Monday, November 2, 2015

Fall into...winter?

   A snowy day. Wood stove blazing, lamb stew in the crock pot. Enjoying a bit of calm before the chaos of moving back to Kings Beach begins in less than 2 weeks, and back to full time work a few days after that. Kit is happily back working for his old boss as a plumber, and I'm excited to start my new job at Tahoe Mountain Sports learning all about shipping and retail, working with rad people at a successful locally owned business. In addition, planning to continue making wooden spoons and other small items for Roundwood to keep creating fun artsy things. The process of selling and buying houses, for once, is feeling like it's going smoothly. Hopefully this is the last real estate adventure we'll have for a very long time, and I do mean it!
   My body (and mental state) is finally returning to a normal state; my left knee doesn't quite bend all the way but is getting a lot closer with stretching and physical therapy. At least it's no longer half the size of my right leg--that was pretty scary. Rock climbing has gotten much more fun being able to do all but the most crazy of high-steps, and things are feeling quite good on the bike although I don't go very fast uphill yet. I even ventured out on a dirt bike ride around our local trails, having so much fun that we went out again the next day. So tired and sore afterward but SO much fun!
   The weekend before was my first big mountain bike ride since sometime in April when I became a basket case for most of the summer. Our friends suggested a rather long ride with copious amounts of pedaling and pushing bikes; a shuttle to hike up the back side of Armstrong Pass to a section of the Tahoe Rim Trail up to Freel Pass, then down to Star Lake and Cold Creek trail and finally pedaling back to their house. Debating the wisdom of jumping into a 15-mile ride so soon, I agreed after much peer pressure... after all, it is mostly downhill. The very first hike up the short steep backside trail to Armstrong was quite honestly the worst part, wherein I considered feigning knee pain to bail on the rest of the ride and head down the Armstrong Pass trail to Connector-Corral and back home. Popping an unexpectedly good wheelie and downing a snack at the top improved my outlook a whole lot and I decided to push onward hiking and pedaling up to chilly Freel Pass.
   It was such an epic, soul-reviving experience, despite wearing my horribly out-of-shape body down to exhaustion by the end. Rocky, sandy, un-groomed singletrack above Star Lake led to slightly smoother, newer trails below, and into Cold Creek's infamous boulder-bashing rock sections and fast flowy turns at the bottom. I LOVE BIKE RIDING!!!!

Starting in on the delicious 3,000 foot descent down from Freel Pass
   The flip side of having all of this fun? Well, it just happens to be creating an enormous bike dilemma for me. Spending the majority of the season with an Ibis Ripley collecting dust in the shed until recently means I never got a chance to really appreciate the bike to its fullest potential and decide if I really thought it was all that and a bag of potato chips... until now, conveniently, when I'm already late on handing it back over (sorry!!) Until this particular day I was all ready to get back on board with my buddy at Lichen Bikes, the polar opposite to this flashy carbon fiber beast. Solidly built from lightweight steel and stable at high speeds, his creation rides like an exceptionally pedal-able downhill bike. Also fun, no doubt, and Kit loves his Lichen Bike. Whereas the Ripley feels like a BMX bike with suspension, so easy to pop over obstacles, flick through tight trees, and throw in a few decent manuals. Most noticeable, though, was the amount of energy that I saved having such a stinking light bike that feels like it practically pedals itself. I was able to coast many times where everyone else pedaled, and I'm pretty sure the bike was the only reason I wasn't too terribly far behind everyone on the climb up. Yes, I feel like I've now drank the carbon 29er kool-aid... Eeks! And no, I'm not worried about racing enduro on it. I used to race super-Ds on a hardtail, and my first DH season was on a ridiculous excuse for a bike, so that's right up my alley.
   First-world problems, indeed. Can't I just have both bikes and enjoy each of them for what they are? Budgetarily, no. I shouldn't even be thinking of buying a dang fancy carbon bike right now, but with selling a couple of houses and starting a steady job I'm feeling pretty good about things. So everyone (especially Devin of Lichen Bikes), please forgive me, I think I'm about to indulge myself in a carbon "dream bike" at least for one more season. And I think that Lichen could build one heck of a DH bike, which I might also be looking for soon. No carbon wanted in that department!!
   When the dust settles and life is as back to normal as it will ever be, hopefully some fun weekend adventures will commence. Perhaps, even of the snowy sort... it's still too early for me to believe we will actually have a real winter here in Tahoe but we all hope that it happens!

