SPL T-shirts

Sometimes when we go to the climbing gym, F gets pieces of scrap paper from the counter and draws little pictures of me while I'm climbing. I love those "climbing cards", as she calls them, but if you've got kids you know it's not always easy to know what to do with all the keepsakes that accumulate. After a while, an awesome idea struck me.

Behold, the very first Self-Powered Life t-shirts!

F in her new shirt

Me in mine

I kept the project secret so I could surprise F once the shirts actually arrived. Whatever it cost to get them made (it wasn't that much, really), I was more than repaid when I presented the shirt to her. She thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I'm really proud of mine, too.

These aren't available for purchase, though I guess you could email me of you really want one. I just had these two made, since demand would never be able to keep up with supply if I ordered them in bulk.

Imagining other people going around in SPL t-shirts is kinda novel, but what I would really love is for you, dear reader, to find something that uniquely celebrates your own self-powered pursuits, put that on a shirt (or whatever), and send me a picture. I promise, it will make you smile way more than having somebody else's logo on your chest.

Riding in the Rain

In Colorado, as in many places, it's the rainy season right now. For some people avoiding being caught exposed to the elements means that the bike has to stay at home while they drive to work. For my part, I'd rather take a chance with an afternoon shower than miss a perfectly good bike-commuting day. And honestly, riding in the rain is kinda fun.

But there are a few small things you can keep handy to improve your experience. My backpack always has the following in it.

• A light rain shell
• Rain pants
• Trash bag
• Quart-sized zip-lock bags

The rain shell came with a stuff sack, so it packs down pretty small. The pants and trash bag get rolled up and bound with a rubber band to keep them tidy and out of the way. If it's raining when it's time to hit the road, I wrap my laptop inside the trash bag. Phone and wallet go into a zip-lock. Anything else that can be damaged by water should be sealed up as well.

Or you could spend a bunch of money on a solidly weatherproof backpack. In some parts of the country that kind of investment makes a lot of sense. But it just doesn't rain that often here.

What to do with the wearables should be obvious enough. I like to put my helmet on over my hood, since it tends to get blown back if I do it the other way around. If you're worried about your feet getting wet, you can either get waterproof shoe covers, or you could put plastic bags over your socks and allow your shoes to get soaked while your feet stay relatively dry (except for some extra sweat).

Another thing to take into consideration when riding in the rain is safety. Puddles can hide road hazards and can sometimes be deeper than they look, so avoid them when possible. And use caution when a fording is necessary.

Lightning is a serious risk, especially if you have to ride through open terrain. So try to choose a route that minimizes the time spent being the tallest thing around, and haul ass through any unavoidable fields. You're not going to outrun lightning, but you can limit the time spent exposed to greater risk of a strike.

Finally, rain inhibits visibility, so make sure you're equipped with appropriate lighting and reflectors if you're going to be riding in traffic.

If you're always prepared for a little stormy weather, you can bike your commute without worrying about gambling with the forecast. The weather is going to happen; just roll with it!

Bunnies to Blacks in one season

As I've mentioned previously, my major goal for the winter was to learn how to ski. It seemed silly that I've lived in Colorado for as long as I have without taking my place in the Sunday afternoon traffic jams on I-70. I felt left out. And it was also a logical next step in my mountaineering aspirations.

While there have been plenty of Spring powder days lately, the season for me is over. My weekends for the next month or so are spoken for by field trips with a class I'm taking with the Colorado Mountain Club, and the teasingly warm days we've had are drawing my mind to other pursuits. So now I'm reflecting on how things went, and whether my goals were met.

All said, I'm pretty happy with my progress this year, though there are a few things I didn't get to that I would have liked. So this post is about how I approached my first year of skiing. I think some of it probably applies to many new endeavors.

Riding up chair 4, Loveland Basin

0) Humble yourself. Everyone is terrible at first. Don't let pride prevent you from even getting started. Give yourself permission to suck. But don't worry. Falling isn't really all that bad.

1) Put yourself on the hook. For me, this mostly turned out to be in the form of a financial commitment. I bought all of my gear instead of renting, which obligated me to make the investment worthwhile. Telling people what you're doing can also help add a little pressure not to give up.

2) Start early. Skiing is obviously dependent on the weather, so there's a limit to how early in the year you can start. For me, this meant the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The snow wasn't what you'd call good - it was all machine-made, hard-packed corduroy - but it was enough, and I wanted to be off of the bunny slopes by the time the season was in full swing.

3) Start with lessons. Preferably from a professional instructor. You might have friends that are really good, but being good at something is not always the same as being good at teaching it. The first three times I went skiing, I took at least a half-day lesson. Make sure you take time either before or after the lesson to work on your own and just have some fun.

4) Go often. Most of the time I was only able to go once per week. And since that one day was my only day for doing things on my own, I had to give up some of my other favorite winter activities (e.g. snowshoeing). But I was up there every chance I got.

