Journal Archive from January

January 31, 2001

It's been a few days since my last post. I'll try not to slack off again! It has been a little busy though lately, and the thoughts of touching my computer somedays just make me cringe. But tonight we finally did it! We hit the nearby skate park. It was myself, Trevor Young, and Pete Wilk. It wasn't too bad either. We rode for only two and a half hours but we rode hard! There wasn't too much trials related but we did work on a few trials specific lines. A few gaps and ups between some of the ramp decks, and one point worked hard on gaps, kind of had a little contest between ourselves. Other than that it was just have a good time on the ramps and box jump! It was kind of a mix between riding freestyle which I used to do a few years back and riding vert on a mountain bike! Most of the stuff was big so all you could do is go for it. In the center of it all was a six foot box jump and spine that was loads of fun. All I can say is I need a lot more practice before Motorama. Not only that I need to learn how to jump that box jump better! I was close a few times clearing the deck but would still really hang up my rear wheel....From the bottom bracket back! Well all I can say I'll be heading back there to practice more. It seems the best days are Monday - Wednesday where it's not too crowded. So we'll see what monday has in store! Tomorrow is supposed to get warm and nice out so hopefully some of the snow will melt and give us back some natural riding!

January 28, 2001

I'm up! Kind of.... 8:00 is just far too early somedays. There was a whole crew ready to ski! So we ate breakfast and headed to Magic Mountain once again. That place is great! This weekend they had a Snow-cross race, so the place was loaded with crazy fast snowmobiles. I think I may have found a new sport. In the summertime I head out on the water with my Sea-doo and it would be no difference....except being a little colder. But you have this permanent smile on your face all the while! There is nothing like doing 65 on the water but I couldn't imagine 100+ on those things! Gives me the shivers. So we skiied all day, watched the sleds, and got a great workout. Headed back, ate, cleaned and headed back home. Now it's just waiting for the SuperBowl to get over so we can watch Survivor II! But tomorrow night no matter what, I will have some riding status! We are definitly going to that park tomorrow even if we need to run over people!

January 27, 2001

We decided to leave this morning for Vermont instead. Just too late and too tired last night to drive anywhere. So we loaded up the truck Nero and all and headed North! It was a great day. A few light snow flurries, not too much traffic, Wendy co-piloting, and Nero on my shoulder almost the whole drive. Once we arrived we just decided to relax a few minutes. Then I had a quick project of running cable to the second floor of the apartment! There is now TV in my bedroom! It's pretty nice because if I wanted to go to bed early, but still watch a little tube, I couldn't have both until now. Wasn't too bad until I was out on the roof running the cable. It is a rather steep roof with slate shingles and a harsh 20 foot drop. No, nothing happened to me but Nero just had to come out! He was able to squeeze underneath the screen and got a little surprise, I was really freaked! Where he jumped out there was snow near the gutter so he was able to hold onto that. I scooped him up quickly and got him back in. A trials cat he definitly is! For lives, he had to have used up more than his 9 by now, and that section he almost 5ed! After that scare I finished up and relaxed a little more. It's a Vermont thing, time seems to run so much slower there! Then Wen and I went shopping. got some groceries and stuff, headed home and had a late dinner. There was a call from Pete Wilk on the machine and he tried to go back to that skate park I told you about a few days ago. Once again it was packed with skaters, and they weren't really able to have a good session there with all the people. Yup, it is a small place. Well, it was off to bed a little early because Wendy had some friends coming up to ski in the morning.