Friday, October 2, 2015

Sometimes, things get better!

   What the heck! It's so hard to believe summer has come and gone already! It really feels like just yesterday I was coming back from an amazing bike vacation to Southern California. What happened in between? I really just want to forget about it all. Mostly I have avoided writing much this summer because I've been afraid it would turn into a whine-fest about not riding bikes or having fun; sometimes my state of mind was so uncharacteristically depressed or upset that I really didn't care to share my thoughts at all.

   On the positive side, I got the MRI done on my knee and, though puzzling, no abnormalities were found whatsoever! This is good news, but at the same time SO incredibly frustrating that I spent 5 months more or less babying the knee to avoid tearing the meniscus any further. Grrrr!!!

   Following that I booked an evaluation with a new Tahoe area physical therapist (no more Barton) to get an opinion on what the problem might be, not wanting to wait any longer to start real rehab if I could. It sounds like muscle atrophy and imbalance are causing patella tracking issues, which are easy enough to resolve with specific strengthening exercises, and in fact I started feeling much less pain the day after beginning the exercises. Go figure! I'm still going to see Ashwin at Great Basin PT in another week for his opinion, but since it takes a few weeks to get in to see him I thought I'd give this new PT a try. I randomly met her at a friend's house and thought she seemed to know a lot, so far I'm happy with the results.

   Last night I got to ride and finally not hold back as much, and it was incredible. Flying down singletrack freshly damp from a day's rainfall was exactly the encouragement needed to feed my soul and re-ignite the fire of passion for being on two wheels. The knee felt pretty dang good all throughout the ride and just a little stiff afterward, nothing a bit of ice and massage couldn't fix. On the mend again and I'm feeling as though the winter might not be a total loss after all. Following that, I just need to break this horrible curse of springtime injuries and finally get a whole summer to play again!

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Dear Life: will you please stop giving me lemons...

... I've made enough vodka lemonades to last a lifetime. We're all getting sick of them around here. Perhaps some limes would be nice for a change, then we can have margaritas or gin and tonics instead, or Mexican beers with lime...much more variety, and beer does go well with fishing!

   In all seriousness that's an attempt at dealing with my current situation with good humor: a knee injury which refuses to resolve itself, along with jumping through frustrating insurance-related hoops to find out exactly what is wrong. Hopefully I don't sound like too much of a whiner. Supposedly it's a torn meniscus, as confirmed by 3 different PTs. The type of tear is of course a mystery until I can get an MRI, hence the insurance hoops. I'm feeling trapped in a vicious cycle of needing better insurance, which costs more, which I need a better job to get, which I almost definitely need a functional knee to be hired for... I almost got back into vector control, which is a nice cushy summer job, but a neck injury in the spring kept me from completing the required physical exam. The knee is not completely debilitating which is nice and I fully appreciate that. But 3 summers in a ROW of not being completely myself? Well, I'm glad to have enjoyed being in one piece this past winter as much as possible! My mind is trapped in a constant battle between abject misery on one hand and forced optimism on the other--come on now, I still have two legs attached to my body ya know! And they are functional too, hooray! One day I will go a full year without hurting myself and that will be an amazing experience!!