Hanging out at Ptarmigan Roost cabin, Loveland, during Spring Break

5) Go with friends. They say the best way to improve is to ski with somebody better than you. The couple of times I was able to go with other experienced skiers, I learned quite a bit. Jim taught me how to ski trees and moguls, and now that's some of the stuff I enjoy the most.

Me skiing with Jim at Winter Park

6) Learn with friends. I spent a lot of time skiing by myself, but I also talked my whole family into learning with me this year. It's fun to be able to spread around your beginner's enthusiasm. And sometimes, like Presidents' Day and Spring Break, this allowed me to increase the frequency of my ski days.

C at Loveland Valley

7) Ignore ratings. I know: the title of this post is all about difficulty ratings. We outdoors people seem to be obsessed with rating systems. And they can be useful for risk-assessment, tracking progress, and motivation. But I'm working on a universal scale that I can apply to pretty much any activity. It goes something like

1. Boring
2. Fun
3. Fun But Scary. Or maybe interpret it as "fun, but I expect to fail."
4. Too Scary to try yet

This is a scale that grows with us as we progress in our pursuits. And if you want to get better at something, try to stay in the FBS range. Eventually you'll gain enough skill and confidence that things in the TS category start looking like FBS.

Looking down Over the Rainbow at Loveland Basin

8) Explore new places. This year, Loveland was kind of my home turf, or so to speak. But I learned a lot on the occasions I was able to ski other mountains. And not all mountains rate their runs the same way.

Maybe it was because I was seeing all of Loveland's black runs while I was still just beginning, and that first Too Scary impression stuck with with me longer than it should have. But in my experience, the black runs at Copper Mountain were much gentler than the blacks at Loveland. So going to other places might allow you to break through the mental block and smooth out the transition from one level to the next.

9) Never fail to have fun. That's not to say that it isn't hard sometimes. But if I wanted to do something that feels like work, there's plenty of that waiting for me at home and the office. Fun is what motivates me to get out and learn something new.

Loveland Basin from the top of chair 1

S is for Spring

S is for...

Seeds (and some transplanted seedlings) that I planted yesterday in my community plot at the office. Chard, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower. Yum!

An pre-sunrise spinning workout on my trainer in the basement - there is an end in sight. I'm so looking forward to riding outdoors again.

Shaving the winter beard, but leaving a sweet trucker 'stache. F says I should keep it indefinitely. My wife thanked me for giving her such a good laugh first thing in the morning.

Slacklining in the front yard after work. (I still suck, but I have fun!)

A special family supper, with sweets for dessert. Sauteed greens, asparagus, roast, and sweet potatoes. And of course, the bunny cake with skittles for the eye and nose.

Vegan roast & sweet potatoes

Chocolate bunny cake

Skiing tomorrow. Seriously, it's a work-sanctioned event - I'm not playing hookie. The imminent end of ski season makes the arrival of spring somewhat bitter-sweet. But there are plenty of other things to do. I can't wait!

Happy Spring, everybody!

Fatties vs. Studs

It's not often that I embrace controversy in my SPL posts, but today I'm writing about a fairly contentious topic: Fatties and Studs. That's right, the question is whether it's better to have a wide, chunky girth, or more svelte and angular.

For bicycle tires, I mean. For winter commuting.

For the past couple of years - excluding last year, which was so devoid of snow that I never had to change out of my 28mm Gator Skins - I've been using 35mm studded tires on my touring bike for my winter commuting. But this year I've done a lot more riding on my mountain bike with its fat 26x2" tires. It's got me thinking about whether it's worth it to invest in those expensive snow tires, or if it's better, assuming you have one in the stable already, to just use a mountain bike.

Skinnies, studs, and fatties.

The studded tires are designed to give superior traction on ice, of course. And for that they perform admirably. And in my experience, the narrower tire cuts into deep snow better.

I haven't really gotten a feel for what the fatties do on black ice. And in fresh snow of 5 inches or so, they get mired and bogged down, forcing me to walk the bike to a plowed/shoveled surface to remount.

But what happens on the rutted, frozen footprints from school-kids, crusty ice kind of conditions I mostly see on the multi-use paths on my commute? My snow tires often failed to ride up the edges of those ruts, instead either rerouting me wherever the previous path user was headed, or sending me into an emergency foot-dip to avoid a topple. The mountain bike tires, on the other hand, gain a better purchase on the sides of the ice and allow me to go up and over the ruts without too much trouble.

Another annoyance, which I was not industrious enough to solve definitively was that the fenders on my touring bike were installed with normal-sized tires in mind. So the wider 35mm studded tires often scrubbed the inside of the front fender, making an awful racket. In wet conditions, I guess that's better than having no fenders at all, like on my mountain bike. On the other hand, the mtb has disk brakes, which work decidedly better in those same wet conditions.

So in conclusion... I don't really have a conclusion for you. I think that both kinds of tires have a place for winter commuting. But unless next year is snowier than this one, I'll leave the skinny tires on my touring bike and use the fatties on snow days.

Family Ski Weekend

F's school had a couple of extra days off last week for parent/teacher conferences and a teacher work day, so we decided to all head to the mountains for a little while.

