..... hmmmm

Hey hey hey every buddy! That was my Fat Albert reference of the day for all you old school lovers out there! Anyways, life has been going in warp speed but it's going great. Heck we finally got some snow and it is finally starting to feel like winter and I love it. I still live in this state because I love the seasons. I love riding my bike only second to my family but even the most hard core riders need a break to recover and refuel our drive.

I don't plan on taking as much time off as I have in the past. I want to come out of the gate full speed next spring so I have decided to bust out the trainer and put some flats on the Surly LHT and tossed that in the basement, along with my kettlebell and hope to get tons of use out of them to stay sharp for next year. On top of that the really money training will come from racing indoor BMX. As you know I bought a 24inch BMX bike and I plan on using that and honing the skills over the winter by going back to my roots and racing BMX. I hope to learn some new skills from my BMX cohorts!

I was going to start today but this awesome winter weather has kept me home bound but I did get to rock the XC skis so that was cool. Hopefully next week! On top of the XC skis I got to spend some serious time with the family! It was awesome, did a little back yard sledding with Kelly and Jerry. We then went to Kelly's parent's house and helped clear snow and decorate the Christmas Tree. Tis the season and with this new snow it is really starting to feel like it. I will tell you, you know that you are a dirt bag mountain biker when end up shoveling your drive way with a flat shovel, haha. That definitely makes it take way longer! Menard's here I come!

Things have been moving quickly with MORC and other bike related endeavors. I hope that some of them can come to fruition. I have a meeting with Cottage Grove Park's Commission to discuss building a bike park in Cottage Grove. I hope that goes well, it would be great to have another bike park in the metro and great form me to have one this close to my house!

Vail Resorts purchased Afton Alps, also really close to my house, and this could be huge news for mountain biking but we will have to wait and see! Vail Resorts owns Vail, Breckinridge, Keystone, Beaver Creek, Heavenly Valley, Kirckwood and Northstar. Keystone and Northstar are home to two of the biggest and best
bike parks in the nation and almost all of their resorts have mountain biking and they are expanding into lift access riding in many of their other resorts.

Afton has tons of potential and the best possible terrain near the metro area. They have close to 350ft of elevation loss, 300  acres of land and multiple chairs. They could run the bike park off of lift 2 and 14 and with a few pedal strokes you could access the entire ski area and since you are on a bike you could even ride to areas that do not have ski access as riders could cross the rode and trails could be built through tree areas! The potential is massive and I hope that Vail realized the potential market here as there is no other lift access gravity riding near the metro. Only time will tell. It would also be awesome for them to redo and upgrade some of the XC trails. Per the US ski association, the average ski hill that runs a lift access bike park they average $190,000 in income during the bike season! That is better then letting your lift sit still and doing nothing and this would not interfere with their Golf area!

Well enjoy the snow and keep it real!