   I am, admittedly, incredibly bummed to not be racing bikes AGAIN this summer. But I'm trying not to dwell on it too much, focusing instead on what I still can do to stay involved with the bike community and SheJumps. It is a totally lame situation for somebody like me who loves to do everything outdoors, but relative to how bad things could be, I'm really lucky that they are what they are. I have actually been able to ride my bike on trails though rather slowly and very carefully to avoid tweaking my knee. I also have done some easy rock climbs, successfully able to avoid any moves that might make it worse. Activity usually makes it feel better; there may be a slight overall improvement over the past months, but then again I might also be getting used to the varying degrees of inflammation and just doing more things regardless. I'm also really starting to like fishing a whole lot more, with a little bit of hiking around or sitting in a canoe. Sometimes quite boring when not catching fish, but when one starts getting fish on the line it becomes a whole lot more fun. I have not caught anything on a fly rod yet this year--that's a whole new mystery that I'm still trying to unravel!

 

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Catching up

Spring "training camp" in San Diego
   Once again I've been working and playing outside way too much to write anything so here's a bit of what's been going on. Things got shaken up a lot since the last time I posted: Vanderkitten offered me a spot on their women's Pro MTB team for this season and I absolutely could not turn it down. I'm so honored to even be considered to belong on a team with some amazingly fast women! It feels great after two years of frustration and struggles with injuries that things are coming together to create this opportunity for me to get out there and enjoy racing bikes more than ever. Take a look at my Sponsors page for an updated list of supporters for this race season--great companies that I am really proud to represent!
Ibis Cycles is my new bike sponsor; yes, that is a Ripley 29er...
   The Sea Otter Classic is set to be my first race back in 2 years, and of course I missed signing up for the enduro before it sold out, but I will be racing the dual slalom and DH and hanging out with my new teammates and old friends that I haven't seen in forever. Stop by the Vanderkitten booth and say hi to us!
   It will certainly be a new adventure racing enduro, and will probably be a lot tougher for me to get on the podium than the downhill races I've done. I have been strength training more than ever before this winter and feeling good but have not been getting consistent mileage on the bike. It's been so long since I have trained for endurance events that I think I might have forgotten how. It is still early season and I am usually a slow starter, so there is time to pick up and be strong for the mid-season races. Despite the new challenges (and I do love those) I'm looking forward to doing some really fun-sounding races in new locations, including the possibility of a Whistler trip to race Crankworx...

Monday, February 23, 2015

Life seems to be mostly...normal?

   I've really been slacking on writing blogs lately; blame the madness of the 3 jobs I'm juggling this winter (of course I couldn't pick just one or two) and the beautiful but strangely unseasonal weather we've been having making it hard to sit down indoors. It's likely that I have ridden bikes nearly as many days as skied this season with near record low snowfall amounts.
   The house drama of the last 2 years has fully faded out and is replaced with a sense of being at least somewhat settled. I'm getting to know the ins and outs of South Lake, becoming well acquainted with where not to go on crowded weekends, and where to find the best adventures in my own backyard. Finding work has been interesting to say the least, but it's always come together at the last minute and I'm hoping to get settled into a routine sooner or later and not have the frantic end of season scramble for the next season's job.
   It dawned on me recently that I've been able to do most everything that I enjoy for the first time in a couple of years without worrying about aggravating this or that injury. While riding to and from running errands in town, I was struck by the joy of simply pedaling on a bicycle again to get from place to place. Occasionally my hip aches a little bit but less and less as time goes on, an indication that spending time in the gym with a trainer is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. That was a bigger financial commitment than I wanted to make, but with the alternative being more struggles with injuries, I was good and ready to try something new rather than following the same dumb pattern over and over again.
    It feels amazing to be able to ride bikes and also have the social aspect of riding be a part of my life again. I am finding out, just as should be expected, that I'm a heck of a lot slower than I was before everything happened. Frustrating as it is to eat dust following my friends on the trail, I know I'm on the right track and have to stay positive about it--which isn't that hard to do with a silly singletrack-induced grin all over my face.
   And now, I leave you with a few photos from the last dirt bike trip to Black Rock Desert:
Hot springs at Soldier Meadows campground.

We were hoping to ride up High Rock Canyon road but it already closed for the season. It is really spectacular!

Lots of empty space, nobody out here but us and a few herds of bighorn sheep way off in the distance.