Thursday we went to Loveland. F had an afternoon lesson scheduled with her amazing instructor, the inestimable Jungle Jim. I honestly can't say enough good things about this guy. If you've spent much time at Loveland, you've probably seen him - he wears a stuffed snake on his helmet, so he's pretty easy to spot. And F is crazy about him. She's been taking individual lessons with him ever since her first group lesson (with a different instructor) didn't go so well.

After dropping F off in the Valley, we hoped to get M into daycare for a little while so my wife and I could get some skiing in at the Basin. But it turns out that you can't really do half-days in the afternoons due to some kind of nap-time policy. So instead we went back to the Valley and rented some gear for M as well. He and I spent the afternoon doing run after run on the beginner hill with him between my skis, gripping the poles that I held horizontally in front of us. I'm certain he liked that better than daycare.

After the Loveland lifts shut down for the day, we drove up to Keystone to a one-bedroom condo we had reserved for the next two nights. It was pretty sweet, with plenty of extra sleeping space in the living room for the kids. The next morning we headed up to Keystone's Summit Learning Area for more skiing. Jungle Jim had arranged to meet us there for another lesson with F.



Meanwhile C, M, and I did our thing until around 1:00. Skiing for two is kind of tough work after a while, but it was a lot of fun.



We were all pretty wiped out, but after lunch and some rest time back at the condo, we made a half-hearted effort to get back up on the slopes. The wind had picked up and it was getting dark, so that outing didn't last long.

The living room of our condo in Keystone

Saturday morning we had to pack up and check out. We had planned to do some ice skating at the lake there in Keystone, but the parking situation was kind of crazy, so we just decided to hit the road. On our way east, we stopped by the Herman Gulch trail head to play in the snow for a few minutes.

Herman Gulch Trail

A weather system had moved in on Saturday, bringing some much-needed snow to the mountains. So on Sunday I just couldn't help myself - I was back at Loveland for a morning of solo skiing. In truth, it was the only chance I had to get any normal skiing in for the weekend. It was amazing and beautiful. The snow was good enough that I was emboldened to try some runs I hadn't done before (I think I found a new favorite); by noon I had run myself into the ground and it was great!

At the top of lift 6, Loveland Basin

And I got back into town just in time to meet the rest of the family at ABC Kids Climbing in Boulder to belay my kids on a couple of routes before going home to relax. Sometimes it's hard not to feel like the luckiest man in the world, but I hope that everyone is out there having this much fun.

Bike Law

Yesterday was kind of a big day for bike news here in Colorado.

The first item was that an ordinance in the casino town of Black Hawk from 2009, which banned bicycles from most (all?) city streets was overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court. Cycling was declared a "matter of state and local concern" which couldn't be arbitrarily restricted. The state law says that roads may be barred from bicycle traffic only if there is a reasonable alternative route within 450 feet (137 meters).

I will concede that there are probably very few cyclists who, while pedaling through town, will stop to play the slots at Harrah's (or whatever it is they have there). But Black Hawk is along one of the more obvious routes for riders going from Nederland to Golden. So it's nice that Clear Creek Canyon (Hwy 6) will again be an alternative to Coal Creek Canyon (Hwy 72) when riding down Peak-to-Peak Highway.

There is enough bike traffic in that area that towns along the way should be able to capitalize on the passers-through. The revenue may be dwarfed by that brought by gambling, but it's better than alienating the outdoor-recreational demographic.

The second piece of news was that the city of Aspen is considering a law which would allow cyclists to treat stop signs as a yield. There are already places that do this in other states (e.g. Idaho), also downgrading red lights to the equivalent of stop signs for bicycles.

This mostly makes a lot of sense. The article discusses several of the reasons such a change may be a good idea. I can say from personal experience that stop signs are often a source of confusion for both cyclists and motorists. And when the only traffic at an intersection is behind me, coming to a full stop does nothing but slow everyone down. I do the best I can to obey stop signs and red lights, but from the standpoint of courtesy, I think the best thing I can do when I'm riding on the road is to get out of people's way as quickly as possible.

However, I believe (without any real data to support it) that much of the tension between drivers and riders is the perceived sense of entitlement that bicyclists have when it comes to ignoring the rules of the road. Much of the frustration associated with driving comes from needless delays. If a red light has stopped traffic when there is nobody coming from the other direction, it can be really annoying. If a biker can ignore the law with impunity while drivers have to sit and wait, it isn't really fair.

Traffic laws are problematic because the primary directives should be 1) safety for everyone on the road; and 2) getting everyone where they need to go efficiently. But the infrastructure we have in place doesn't always do a very good job of supporting those goals. I'd like to see the whole system get much smarter.

In the meantime, small changes like this one proposed in Aspen could be beneficial on both counts - safety and efficiency. But I wouldn't want to see it become a cause for increased friction between users of the roads. They say that in Idaho it's just accepted as the way things work. Hopefully Aspen's proposed measure will pass into law and will turn out to be effective for everyone.