in something I kinda dig in May or a minor in something I actually dig in August. Regardless I will be in this god forsaken state a touch longer (although the idea of living in KC is starting to grow on me more and more everyday.)

Things to come:
SSWC09, I'm actually on the fence about this as of tonight. My monetary situation and common sense says don't do it but something deep down still wants to go for it. Gonna give it a few more days.

Jumping out of a plane: This should be happening pretty quick. I don't know if it's anything worth writing about but could be.

Climbing: Hitting more than a few crumbly MO crags in the next few months, might be writing about.

So that was pretty much August. I wouldn't expect too much from me in the future as I'm spending 12 hr days on campus most of the week and traveling on the weekends. But here's to attempting to keep up with the blog.

Steve McQueen, James Dean, Andrew Slater

2009-07-27T21:59:00.008-05:00

The great transportation post. I think I have whined, postulated and soapboxed enough eluding to this that it now has to be written. I'll start it off with this statement (for all of those not privy): I am that guy who reads more into his own ride than anyone else ever will.

Problem: My vehicles are completely heinous and egregiously offensive to my perception of cool.

Solution: Motorcycle.

Problem solved, I bought myself a nice-ish Honda Shadow VLX. Faster than a C4 Vette and cheaper than my mountain bike. And damnit by all forms of justification I deserve this thing, no young 20 something who enjoys his toys this much should have to endure back to back ownership of a teal Hombre and a Grand Caravan without a little penance for my lack of cool.

James Dean meets socceer mom.

A funny thing dawned on me the day I brought this bike home though, the reason my truck went to hell is because I had NO desire to mess with it. The bike came home and the fouled spark plugs were immediately replaced, leaned out the gas and immediately started researching pipes, jet-kits and gearing. Holy crap, I understand vehicles again!

I have never owned a vehicle which I wasn't completely in love with (completely in love with, my totalled Camaro makes more appearances in my dreams than all of my pretty young exes combined) so like hell if I would ever let one of my girls suffer un-necessarily. And while I un-selfishly wasted many a teenage hour underneath my Camaro, big Jeep, little Jeep trio, the Hombre was left to wheeze, puff and suffer through her existence unless it was absolutely necessary that I get underneath her. If something broke I couldn't care less and she probably sufferered un-necessarily because of this. Lesson learned: never buy something I don't actually want, I will refuse to even acknowledge that I might be capable of fixing it and let it sit out of spite.

No self respecting man can go from these to a teal Hombre without a little hatred towards life in his heart.

Oh well, live and let live. I am now the owner of a broken down little truck, a kid/race team hauler and a quarter life crisis bike. But dangit I feel like I finally own some transportation that I can be proud to call mine again.

A final note: I know the majority of this made me sound incredibly shallow and ride centered, but it really isn't one of those things. If I was handed a Buick LeSabre tomorrow that handled like a Corvette and had 500hp or a Honda Ruckus that could rockcrawl and fling mud 30 feet in the air I would be ecstatic. But those things never will do that and part of life for me is keeping the adrenaline pumping, the corners pinned and the holeshot in the crosshairs. Alright so maybe there is a little shallowness to go along with this but damnit I'm still young and really do believe I enjoy/get more out of my toys more than most other people.

So here's to motorcycles, lost loves (think engines not ovaries) and the minivan/truck that caused this over-dramatic quarter life crisis of mine.

Bad to the Mothereffin' Goat

2009-07-26T19:11:00.007-05:00

The pain train pulled into Topeka today and somebody had painted the lumbering diesel engine black with a mean lookin' goat on the side.

The founding father's of BGR.

BGR's take for the weekend:
1,2,3, in Expert U29 by Waller, Stamper and Patterson
1 in Sport U29 by yours truly
Check out the badgoatblog for more race digs.

Now the Sunflower Games are pretty notorious for having a less than stacked field (and in my case it would be considered even less than whatever less than stacked is) but regardless I will take a win any way I come across it.

I can't hate too hard on the race though because my body acted exactly how I wanted it to during this race. I don't know if it was the weather or the trails or if I actually am coming into a bit of form but straight out of the holeshot I pretty much laid claim to the entire sport category (ok there were 2 U39guys who had better overall times but whatever) and never let up.

Style points.

And damn it felt good to be able to look at the holeshot, take it, settle my heartrate and continue railing the turns for an entire race. I can definitely feel the extra 15lbs on my frame from the last time I was competitive but the hills were short and steep enough that the extra weight (while noticeable) probably helped more than hurt with that extra power.

Mind you this wasn't Bad Goat's first event of the weekend either. Three of the four founding father's participated in the Hawk's Tour De Franzia on Friday night. Owen Patterson grabbed an honorary BGR spot for the race and away we went. A little disapppointing as we were promised an obstacle course at the end and were instead given a drag race on a 12" bike (wouldn't have mattered as I would have crashed it either way). But the booze was cheap, the women were still underaged and blonde and BGR was representing in some of the other facet's of things we do well.

Glass #3, things got progressively worse after this.

BGR's total weekend take: 24 glasses of wine (in the race alone), 4 commemorative wine glasses, at least 3 mysterious injuries, 4 podium spots and all of the style points any team hoped to have this weekend.

Raise it up Pattersnap

So here's to the Bad Goats, the Hawk, Franzia, finally finding my form and some darn fit friends.

But you will still read it...

2009-07-14T21:36:00.002-05:00

One more from the bowels of my brain... I don't mean to bore y'all with my inconsistent ramblings but darnit all, I've been working late shifts all week which does not lend itself to my lifestyle well. Meaning that by the time I get off work I have little left to do besides eat and sleep instead of my normal fish/ride/adventure agenda. Hopefully this gets resolved next week because I hate taking my restlessness out on the internet and a short-ish run in the evenings.

#1: Has anyone else watched every episode of Scrubs put up on Hulu at least twice already? I'm pretty sure the last five episodes are going on three days of internet time now and I honestly could watch the series finale over and over. I'm sorry but I have to wax poetically about this thing, I have to say that the writing behind this show has been mind-blowing. Not necessarily for the final season (as a whole it sucked) but that finale man... wrapped it up in a perfect box with one of those ribbons you curl by running the scissors between your thumb and the blade and handed it to you with a smile and a piece of raspberry filled cheesecake. Good lord, there has been some immense writing out of this show but I have never seen a finale leave me wanting more that bad.