Smooth dirt, a nice break from the rocky ride the day before.

The water- and time-sculpted rock of Fly Canyon.

Somewhere up in the Calico Mountains.

Obligatory playa shot.

 
 

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

The big Northwest road trip!

   Well, I've been so busy and distracted that the end of 2014 blew right past me at warp speed. I spent the last week of it with Kit up in western Washington visiting my parents and friends, and then New Year's Eve in Cashmere, WA with Kit's cousin. That itself was a random experience: hanging out at a small local's bar in a cute but podunk little town, with an overly friendly bartender and a guy singing terrible cover songs at open mic night. We didn't make it to midnight despite our most valiant efforts to tolerate the music...
Klamath Falls, OR. They must have a problem with sidewalk horses here.
   Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was crammed into or tied onto the outside of our chosen road trip-mobile, a Dodge Neon: Skis, poles, boots, a bicycle (2 on the way back), moto boots and helmets, bike gear, climbing gear, fishing stuff, a week of clothes, presents, food, 2 people and a big headed dog. It took 2 days to drive from Tahoe to Washington, stopping in Portland for a night to have beers with a couple of friends and catch some sleep.
   Arrived in Washington to clear skies (a miracle) and took some walks with the dog. Kit got to see a bit more of Poulsbo, the bay and also historic Port Gamble. On a slightly soggy day we drove up north on the Olympic Peninsula with the idea to get all the way out to the coast. It got late so we stopped to see Dungeness Spit instead, then on to Port Angeles where we found a little aquarium. There we watched an octopus try to pounce on its live crab dinner a couple of times, but it completely missed. Thanks to my parents' generous neighbor we chowed on freshly caught crab ourselves this trip, a real Northwestern treat.

Walking around Fort Worden, Port Townsend WA
   Tourist time over, we rode bikes the next day at Green Mountain where I have been a number of times, but this time on a new trail that was ridiculously fun. The top was cloudy so there were no views, but the tacky dirt and techy roots more than made up for it. As did finally riding my new bike, with its builder Devin from Lichen Bikes! Grinning nonstop, splattered with mud, we had to hike up to ride another short trail that was steeper and more root-encrusted than the first. I'm still in disbelief that I never rode those trails the whole time I lived there.
   We rode again the next day with my dad, chasing him around the nearby Port Gamble trail system. There has been so much development of new trails that I am totally blown away every time I come home and ride there. In addition to the original handful of trails that I remember from growing up there have been many more added of the rough, rooty old style winding through the rainforest, along with some new flowy singletracks. The old man darn near wore us out, and we were also caught in a downpour a ways out from the car. I forget sometimes that a 20% chance of rain up there means a good chance 20% of the day will be rainy...

Mt. Shuksan, so close you might as well just climb up it!
   For a change of pace, we ventured up to ski at the legendary Mt. Baker following a decently sized storm. I'm so sorry, Vail Resorts, but this is the only place I can ever call truly "EPIC" for lift access skiing! It was an incredible day with blue skies and crisp cold air, with daytime temps dropping to 10 degrees. The only unfortunate part was the lack of a base that nearly 2 feet of fresh snow fell upon, leaving much of the mountain un-skiable, at least if one valued their limbs. There was still some lovely deep snow accessible in the out of bounds zones so we found some good turns there.

Kit performs a somersaulting snow sample. It was good, and deep.
   The brilliant powder day was followed up by a day of playing in the mud on dirt bikes in the deep woods of Tahuya State Forest. My friend Jason had extra bikes for us to ride, and he guided us through the winding trails for several hours of motorized excitement over slippery roots galore. We had all our warm layers on, and my feet got so wet from riding through the puddles that my toes started freezing, but it was hard to call it a day and stop riding on such great trails. We'll have to come back for more of that too!
   A chilly morning bike ride at Port Gamble the next day and then we were crossing the Puget Sound again on the ferry. Kit got all excited to see everything in the daylight, and I couldn't help but feel awed myself on such a spectacular day when all of the mountains were visible from Rainier to Baker in the Cascades to the east and also the Olympic range fully on display to the west. It truly is a beautiful place! Unfortunately, none of our photos did it any justice whatsoever.

