Until the Snow Ends

( Rosey was nice enough to write up my latest trip, so that freed me up from my intense e-commitments to write a less "this is what I did on Sunday" kind of entry.) It's March again! That magical time where I stop training for ski races, but manage to hang onto ski fitness for another few weeks of mediocre 50k racing. This freedom from ski training (I was actually ski training at one point, despite what my results may indicate) mean it's time to make a trip to Otis AFB every chance I can get. I wrote about Otis last year, which has led people to think that I am some kind of Otis authority . While I enjoy the perception that I have some kind of jedi-like knowledge of Otis, I'd like to dispell the myth that you need to be a jedi -- or know a jedi -- to ride there. After all, how hard could it be if the trail map looks like this: Just commit that to memory and you're good to go! Ok, so it looks pretty daunting. Otis is a small and confusing place to ride,...

Just got my "late winter" copy of CX Magazine -- apparently they made some bad decisions regarding bulk mail -- and was pleased to see that I (well, crossresults.com ) was featured. Ok, not featured like the ebay sandbagger guy ... but blurbed in his section. Check it out. Like any magazine copy, it's an approximation of what I said in a few emails to the CXMag editor. The "encourages hecklers to hold their tongue" bit is from Gloucester -- I told him about Cort's ride and how, having a total of 5 upgrade points before the weekend, he couldn't possibly have ridden the 2/3 race. This past Saturday Linnea and I went for a ride with some people from the internet. It turns out that they have been doing exactly that which I mock . It kind of became a "get shelled" contest for the two of us. Linnea won. In other news... 4 hour Otis ride! More fun than real training. Biking riding ain't my job.

Another Monday has slipped away without me getting a race report up. I realize that solo needs reading material , so here's what happened this weekend, slightly delayed. If you read what Alex did this weekend then nothing I say will be news to you. Saturday was the Gunstock Spring Fling F1 race. What is an "F1 Race," you ask? It's something the crazy Russians at Gunstock made up, because cross country skiing for a long time in the woods by yourself is stupid, and racing around in little circles is way cool. If you think I'm joking, don't forget that I ski at Weston . So Gunstock had a 10-lap race set up with 700m loops, which were both hillier and longer than a Weston lap. In between each loop you had to make a pit stop to change skis, so you ultimately skied 5 laps classic and 5 laps skate. To make things even more motorsport-ey, we all did a "qualifying lap" to get spots on the start grid, and they added a cone chicane on the backstretch. If...

Alex is off orienteering around Europe so I've been borrowing her Garmin 305 as part of my top-secret Otis mapping project. I've ridden at this place 5 times in my life now (3 in the last 2 weeks) and I'm still lost most of the time. It's easy to know what general area you're in but impossible to know exactly what trail you're on or how to get from point A to point B -- every trail winds around ridges and back on itself so much that covering 500 yards in a straight line can end up taking a mile of riding. In other words, Otis freaking rocks, except when you're lost and the sun is going down. What you see above is about 4 hours of riding -- the blue line and the red line are from two different two hour rides Linnea and I did this week. The red line basically follows the perimeter, but everything inside it is an insane network of smooth singletrack. If you're looking for a place to ride early-season, you can't beat Otis. It's down south so it...