That rant was aimed primarily towards a certain Californian who I heard was refusing to watch the last season until it came out on DVD, embrace your computer and pirate that shiz sir.

#2: Goals. My goal for this week is not to pay for a meal. So far I am 4 days in without it, the whole coffee shop job thing makes it pretty sickly easy. The fact that my entire job profile 4 days a week is to talk to other college students who more than likely have at least one job in the food service industry makes it that much easier. Tomorrow will be the test, spinning the wrenches at the CC leaves a man hungry and the Price Chopper next door has a pretty well done up salad bar. I'm hoping I can live on the leftovers from work today but I'm sure it will be uber-tempting.... honestly I'm probably gonna have to pay for at least one meal this week.

#3: Motorcycle. Ever feel like you are being conspired against by life? That's how the motorcycle gods are treating me. So far I've missed out on three bikes that I wanted desperately. These have been the last two weeks debacles.
A) Was .5-1 hr late as it got snagged out from underneath me as I was driving frantically into JoCo after getting stuck at work.
B) Some do-gooder honored his commitment to the first caller who couldn't pick the bike up for fiive days after I offered him full value (if I approved) on the same day he posted it.
C) Ran into a kid who felt his bike was worth wayyyyy more than market value. Maybe 20 years old and thought he owned the coolest thing ever (can't blame him, I've done the same when I sold my Jeeps). I offered him market value over the phone and he laughed and never called back. Meaning he either got the ridiculous asking price or came to his senses with someone else.
D) This dude's wife decided to pop out a kid the day I was supposed to check out the bike. I still have hope for this one as the entire reason he was selling it was because of the impending doom that is child rearing. We'll see though, I have high hopes but the anti-motorcycle gods are loving making this difficult on me.

On the up side I drive a mini-van now (lame failure...wah, wah, wah cartoon music follows this statement). The Hombre was replaced by this monstrosity, I would go on further but I have a whole nother outlook on transportation that has been coagulating in my brain the last few days regarding transportation.

So here's to Zach Braff, free grub and being frustrated at having obstacles blocking my path of attempting to be James Dean.

Ponderings of el cuarenta de Julio (July 14th in Spanish...right?)

2009-07-14T00:56:00.004-05:00

I want my stuff back. About a month ago I started a list of garments I once owned but no longer can find, it's staggeringly large. I have three reasons why I think this list is so large...

1. Girls are inevitable hoodie thieves: I don't wear hoodies by nature, it just has never been my thing. I much prefer the collar to an awkward hood. But damnit I have owned a few in my day and for some reason I am down to one at the current moment. I don't care if I have 5 beers in me and you are complaining about being cold, give me my damn hoodie back when you are done with it. Those things are like $40 a pop, is it a trophy for you to own a piece of clothing once owned by a man who rode for the KU cycling team or played on the Olathe lacrosse team or just shopped at Hollister when he was 16?... didn't think so. Give it back.

2. I lose/misplace things that have little importance to me: If I'm at a pool/river/lake/work and my t-shirt gets trashed, chances are I would rather live without attempting to get 4 pounds of mud off of it than trying to clean it out. The catch about this is I rarely remember leaving said garment behind and have come to just blame the opposite sex or friends who stay at my house on stealing or borrowing it permanently.

3. Here's my conspiracy theory... the mother: I'm like 90% sure that she throws out things that are too haggard for normal people to wear but that I still insist on keeping. Not that she does my laundry regularly, as I'm reminded every time I go home to procure a washing machine for a day and wash my jeans/bike shorts/dress shirts together. But I have a theory that on the rare holiday weekend she gets a hold of my clothing she tosses at least a handful of stuff out (I know she reads this and will disagree but like all of the JFK fanatics out there I hold steadfast to this theory).

Bicycle Racing

Here's the stuff that I don't understand...

By some grace of something that I don't understand I was gifted enough to race cyclocross well, don't believe me? Look further back into my USAC results before I discovered the finer things in life. Yet I refuse to enter a race that translates into cyclocross skills. If it isn't under 6 hrs I rarely enter it, and this season has been even worse because I'm refusing to enter pretty much anything that would normally interest me. I justify it by telling myself that it will be "good base miles for cross." What this actually has translated to in the past few years has been more along the lines of "well you forgot to train for cross again...have fun."

Regardless, I've become pretty resolved to finish the Rapture in Misery solo 6 well this year. Why? No idea. I have never, ever, really never excelled in a temperature above 60 degrees and this race is notorious for 100 degree heat indexes during the day. But for some reason I want to do it and I want to do it well.

My last and only decent placing in a 6 hr event went like this (mind you this was almost 3 years ago)

Lap 1: 40 degrees, hold back and watch the teams ride away.
Lap 2 and 3: throttle, throttle, throttle
End of Lap 3: Stans blowout, eat 2 turkey creamsheese bagels while sitting on truckbed, look at bike with disdain, down half a can of Cope, fix bike.
Lap 4-7: Ride like a 19 year old whose testosterone level can crush his rationale.

This netted me an 8th place (I think) but for some reason I think I can do that again, with a body that has proven itself time and time again to be less resilent and more prone to fickleness than it was at only a few years younger age. I'm almost positive turkey, cream cheese bagels would make me vomit uncontrollably mid-race, add in tobacco and I might as well just put a sleeping bag in the back ot the van and wait for the rest of the team to get done. Oh well, still gonna enter the race and hope for the best.

Here's the one and only rationale I can figure out on why I want to do 6+ hour events well, my friends. I know this crew reads this thing and I don't know whether to thank you for pushing my physical limits or hate you for making me want to do things I shouldn't be doing, but y'all deserve some flattery anyways. Between watching Stamper pace himself like a man who knows more about his body than I think he cares to admit, Pattersnap for railing singletrack on a rigid SS so hard that one lap would make a normal man cry, or Waller just serving up pure un-adultered brute big-ring force for more hours on end than any XTR chaingring should endure.

I had one more important thing on my mind that had been badgering me to write about this week but I can't recall what it was at the current moment, so much for the mindmap skills we were all taught in the 4th grade. Wing it and something will be lost along the way.

So I guess here's to lost clothes and doing things we weren't meant to do. Cheers to the kids that push me, my own irrational thoughts and lost Hurley t-shirts.