Mt. Baker off there in the distance.
   We caught the evening alpenglow driving over Stevens Pass on the way to Cashmere on New Years eve, pondering for just a second maybe stopping to night ski. I have not ridden lifts at Stevens in over 10 years! A little worn out from riding bikes that morning and our other non-stop adventures, we decided to keep moving and get to Kit's cousin's house at a reasonable hour. 

Pork Chop hides from the loud bang of fireworks in the bath tub (and perhaps the kids too). Kids think this is really funny and follow him in!
   Following a pizza dinner (Kit's dream come true-pizza three nights in a row) they brought us down to a small bar in an old fruit packing warehouse to send out the old year with a group of friends. We met some fellow climbers and talked one guy into showing us around Vantage the next day, a somewhat nearby climbing area that would be out of the snow if not slightly warmer. That whole crew left early to put their herds of kiddos to bed, and we figured we should stick around for at least another beer and experience the local "scene." The incredibly welcoming bartender immediately offered to buy us beers if we would hang out for the music--an amazing guitar player, he said. This could be interesting, we figured, so we settled in at a table. The tunes that followed were a collection of overplayed late '90s and early 2000's radio songs. Oh well...we proceeded to try and ignore it while having an incredibly deep conversation about jobs, graduate school, leaving Tahoe, and all of those scary emotional things that come out sometimes after a few drinks. Move to Cashmere? Definitely not for the live music. Aside from that, however, it was pretty neat: quiet, close to the Cascades, full of old history and an economy that seems to rely more on fruit growing than tourism.

Approaching the climbs from on top of the cliffs.
   On January 1, 2015 we woke up not too hung over, ate leftover pizza for breakfast, and went to pick up our climbing guide for the day. The drive to Vantage was about an hour, located right by the world famous Gorge Amphitheater. My first impression: eerily similar to Indian Creek, Utah, only with rippled volcanic columns instead of sandstone cliffs. It was not as warm as we hoped, but at least we were climbing and seeing new sights! The first climb that we did was a supposedly easy but rather awkward sport climb with one side in the sun and one side in the shade, made even more awkward by having a frozen right hand and trying to avoid using those holds on the shaded side. Not terribly impressed, we chose another climb ascending twin cracks on either sides of a column with a fairly easy rating. 
5.8 twin cracks in the corner right above Kit's head. A classic!
   The shadows moved quickly with the northern latitudes and short days of winter and I found myself charging upward as fast as possible to catch the last bit of sun on the right side of the climb. Starkly contrasting the first climb, this one was a classic. Abundant hand and foot jams made for crack climbing at its very best, times 2 for the double cracks. 10 degrees warmer and this would be a perfect winter climbing spot! We will be back to this one someday, for sure. 

Lichen Bikes on a road trip! Riding at Syncline near Hood River. 
   Moving south the next day to Oregon with Bend as our destination, we stopped just outside White Salmon in southern WA for a short scenic mountain bike ride above the Columbia River in an area called Syncline. It was quite cold, muddy, and we had a very vague idea of where we were going. We pedaled up for a while, got a bit lost, and went back down the hill to a trail that looked like fun. Kit took some photos of me and the new bike and then we got back on the road toward Bend.
   Unfortunately there was no time to cram in any more adventures on the way home; we maxed out our time away and I had to be back to coach kids at Heavenly on Sunday. We still had a good time catching up with our friends in Bend for a night, staying in their cozy little house and walking to the river with the dogs before getting in the car for the final push back to Tahoe.


   I almost forgot to mention that my hip is feeling much better and just about back to normal now. This trip really put it to the test, with so many different activities all crammed together plus a lot of time sitting in the car. It feels so incredible to get out and do whatever I feel like doing without worrying about it! Thanks again to Great Basin Physical Therapy and Elevated Fitness for helping put me back together!