Ooey, gooey goodness.

I got an email last night from Chris Kaiser. If you don't know who that is, apparently you know very little about the small batch, artisan peanut butter industry of Vermont.

Chris is the president of the Vermont Peanut butter company. They make organic, kosher, and OSHA approved peanut and almond butters in Stowe. Their peanut butter is so good, it makes bread and Jelly irrelevant. They make peanut butter with chocolate, cherries, apples, Maple Syrup, bananas, and peanut butter, mixed with almond butter. (Peamond butter?)

They agreed to sponsor my trivial attempt to race a bike in fringe races that last way longer than they should. For this, I thank them very much.

My new goal for the season, eat so much peanut butter that I rip my spandex.

Why the hell did they choose me?

There is a really nice bike under all that dirt.

Several years ago I started working at a bike shop. I liked to bike before this job, but I never really loved it. I always loved skiing and still do. I guess that is what working for a ski company will do to you. Anyway, the guy that hired me is hyperactive and in an effort to keep his wife sane, he tries to tire himself out with lots and lots of exercise. This led to me following him around on the bike, and run and anything else he could convince me to do (pretty much everything) He used to live in Steamboat and told me all about the wonderful bikes that this company called Moots makes. He had several. He still has several. Being as impressionable as I am, he convince me to get one. I chose the Psychlo-x, because it would serve as my road bike and my cross bike (he convinced me to try cross racing as well)

I finally realized what it was to love a bike. I was then able to convince my wife to by me a 29er ybb (special suspension type thingy) and I realized what it was like to really love a bike, made to do what I love to do.

So, this year, my friend Jason got an email from a friend of his who works for Moots. They were looking for riders for their new "Grassmoots" racing team. By some stroke of dumb luck, they said I could join their team (Maybe I earned frequent buyer points) and I am as excited as a Preschooler on finger painting day (yeah, I wet my pants a little)

I am now in the process of training for a good year on the bike, and trying to convince my wife that I need a Ti single speed. (It will be the last bike I ever buy, I promise!!)

I just hope I don't disgrace the bicycle riding alligator.

sweet threads

Okay. Here it is. I said I would write about my OR clothing later in the week. I didn’t say which week, so this really isn’t later. I motivated my sorry ass on Sunday to get out and ski. We got a few small storms throughout the week, and I decided to head to my secret spot. It was late in the day, and I skinned up for my first lap. The snow was fluffy on top (a good 7-8 inches of fresh-ish snow) on top of solid crust. The snow was light enough that a hard turn would throw some pow into your face. Not true face shots, but still, I will take it.

So, on to the clothing. My favorite piece is the Jacket. The alter ego Jacket is made for backcountry skiing. Goretex pro fabric is nice and rugged. I also like the skin pockets. Instead of throwing your skins into your pack after every lap, you can throw then into the inner pockets and keep them warm and sticky. A good thing for cold, snowy days.

The second piece of clothing is the pants. The mentor pant is the top of line climb/ski/be a winter bad-ass pant. I climb and ski. The first day I got the pant, I put a hole in them. I was skiing and butt checked the snow to stop myself from running into a tree. This is the hole I put in them.

You can see it, the white spot. Okay, itself isn’t very impressive. This is what the butt check did to my thigh (I can’t show my butt on the interweb, it is shy)

It took two weeks for that hematoma to go away. I still have a divot in my thigh where I hit the stump. I think the pants made out better than I did. The hole isn’t even all the way through the goretex.
The final piece of the winter ensemble (italics mean snooty French pronunciation) is the gloves. These surprised me.

The OR Vert glove is made for “active winter endeavors” I have used it for ice climbing, skate skiing, backcountry skiing, running and chicken feeding. Oh yeah, and driving. Leather palm, softshell outer. Durable, breathable and relatively warm. Not the glove to wear resort skiing, but when you are earning your turns or working it in the cold, this glove is the bees knees. All six of them.

Cold miserable weekend.

This weekend was cold and miserable. My friend Marc and my Father-in-law took me ice climbing on Sunday. The pic above is Marc rappelling off a 60 foot cliff, after asking me if permanent marker deteriorates climbing rope. I said "I don't know, why?" He replied "because I colored the midpoint of my rope with it this week." I am glad Marc chose to rappel first.
Luckily, he made it, and we climbed for a while. Everyone was rather tired, and cold with the 0 degree windchill, so we called it early and went to a fine beverage establishment. I was hoping to meet Lara from OR, and thank her for the sweet winter clothes, but she was out climbing. I will write more about the sweet clothing later this week.

The day before ice climbing (a very ciruitous way of saying "Saturday") I was talked into going for a bike ride with my friends Jason and Brook. The original plan was to go ice climbing, but the windchill was -15 and nobody wanted to hang out on a big ice cube. So, snowbiking sounded like a much better idea. We got all bundled up, and Brook let me ride his Puglsey. Brook is a rabid innovator, retro fitting his karate monkey for a lefty fork, making snow bikes, (with skis, hardtail and full sus) and even his own handlebars

The bike I rode was a Puglsey frame with a 30" tire on the front. How was it 30"? It was a 29er downhill tire riveted to a Schwalbe big apple tire for durablility and grip. The end result was a very heavy tire with a lot of grip, although I struggled to stay upright in the snow.

We rode for 2 and a half hours and I was shelled. I guess the hour and a half on rollers was not necessary beforehand.

Oh, and the huskies, I never thought I would be getting ready for a bike ride while watching a sled dog team getting set up to head out, but, I guess everyone needs to get out on the trails.