Livin' the (12 Year Old's) Dream

2009-06-27T22:55:00.003-05:00

Epiphany time:

I am living the dream of what I thought "adulthood" should be as a kid. I could end this posting with just that and I think most of y'all would understand what I mean but I have gotten endless amusement out of this revelation today so for those not in the loop here's specifically what I mean.

- I wrench at a shop. This was the ultimate of ultimate adult jobs in my mind when I was 12. I am now one of the guys who holds the magic key to fixing cool things and assembling carbon-riffic road bikes. We wear our Fox hats backwards, understand the insides of your bottom brackets and have the tools to fix them.

- I can bunny-hop really, really high. This was one of those things that I always thought I should be able to do as a kid but as the time passed I never really progressed my park skills. Turns out a few years throwing around a 29er imparts a skill/prowess that makes bmx bikes the most throwable things in the world... pretty rad.

Like this guy but wayyy cooler (I work at a shop, you think I would wear crewneck sweatshirts and ride a double crown...psshhhh)

- I own a crap-ton of bikes and have a sweet apartment with a room specifically for them, shop included. This was pretty much the most important part of how I envisioned adult living arrangements when I was 12 (next to an indoor bmx track).

- I eat pizza and otter pops constantly. Two things that I ditched for a while but have reverted back to pretty hard in the last year. Enough with the cooking non-sense, I can get a large pizza for five bucks and have a freezer full of banana flavored sugar-ice.

- Mario Kart 64 is my bitch. That's right I ponied up the big barista/bike shop bucks and invested in a copy of this iconic recreational television game. It's about 1000 times less hard/entertaining as I remember it but that hasn't kept me from wasting a good 2 hours with it every day for the last few months.

I'm 99% positive that every item on that list does absolutely nothing to further my actual adult life. Wrenching at a shop isn't a super smart long term career (albeit one of the most enjoyable ever), offering to bunny-hop over 2 or 3 people if they will lay down shoulder to shoulder fails to impress people of my own age, Mario Kart ownage is not applicable on resumes. Actually... pizza and otter pops seem like a reasonable life choice for now, no qualms there.

So cheers 12 year old self, you became everything you ever wanted. And yes beer does taste that good and it's rad not having to tell mom and dad where you are all the time.

Saturday Ruminations

2009-06-20T17:06:00.003-05:00

So it's raining-ish, the suns out enough to go for a bike ride but not out enough to lay by a pool... I'm only good at one of those things anymore and it's not the one that this day is best suited for so y'all get to deal with my ramblings.

I've been m.i.a. for the last 20 or so days because I have been working a lot. Which has led to an incredible lack of adventuring but also an incredible amount of satisfaction. For those not in the loop I've been working a couple days a week at the CC and spending the rest slinging lattes on campus. So while I say I've been "working", I've actually just been getting paid for participating in enjoyable activities for 8 hours at a time.

Things I have been thinking about for the last month:

I get incredible joy out of truing wheels: My mechanical skill has always been rather inept in my own mind but once being thrown into a shop I've done a pretty decent job of realizing that between wrenching on my own bikes and watching Pattersnap and Mr. Joe Fox fix things that there isn't much I can't do regarding bike-cycles (not that there isn't a metric schnoz-ton for me to learn but I feel have a pretty firm grasp on the basics.) Back to wheel-truing, something about the scrape of metal on metal sitting in a Park stand until it is tensioned well enough to not have any visible/audible impurities warms my cockles.

I read good books slowly: If it's good and it gets my brain firing than I leave it be after I've read whatever it is that made me think. Which has led to a complete lack of book conquering this summer. I've been trying to rock out The Afterlife but after one or two paragraphs I seem to have enough of my own brain-fodder to marinate in for a good few hours. Not a whole lot more to say about that.

The Big News: The Hombre has done up and shot itself in the foot. After a long-ish battle of what I thought was a wacky electrical system and then a flooding of coolant and then even more guages I have decided to give up on her. After driving a few other little trucks I have decided that it must be a compression problem and since I figure my brain works jsut as well as the OBD1 and my hood latch is broken I am just going to figure there is something seriously wrong with her and let her sit.

But that also means I visited the bank yesterday and am sitting on a smallish chunk of cash which to buy new transportation with. So while I've incurred even more debt I am wicked excited about what is in my rather immediate future.

Fo' real...? Indeed.

The Word Fishin'

2009-06-04T20:47:00.007-05:00

Problem: summer’s here, I have absolutely no desire to even look at a bicycle and I completely detest being indoors.

Solution: FISHING!

Suburban fishin' hole

Fishing, as a word, has a near and dear place in my heart. Not necessarily the sport of fishing itself but just the word. You see fishing was my “get out of jail free card” as a young and adventurous boy in high school. Everyone had one of these even if they don’t realize it. A “get out of jail free card” is something that you tell your parents you are doing even though they know (and you know) that you aren't but they respect that you at least have the good sense to lie to them about it.

A normal summer evening conversation with my parent’s would look like this:

Parents: Where are you going to?
Me: Fishin’. BYE! (run out door as fast as possible)

After I ran out the door I usually suspected my parents of just rolling their eyes and going back to what they were doing in an attempt to ignore whatever lude and lascivious behavior their offspring was actually sprinting out the door to accomplish.

But a funny thing happened with my “get out of jail free card”, my friends started using it and we ended up with a small gaggle of trucks and Jeeps with fishing gear in the back (because the lie has to at least be plausible). And eventually we discovered that in an absence of ruckus sparking events we actually enjoyed sitting, watching bobbers and drinking beer.

I brought my fishin' face and my "get kicked out of airports" beard.

That is the essence of why I like fishing. In all reality I have ended up with a fair amount of fishing knowledge and nice gear (the knowledge leans more to the gear side than the fish side… go figure). So on to today's adventure...

I thought these guys might come swooping down on me to steal my fishies, Hitchcock style.

I started today at the Clinton Dam Spillway, but it was way more work than I wanted to do. There was a huge crowd of people standing around and I had hit my first fish within 15 minutes (along with everyone else out there so don’t assume I knew what I was doing). So I decided to be done dealing with lines that move with the current and the excessive sportsmen and head down to the pond by the ball fields. I sat there for three or so hours and never caught another thing. I napped, I thought about the word fishing and I watched the clouds roll by, but I never caught another thing. I know there were fish in there since on the few occasions I did reel in my line the bait was gone, but I was far more content to continue dozing in the sun than to watch my bobber that intently.