January 26, 2001

Well it's Friday night and Nero is helping me type this entry. What a crazy cat. He can't keep from playing with this thing while I type on it. Well I have the new laptop up and running and it is so much better than my old one. On the biking front though, overall it turned out to be a very uneventful night. Pete Wilk and Craig came down to check out that new skate park near my apartment in hopes to ride. Well we decided to head there first to check it out. It was ok for being so close but tonight it was pretty packed with skaters and bmx bikes. The park itself was small. It was inside a narrow building so all the ramps and riding was in one direction. It was a tough call riding, but tonight if you added three stock bikes into the mix it kind of shrank the place with all the people. They did have a few lines that did catch our eye. After some hemming and hawing, we came back to the apartment and grabbed our bikes for an urban ride. Once again that kind of flopped because all the good stuff to ride was either covered with ice or snow. We just took a cruise around town to see what little we can ride. We did find some thing to practice lunges, gaps and a few small ups on, but overall, nothing spectacular. By now the images of indoor trials parks danced in our heads! We decided to head back and call it a night. Well in a little bit I plan on packing up and heading to Vermont. I figure with all this snow might as well use it! Pete and Craig I think are going to head to the park tomorrow morning to check it out. But the next ride there will be definitly Tuesday night. So until then I'll keep you posted on the rest of the weekend!

January 24, 2001

I'll make this a short entry. It's been a crazy day trying to convert a new laptop with all of my files and make it just the way I like it. Well this is the first post I am making with it to my journal. Along with this is new software to update my web page as well. So I get to test a few things at once now. SO if you read this then cool! I'll have alot more to tell in the next day about soooo many different things!

January 22, 2001

Well I found out some good news recently. I just found out about an indoor skate park that just opened up right around the corner of our house! It's a very fast bike ride there. I'm not sure what it's like but I heard there are a lot of bladers and boarders but only a few bikers. I plan on checking it out tomorrow sometime to see what's there to ride, hours and cost. But I'm not going to be very picky seeing there is nothing else outside! The way I found out about it was a local contact I made. A family who does all my decaling, Graphics Unlimited, are interested in possibly opening one up in their home town and looking for some help and advice. There is a location for it and the individual who owns the location sounds interested, so we'll have to see what happens! Other than that excitement it was the garage door opener installation day. Which will need to be continued tomorrow anyway. Everything is installed except the electronic sensors and stuff. Then I can check off another project! But other than that, now is the daily recap of the day with a cold frosty beverage. Which brings me to this thought! Go check out http://www.harpoonbrewery.com I'll be heading there in a couple of week for the NEMBA banquet shows! Philip from NEMBA was saying 'Just wait until you see the ad for it!" Not sure what he has up his sleeve, but these guys from NEMBA are great! All I can say is check them out and get yourself signed up today! They do so much for mountain biking and promote trials non-stop! Thanks NEMBA!

January 19-21, 2001

It was another snowy weekend without much riding. It started a little on Friday night and I was trying to plan a Saturday morning ride at Purgatory Chasm but as nature would have it, we were getting snow. So instead Wendy and I booked a vacation to Jamaica! Yup, we wouldn't mind bringing our bikes but we are a bit nervous of our bikes disappearing. After that more snow was flying around so I decided to hit the workshop. For that new entertainment center, I plan on building some drawers inside one of the cabinets to hold video tapes and dvd's. If you didn't know already, I'm an organization freak. So I worked on that a bit, we went out to dinner, then pretty much relaxed for the rest of the day. Sunday morning was interesting with about an additional foot of snow on the ground. So riding was once again out. It's been a tough time of the year especially with the first event just around the corner! So it was back to my list of many projects that were awaiting me. I did get a few of them done. We moved into an older house and my first project of the day was to finish updating the older electrical outlets to grounded outlets. I started this two weeks ago, but last weekend I decided to play instead. So after a few hours project one was done! After that the snow finally stopped. There was alot of it! So I decided to go shopping for an overdue garage door opener. I swear the landlord is going to have a totally remodeled house by the time we leave! Nice thing, he pays for it so I just install it. But by the time I got back home it was cold and getting late so I plan on saving this project till tomorrow. Other than that the plan for riding is to rent out a skate park in the next week or two! We'll see how that works out.