So here’s to not riding bikes, watching the clouds roll by in the summer sky and the word fishin'

The Kanza Conspires Against Me

2009-05-31T17:51:00.002-05:00

Year after year I register for this race and year after year I get shut down. Maybe it is a complete lack of training, maybe it is poor circumstance, maybe it is a mental thing (quote Bundy on #3) but this race and I have never clicked.

2007: Bum knee = quit at mile 50
2008: Free beer + a fellow teammate dropout = quit at mile 100
2009: Most horriblest feeling on a bike EVER = quit at mile 60

Suffice it to say that the conditions were NOT ideal for a 200 mile gravel adventure. The winds were as wicked as can be by 7:30 in the morning and besides a short 3 mile tailwind section, the closest the hills were gonna give us to "nice" was a slow break from the wind with 90 degree heat baring down on the racers with nothing even resembling shade. Coupled with whatever was going on in my stomach and just overall not feeling healthy I knew I needed to call it quits by the time I hit mile 50.

I learned a valuable lesson on Saturday though: I can't wish myself to a race finish in a Dirty Kanza situation, which was my entire training strategy. Now most things in my life I have been pretty good at just saying "I am..." or "I would like..." and eventually if I believe it or say it long enough things just sort of fall into place (try it sometime, it's quite mind blowing how this tactic works). But this sort of thing doesn't really work when the conditions conspire so hard against you that even if my body was capable of handling 200 miles of bowel rattling gravel my mind was just in too hard of a place to want to continue on after calculating average speed to determine my finish time (which would have been 20 hrs at my pace).

However... I had my three most awesome Bad Goat teammates quit too this year. All of whom have finished this race in the past and all of whom quit within 30 miles of myself... so maybe there is something to be said about wishing yourself into race form.

Regardless, there are now 4 Bad Goats fully kitted-out in some swank black and red threadz and we looked danged stylin' before we all threw in the towel and said "To Hell with the Kanz."

So here's to the Kanz and hoping that I won't be living in this state long enough to ever race her again.

Whose Kansas? .... ARKANSAS!

2009-05-26T20:54:00.005-05:00

Comment: Jeez dang Slate. You’re already re-using title themes? That is lame.

Response: Jeez dang. It was cute the first time and it’s cute this time.

Who woulda thunk it? Another long weekend came around which meant that John and I had to burn south in the Waller-mobile once again. We had a pretty sick itinerary with a slammed five days of adventuring, and adventure we did. This is the recap of the first locale we visited.

Thursday: Blazed down to the Buffalo River and spent the day huckin’ the gnar off of a nice 35ish foot cliff and a wicked rope-swing. The weather was a balmy high 70-something, the poison ivy blanketed the riverbank and the water was at near perfect system shock temps. Spent the evening bouldering around Sam’s throne awaiting the arrival of the soon to be Fink family unit and watching the sunset over the breathtaking views at Sam's.

Breathtaking views from Sam's Throne.

Friday: This was by far my favorite day of the trip. The crew spent the day sending it at Sam’s Throne. Can you say legit outside climbing? Giggity! That evening we stopped at the swimmin’ hole again on the way back to the campground to cook up some grub. The trio of Adam, Waller and I made sure to continue tradition and huck a cliff simultaneously while Kelsey made squealing sounds when she got too close to the edge. Mere hours after she sent herself over a 70 foot ledge on rappel…

Kels sendin' an overhanging jug haul.

Arkansas as a whole gets me goin’ pretty good but I have officially found something else to add to my requirements for the future Mrs. Slater: Dirty Arkansas drawl. Goodness me, it blows my mind that these people are literally 1.5 hours from people who talk like Kansans do but somehow as soon as the hills get to risin’ and the roads a twistin’ the women turn straight southern.

We stopped at the dollar general on the way back to the site for some supplies (moon pies & RC cola) and this happened…

Me: Y’all have Moonpies but no RC cola? (assimilating to the best of my ability)
Older gent behind me: Giant belly laugh. Ain’t you a little young to know about them?
Cashier: Stands there and looks pretty while I try and conjure witty response.
Me: Turn back to cashier and began to get rung up (witty response never came).
Cashier: Where you stayin’ tonight sweetie?
Me: Umm, umm, umm, Ozark campgroud.
Cashier: Huh, my little sister’s down there.
My Brain: Heart be still. Her accent is killin’ me. Don’t forget the ice!
Me: Umm, umm, umm, ice?

That was followed by another few exchanges that kept ending in a sweetie or darlin’ while I kicked myself for not thinking of something clever to counter with. Which leads me to believe that if a cashier at the Dollar General can do that to me than I will really be screwed if I ever find a brunette doctor who loves St. Pats and lays claim to that sweet Arkansas sound (follow along more closely if you don’t know where the rest of the list came from).

The beasts responsible for my ineptness with the cashier.

That evening I savored my oh, so classy cuisine of hot dogs, pork & beans and moon pies around a swank fire. Then was lulled into a blissful slumber by the dull ruckus of a campground full of rowdy rednecks awaiting their floats down the river like a kid on Xmas eve…

So here's to cliff jumpin', rope swingin', sendin' it and that dirty Arkansas drawl.

The End of an Era

2009-05-17T15:36:00.007-05:00

Thursday I finished my last final of my first senior year. Immediately I took all of my energy that was spent dominating 6 finals in 4 days and started pouring it into the perpetual celebration that is graduation weekend.

I don't have a whole lot of words about this weekend yet. Graduations are very bittersweet for me. I am not very good at saying goodbye to friends and when I say I am not very good at them I mean that I have the very real potential to turn into an epic train wreck because of them (so we're avoiding wine like the plague this weekend.) So I'll get together a summary in hindsight after I get done regulating myself through the weekend.

But until then I have some images that almost begin to kind of describe how awesome the first half of my weekend has been.

Quite literally 15 minutes after my PSYC333 final exam Thursday morning.

The red head is now the owner of 7 more dogs.

Birdie feedin' her kids! I was so impressed with how good of a mom the banshee dog turned into.

I have a big shaped twin.

Indeed

This is only a small percentage of how awesome my weekend has been. I'll make it into a mathematical equation right quick to describe it to it's fullest effect.

Bourgeois Pig + Slackline + Fishman's Grillin' Party + Puppies + Thai Food + Giles' Grad Party + Schooners + Little Bros HS Graduation Party + Jeff and Chris' Party = The awesomeness of the last 72 Hours

I'm off on the rest of my journey now. Gotta go see the youngest Slater graduate high school and then get down at Pattersnap's for the last party of the weekend. Cheers!

STOP WEEK!

2009-05-08T18:00:00.002-05:00

Conversation with my brain:

Me: Brain, we have to keep on the straight and narrow for 8 more days. No partying we have a lot of finals to study for.

Brain: That sounds like a chill plan brosef. Let's kick some finals week ass.

Me: I mean it we can't be running around celebrating stop day eve or any other nonsense.

Brain: Bro, I totally dig it. No boozin' until we are completely done.

Phone: Ring, ring, ring

Me: Hello. No I can't I have a metric schnoz-ton of finals next week...

Brain: VETOED! Let's rage it gnar-brah.

Me: FML...

Thoughts that have resulted from that dialogue:

- I like Royals baseball when they don't suck, which is now. Any other year I would probably be hatin' on the team and their physical MO location. The renovations at the K are definitely worth the $7 ticket even though the beer is ridiculously pricey.

- There really is no better place to be for scenery on stop day eve than the wheel. For all intensive purposes I should hate this bar since it stands for everything evil in the world (greeks). But I don't and that is a little unsettling for me.

- Road bike rides take too long to use as a "break from studying." Kit up, ride, shower, eat: that's like a three hour process. Not doing that ever again.

- Even though I have got down with the good times pretty hard this week I'm pretty proud of myself for not once showing up late to work (7am and without a hangover!) and for slowly accomplishing everything that needs to get done. I'm sure I will freak out pretty hard in the next few days but overall I'm feeling pretty dang good about what needs to happen to get through finals week.

I'm eventually going to get back to writing something besides my own thoughts. So don't worry loyal friend readers. Sordid tales of our travels and adventures will be back as soon as I climb off of this soapbox and do something worth writing about with y'all.

April Ruminations

2009-05-03T23:07:00.004-05:00

1) The Lawrence police pulled me over again yesterday. My unlawful violation: failure to properly signal a turn... Really? I wasn’t even aware this was a ticketable offense anymore. Thankfully the officer decided to follow me all the way from 19th & Haskell until I turned into my driveway until he decided to turn his lights on and harass me; which pretty much meant that I could go directly from car to fridge to dull the ridiculous cop-hating rage I was consumed in instead of having to drive any significant distance in said ridiculous rage.

In my past four years in Lawrence I have been pulled over/harassed for: running a stop sign on a bicycle (x2), speeding on a bicycle, riding a bicycle on a sidewalk, spinning my tires on a sandy left hand uphill turn, jaywalking.

Rinse and repeat the following list times three and you basically have my life since the minute I turned 15. I really hate the state of Kansas’ law enforcement agencies and really wish there was more legitimate crime for them to stop so they could stop heckling kids.

2) I read the most amazing article in the Times this weekend and think everyone else should too. The part that hit closest to home for me was the complete and total lack of academic communication between different departments in major universities. There is literally nothing I disagree with in this article, which rarely if ever happens (yes, even in the NYT).

After what I consider a rather diverse background in the school of liberal arts here at the University I have to whole-heartedly agree that if we had a more problem-based curriculum and department programming we could be breeding some absolutely brilliant solutions for the future. Instead we have kids like me. Kids who have such a large base of liberal arts knowledge that we can basically vomit the likes of Hooks, Freire, Freud, Aristotle, gender theory, and the entire canon of 20th century socialist thought on demand; because that’s what they teach in EVERY department on campus. And those things are all great. I really would not be the person I am today if I didn’t appreciate those things, but honestly I don’t need to learn about them in every class I take; discuss and partition out what sect of theory each belongs to and stick to that, please.

3) Friday night I hung out with four of my friends from separate time periods of my life. Garrison (my best friend from elementary until high school), Austin (my roommate sophomore year), Jeff (who has spent way too much time at a bar with me in the last year) and David (the new guard of KU Cycling). This was absolutely mind-blowing to me because my friend circle has done more than a few complete 180s in the past 10 years and the cat I still identified most with was my oldest buddy Garrison. By this point I’m fully aware that life as a human being is full of shared experiences/emotions/actions but it is scary that I see this cat maybe twice a year and we still ride that same parallel line that we have been for the past 15 years.

So here’s to the ass-hats that protect and serve the city of Lawrence, the op-ed section of the times and still being able to rally old friends for a night out in Lawrence.

Dirty Duathalon (Race Report Dos)

2009-04-29T22:55:00.004-05:00

So I still haven't done a legitimate bike race for the 2009 season yet but I am slowly getting closer to things that resemble actual cycling. Last Saturday was the second off-road Duathalon in Lawrence this year, and I definitely made it around to racing in this one. It was held on the River Trails so I was stoked about that. I haven't raced on the river since 2007 when I gave up my lead that I held for almost an hour straight to a 4th place finish when a stupid crash resulted from my over-confidence on my home turf.

I told myself this time was going to be different. I might not be in the best cycling form of my life but I have been laying down some serious miles on the feet so I felt that I could do okay at the start of the race... How wrong I was.

My legs were not having a race-pace run that morning. I tried and tried but after holding onto a top 10 spot for a little under a half mile my lower extremities just shut down and left me loping along at a pace more suited for a middle-ager running a marathon. Not too sure why that happened but I knew what I had to do in order to make up time.

Photo cred. Lantern Rouge

Mountain bikes... this part of the race would have been awesome, if I had stayed in a decent postition on the run. I spent pretty much the entire first half of the bike course dangerously dodging all of the traithletes and runners who had passed me early on. The sides of the course were still slick from all of the rain last week and I was not letting anyone keep me from wrecklessly plowing past them on the side of the trail. I had to have passed at least 35 people on the bike and rarely any of those passes were graceful but I finally put myself into the pain box, locked it tight and held onto the corners for dear life on a mountain bike for the first time this season.