January 16, 2001

Well tonight was an interesting and 'entertaining' workout! Well over the last three weeks we have been hemming and hawing (not the trials related hem and haw though) over purchasing a new entertainment center for the new apartment. (The old one collapsed) Well Monday we finally decided on the one and said to order it up! Today I picked it up at the furniture store, and brought it home. There I had the first of my crew, my Dad, to help me carry it up the stairs. The second crew member on his way was Tim W. you all know from Trialsin USA. A little background now. We ended up moving into a second floor of a house converted into apartment close to where we are building our new house. The house is fairly old with the classic steep staircases. Last, the entertainment center is rather large and it is a piece of furniture, not one of those put together ones. This did not turn into a good mix. Before Tim arrived my dad and I tried to bring it up the front, but my calculations were short by an inch.....in this case an inch was far, far off! As I started to become wound up, I did have one alternate option! A window! Nice thing about old houses, they put in these HUGE windows for some reason...must be the dark ages when there was no air-conditioning. So I went to work and quadruple check my measurement, then started to pull the window casement apart! By then Tim arrived.....Yup, if you know me, if you know Tim, you can imagine the comical cracks going back and forth! The windows and casement came out, now the next step was getting the thing up through the window and inside! Don't forget....second floor..... But we had the garage roof attached to the house to work with! So the three of us hefted it onto the roof then up another roof, then through the window! You know, if it wasn't for all the snow and ice, this was perhaps 10 times easier than my original plan would have been. All said and done, I arranged everything on the new one and having the long overdue frosty beverage. Ahhhhh. My Parents and Tim headed out early. Tim had ton's of work he had to catch up on....too bad...more frosty beverages for me! But the moral of todays story, great workout, we had arobic, squats, presses, dead lifts...and of course curls. Also always make sure to check your clearance! Other than that, hopefully some biking tomorrow in this 30 degree weather and the snow melting!

January 14-15, 2001

I'm back from a nice relaxing weekend! Friday night I headed up to my apartment in Vermont, rather late, so I couldn't wait to hit my bed! Of course I brought Nero along, who happened to keep me up all night trying to catch a mouse that was in the house! I would get this occasional pounce on my head with this look like "Get up we need to get this thing!" Well morning came, I didn't get to sleep too late, so I headed to the local hardware store and got a few mouse traps. I loaded one up with the new skippy honey roasted peanut butter...great stuff....and put it upstairs. So I watched a little TV and it wasn't even a half hour until I caught the first one. Well to make a long hunting trip short, three later I think we are all set now! Nero could finally sleep! But while all this was going on back at the house we hit the slopes at Magic Mountain. It wasn't the powder we had when Mike visited but the skiing was unbelievable! We were able to get in ton's of runs, and it was nice working out my legs to get them into shape for Motorama, the indoor trials competition in Harrisburg, PA. Crosstraining is the key! Sunday was a sleep late and relax day. It was a good day for this anyhow because the weather was looking a little lousy. Overall I got done what I needed to and it turned to the worse when I had to drive home back to civilization! Oh well, what can you do. On other notes the forecast calls for 1-4 inches of snow tomorrow morning. So that's something to look forward to is a little more skiing but puts a damper on the riding! The snow is definitely getting a little too deep to ride.....but I'm sure we'll find something.

January 12, 2001

Well it looks like I'm going to hop on the bandwagon of everyone else in the trials world! It was first Ryan Leech, then Jeff Lenosky, to follow them Sam Perkins and the famous Mike Melchior......now here I come with my very own Journal. Could be a very scary thought, but I figure what the heck and just write something! Mike Melchior when he was visiting convinced me how cool it was to get one of these things going. Besides if you click on his name you can read all about his visit over Brew Years....a-hem.... I mean New Years! So along with adding the journal I figured my site also needed a major face lift. So over the next few weeks I'll be working on my site. Why not considering riding has been tough with all the ice and snow everywhere. But when it comes to riding in this weather all you can have is fun. You really can't take riding to serious in this weather because there is alot of falling associated with it. But let me tell you, as long as you have a good time, the skills you are building are unmatched. Ice and snow just test your skills and balance to the max, so if you get the chance dress warm and ride! I'll be heading back to my page for a bit then for a short ride later on.