Photo Cred lantern Rouge

I ended up finishing 10 minutes off of my team mates podiuming marks but still had a solid mid-pack finish. However Bad to the Mothereffin' Goat racing had a strong showing this weekend with Josh Patterson finishing first and John Waller third in the duathalon. Followed by both of them hopping back on their bikes to battle it out for fastest overall combined time (du & mtb only), Pattersnap got the nod by a mere 8 seconds.

Photo Cred Josh Pattersnap

So overall Bad Goat represented hard for the weekend with 2 podium spots, 1 goofy mid packer and Stumpy volunteering his time to score.

So here's to a crew that represents the whole gamut of the great sport of bikes.

"Old Man Waller: The Story of the Hobo Howler Monkey"

2009-04-24T20:30:00.008-05:00

John Waller turned older than he previously was on Wednesday. We played Hobos '09 part deus to celebrate. Hobos keeps getting bigger and better every week so if anyone has yet to experience gourmet Merc food cooked over a fire within spittin' distance of the Mighty Kaw whilst drinking leftover fridge beer, slacklining and just being general outdoorsy miscreants than I highly recommend you get on the Hobo train in the coming weeks (I need an editor).

I tried to capture the awesome ballsiness that was Waller bouncing in a dead tree over the river but this picture just can not do it justice. Picture this dead tree bouncing up and down 10-12 vertical feet over the river while I stood on top over the trail trying to surf it. It takes a special kind of intelligence to truly enjoy a hobo outing.

"I feel like we are front heavy." - Kelsey Miller

Like I said, a special kind of intelligence.

These are the post meal smiles that Merc meat cooked over an open flame generates.

Eventually we had the rest of the usual suspects join us by the river and at one point I believe that we had 11 hobos by the river. The rest of the evening was spent imbibing, spinning yarns, chasing beaver (that nocturnal creature gets feisty once the sun goes down and you're still in it's territory) and enjoying that special cool moonlit breeze that only the Kaw can be held responsible for.

So here's to Mr. John Waller. Thanks for gettin' older so we can keep on hoboin'.

Hobos by the River

2009-04-17T19:50:00.006-05:00

So I decided to celebrate the end to my hellacious school work filled week with a trip down to the river to kick it with some hobos last night.

When I arrived I found this gang of miscreants cooking up some brats around a cozy Waller-made fire.

This red-headed girl claimed to be a river hobo but had an arsenal of outdoorsy toys in tow, which leads me to believe she has a cozy home somewhere and doesn't really live in these trees.

I kept my feet warm near the glowing embers of the fire until I was too tired to stick around and pretend to be a hobo and retreated to my warm comfy apartment.

Here's to hobos, rivers, fire and friends.

My Kansas, Your Kansas, Arkansas

2009-04-08T20:47:00.008-05:00

Race season traveling officially began for me last weekend. Skipped out on Friday class to hop into the Wallermobile with Josh Stamper and Waller to head south to the Oauchita Challenge MTB Race. Six hours, 1 keg regulator and at least 3000 calories of crap later and our mangey selves stumbled out of the car to the cabin that Mr. Pattersnap and his lady had reserved for the crew in Mena, AR. Kels and Adam joined us shortly after and the weekend festivities soon began to liven.

Our new sponsor Barnyard Brewery provided us with a keg of their Chocolate Stout and Irish Red for the weekend and with the combination of Waller's engineering degree and Stamper's agri-rigging we managed to have fully pressurized and regulated beer for the rest of the weekend.

The Cycle City boys joined us at the cabin well into the night while everyone was asleep/passed out from the ale. So by our 8 am wake up call we had 7 dudes and 2 ladies crammed into a cabin that is roughly the size of my living room and bedroom combined. The rest of the morning was spent pre-riding (for the racers) and enjoying (for those of us less prone to need the excess pain this early in the season) some wicked AR singletrack. We got our cruise on at the Womble turnoff and I was awe-struck at how flowy and smooth it was. Front-range ribbons but with gradual elevation that never left you hating ascending. Not to brag but we looked pretty durned slick in our perfectly matching baby-blues.

An aside but this was the first time that I have ever ridden with Jeremy Haynes outside of a race situation. Super strange thinking that this cat has been in my cycling life for the last 11 years (sold me my first mtb, watched me dismount over my first cross barrier, got me on a swank team, made me want to be a cross promoter, blah, blah, blah...) but I had never just ridden with the dude.

That afternoon Kels, Adam, Waller and I got to go on a nice little hike through some local trails in search of Earthquake Ridge bouldering area. We hiked 4ish miles through the Earthquake ridge trail which had some gorgeous scenery. Watching the sun start to descend over the Oauchita skyline is something that every midwestern outdooorsman should experience at least once.
Turns out the Boulders weren't on the trail but instead just off the road another 1/4 mile up the road. So we ended up hiking for no reason but the sheer pleasure of enjoying each others company. The boulder's were underwhelming to say the most of them. 15 foot max topouts and not enough space or level ground to safely bail left me crimping things that were well within my ability. On the upside it gave us a chance to tie on our bandanas, rip off the shirts and do a little Sharma-esque camera posin'. Felt good to send like a gnar-brah in the warm afternoon woods as opposed to the rec center's bouldering wall.

The next day we rolled out of our beds at 5am to rainy, dismal skies so that the team could go attempt to race for eighty miles while Jaime and I chased them around playing team director in the Wallermobile. Stamper has the goods on race day if you want some of those digs; but I pretty much spent the day dozing in a lounge chair taking breaks only to lube chains, fill bottles and motivate the Cycle City cats with my ever so concise wording.

So here's to chocolate stouts, dry trails, mediocre boulders, and the circle of dirtbag kids who I have been calling my friends for more time than kosher.

Race Report #1

2009-03-22T16:17:00.008-06:00

What the *&$K kind of bike blog is this!?! The first gear review was about rock climbing shoes and the first race report is about

running? Makes no sense...

Somewhere between waiting for my laundry to dry at my parents house and realizing that I had tennis shoes on my feet I got the grand idea of kicking off my spring break with the 31st Annual Westport St. Patrick's Day Run. I really haven't tested my fitness baseline against anyone else this year and also haven't competitively run against anyone for the past 7 or 8 years, so I figured running with 3,100 other people for 4.5ish miles seemed like a great way to determine just what kind of shape I was in.

Overall I have no idea how I finished. Apparently scoring and entering data for 3000+ people is a task that takes longer than a week (even with a scoring chip...?) I do know that if I want to continue doing this whole running gig I need to start figuring out how to pace myself a little bit since I am pretty sure I was not supposed to have both a high 8 and a low 6 mile in the same race. All in all I finished worse than I wanted to but better than I would have settled for.

So here's to sport, feet and new kinds of hurt.

Holy Road Bikes!

2009-03-15T17:25:00.005-06:00

Before the pain set in.

I rode to and from the Perry Dam Race with this group of fast kids today. For some reason I thought that 4+ hours on a road bike wasn't going to leave me in a world of hurt but I definitely made it home from my 70 mile jaunt just barely hanging on to my sanity.

The way out group.

Sirs Giles and Waller towed me for a lap around the lake while we waited for the fast kids/kids with $ to finish racing so we could ride home. All I have to say about those two characters is that they both earned their gentleman badges today. The Giles and Waller duo towed me back to the group while I flailed and whined trying to catch up after the main group rolled through the stop sign without waiting for us three (don't worry main group guys we didn't expect you to worry about anyone but yourselves, that wouldn't be the true roadie spirit.)

In conclusion, I still don't find road riding incredibly enjoyable compared to other things that I could be doing on my bike. Although I do understand that it is a necessary evil that I am going to have to spend more time at to get ready for the epic gravel racing that's about to heat up around these parts.

So here's to pain, skinny tires and the true roadie way.

Lovely Day for a Guinness

2009-03-10T16:40:00.004-06:00

March is here the weather is warming up and we are less than a week away from my favorite day of the year, St. Patrick's Day! I can't hold my excitement in any longer. My countdown timer is ticking and I am officially one paper and one midterm away from cranking up the Pogues/Dubliners/Dropkick/Flogging Molly play list and diving head first into a week of Guiness, Harp and Jamesons.

Not being anything even close to a full-blooded Irish kid I have absolutely no reason to appreciate St. Pat's as much as I do, but I do it regardless.

I love that it's the one day of the year that allows me to drink with the fervor of a gaggle of pirates and have it be socially acceptable. I love that it traditionally marks the start of spring break, and that I look good in green, and that I always have hope that there will be some young pretty girl unadorned in green just waiting to giggle over my innebriated self giving her a pinch. But for all intensive purposes I firmly believe that there should be a Mc in front of my last name.

So here's to Irish whiskey, women and stout.

Movin' On Up!

2009-03-05T22:05:00.006-06:00

The Cycle City Kids got a new shop to play in on Saturday! Exciting stuff for the enterprising Fox family. The new shops digs are pretty swank and offers an environment that I really don't think any shop in the KC area can rival. The super open space, classy coffee nook and fitting area really add to something different in the way of bike shop layouts.

In a way it is disappointing to see the flagship store disassembled. Mainly because while I know I probably could muster up the gumption to do a keg stand of Oktoberfest at most any bike shop, it just will never feel like it did at the old store. On the plus side I did score that super plush love seat that I'm sure all of the northlanders sweaty lycra clad backsides have rested on after a ride or two.

The bum part of the week: My body is wrecked, today was my second emergency room visit in the last month (for completely unrelated things.) Which officially makes me a whiny little girl, but at least I can say that I have been to the emergency room 4 times in my life so at least I have rationed well throughout my years.

Here's how I picture this conversation with my body:
Me: Hey body! So I'm gonna treat you real well, slow down on the drinkin', quit the tobaccco gig, train smart, eat healthy. Ya know? Sounds good right?
My Body: HAHA! And in return I will completely screw over your life for almost an entire month by leaving you in excruciating pain with several different illnesses!

The upside of the bum part: I was diagnosed with pleurisy, which feels like a cracked rib but surprise! It's just the outer layer of the lung tissue swelling up so much that it presses unbearably hard against the chest cavity. Which means I should be back in form for the Bone Bender and also means I left the ER with a prescription for HYDROCODONE! I don't know how many of y'all have gotten the chance to experience this stuff but it's out of this world in the pain killer realm. I'm talking so good that I'm gonna be hard pressed not to add doctor/pharmacist on to the list of qualifications for the future Mrs. Slater just so I can have this stuff on tap when my bods on the fritz.

So here's to swank bike shops, tatterred couches, pain and the pills that dull that damn pain.

Creature of Culture

2009-02-27T17:27:00.010-06:00

Wow, that was fast, Friday is here again and I find myself incredibly swamped with work but not quite motivated enough to do any of it due to this cursed afternoon of supposed relaxation.

So to celebrate the beginning of this weekend I have decided to dig into the "Slater Special Reserve" list. The list is comprised of the utmost finest wines from only the most sought after collections throughout the world. Past bottles that have made the list include such timeless classics as the 2006 Yellowtail Rose, 2008 Foxhorn Merlot, 2005 Three Little Penguins reserve blends and of course California's own Nathanson Creek.

This afternoon I have chosen to open a bottle of 2006 Gru; an Italian red that unapologetically refuses to let itself be categorized, blend or otherwise. It's advertised as being a montepulciano grape spiced red, but it's flavor lends itself to an exquisite taste that I feel is best embodied in the Dave Chapelle skit "Purple Drank." Wherein instead of describing one's drink as grape juice it is solely categorized as the product of water/sugar/purple. Gru does indeed lend itself to the same palette pleasing incarnation of drank but in an even more delightful mixture: water/booze/red.

Now you may be asking why I have broken out such classy accoutrements seeing as it is a relatively droll afternoon, but I have big plans this evening... Tonight is the opening night of the Universities production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and I managed to score tickets to this sold out production. It's billed as being aimed at the same audience as the A&E channels "Mad Men" but I have a hard time believing anything done in musical form can take on the brazen, booze brandishing, womanizing, idyllic era that every male wishes they could pilot a time-machine to (at least for a day or two), but I'll give anything a shot.

So here's to private reserve lists, black comedians and university theatre.

Race Season Ruminations

2009-02-24T17:50:00.007-06:00

I have absolutely no pictures that pertain to this post so I will leave you with three of my recent favorites.

XOXO Jesus

Damn it! It happened again. Completely without intention I have gotten myself into another season of racing bicycles. I was rather adamant about not racing or competing this year after suffering mega burnout from chasing a decent road season and then somehow stumbling straight out of that season and into last year’s list of blunders. But… it is almost March 1st, my name is on three rather epic start lists and I plan on suffering through a six hour solo attempt at Chris Locke's Bonebender in two weeks.

Waller, kitchen tongs, bar...

While on my second lap on the river today I realized that there must be something hard-wired into my brain that makes me do this to myself every spring. Maybe it isn’t specific to bicycles but something in my head definitely starts screaming at me to get back in shape around the beginning of February every year, so inevitably I do.

Kels making an attempt to send "Corner to Corner"

On the downside:
- I am in the least of form to be a threat to any podium spots in an xc race. Since I have completely ditched road riding my top end and climbing form has essentially disappeared.
- I have absolutely no time to train this season. 18 hours of class and the job have left me pretty much m.i.a. between the hours of 7 and 7. Today was my first day on the bike in almost 2 weeks.

On the upside:
- I feel I am in the most well-rounded form of anything I can remember from years past.
- I am between 15 and 20 lbs up on my old race weight due to actually putting in some core work and spending 4 nights a week at the rock climbing gym (this is a good thing, 130lbs at 5’11” has to be unhealthy).
- My cardio feels immaculate due to the combination of flushing my body of all tobacco, beating the sun out of bed to get a run in before work on the weekdays, and quitting that awesome habit of drinking my dinner that I was so fond of.

As an aside, this will be my tenth year racing mountain bikes. So here’s to another year of sticking it in the big ring, climbing into the pain box and not coming out until cross nats are done and over.

Gear Review #1 Evolv Bandits

2009-02-11T22:35:00.005-06:00

Nothing makes me giddier than new gear. Although this year I have been relatively light on the stuff purchases (partly because I am broke and partly because I own at least two of most things anyone could want or need to play outside), I scored these for a song and after one size swap back to the vendor they returned to my doorstep today.

I'll keep the review short since I'm assuming at least half of the people who read this could care less about rock climbing, while the other half is wondering why I posted a picture of ballerina shoes.

In short these things are rad. I sized them more aggressively than my La Sport Mythos and compared to the rest of the Evolv and Mad Rock families they fit my heel to perfection. They aren't the best for standing around in all day but I don't think I am going to be spending hours hanging off North American in them anytime soon. The down-turned sole is pretty stiff and kept me pinned to some nubbins that were pretty squrimy on my old shoes. Overall I'm impressed with the Trax rubber and the way the shoes seem to lend themselves to the skinny footed, high arches, long second toed weirdos of the world.

Here's to hoping that first impressions are lasting impressions.

Rabbit in Repose

2009-01-28T15:10:00.004-06:00

What a bum deal John Updike is dead. I won't wax poetically about what a tragedy it is to lose such a great American author but I will say a few things since I have been on an Updike kick for the last few months.

This cat really made me believe that there is room in the American canon left to fill, he churned out the good stuff until the day he died and created some immense characters.

After re-reading every essay that I have been assigned to write on Updike (the whole two of them) I discovered that I loathed reading him my freshman year of college which is odd because I have always thought that I dug this cat. My essay on A&P was essentially a seven page flogging of Updike for writing something about nothing. And I am thoroughly convinced that I never actually read Rabbit Run but plucked a few reviews off the internet, paraphrased and turned it in... again disappointing because in my head I had thoroughly appreciated this book.

The NYTimes made this a front page gig along with dedicating more than ample column width in his tribute this morning which I really dig since the NYT rarely does that kind of coverage over an old dead white guy.

There's No Fun Like Snow Fun

2009-01-23T16:23:00.001-06:00

So I was going to wait for Waller to get all of his pictures uploaded to the internet before I wrote this since he has arguably the best and or most pictures from the trip, but since he moves at the speed of smell I figured I would just go ahead and get this thing done.

To cap off the excitement filled winter break I packed into a car with 6 other kids and headed west to play skis. Kelsey Miller was kind enough to provide all of us poor college kids with a swank Suburban to travel in as well as her families amazing house in Frisco.

The first day of the trip the gang went our separate ways with the Miller girls and one of their significant others heading to Copper while Waller, Schroeder, Kayla and I met up with Jeff's local buddy Noah at Breckenridge. All I have to say about Breck is that I will be back. Every run I made felt fresh and exciting whether it was well above or well within my abilities. The whole mountain is essentially a traverse and I really dig that kind of skiing. But apparently I'm the only one who felt that way...

The next day we made our way to Copper as our big traveling 7 person circus of ski/snowboarders. Copper was super vertical and got into my head big time. Now I normally have no problem being way too elevated for my own good but something about this resort made me feel extremely small and things that were well within my ability ended up being avoided after the first half of the day while I cruised some blue groomers.

Some other notable things about the weekend of skis were the food, drink and entertainment. Johnny G. and Sara Miller accompanied us on our journey and made sure that the aforementioned were all above par as they played in the kitchen so our forlorn ski-shot bodies had good solid nutrients every night. (We'll wait for Waller to upload some amazing foodie pictures, all the others are at way too low of a resolution.)

Just like every weekend Jefferson, Waller and I made our pilgrimage to a local public house to imbibe in some ale. Unlike every weekend we walked into Cecilia's in downtown Breckenridge (Kayla eventually showed up after a trip back to the condo to retrieve her ID). I've been to Cecilia's once before in the summertime and when I had last visited it was a locals bar filled with liftees, restaurant workers and the longboards that got them there. An establishment where one could forego cover if they showed a valid local ID or had an eye-patch sharpied on by the drunken doorman... a drinkers bar.

Appparently things change during high season. Cecilia's was stuffed to the brim with the young and snowbound. No more pool tables or personal space. Just wall to wall kids, giant flatscreens playing snowboard flicks and three separate bars each with it's own flavour ( one equipped with go-go dancers!). The tall-boys were taller, the music better, the girls blonder and the atmosphere superb. To cap off the evening we were allowed to enjoy the company of a bus-full of miscreants traveling back to their vacation shelters between Breck and Frisco.

All in all the weekend was a smashing success with some great friends, skis, food and fun. There's no fun like snow fun.

New Blog!

2009-01-09T01:29:00.000-06:00

So I'm done talking about it and have officially created a blog.

Stay tuned, I'm off to do something that is worth blogging about...