cycling
that's me to the right cycling up cottownwood pass in the 2008 edtion of the ride the rockies tour. my good friend alicia had been trying to get me to go on this tour for years and i finally got it together to go. i had a blast and met a lot of fun people. i definitely learned a thing or two about climbing and descending.
i started biking too much during the course of doing rehab for an acl allograft in 1992. i used to bike about 10,000 km per year, about half of that on my own and half with the ann arbor bicycle touring society (aabts), hanging out with an extreme faction in that group made up of racers and other borderline lunatics. i gravitated to doing dirt road rides around ann arbor to get away from the lethal traffic in the area. i loved it. each bike ride was like a small vacation in the country.
i got scared into running when i was a teenager because of the early death of my grandmother and my family’s dismal CV history. i ran cross-country in high school in a most undistinguished manner, but i didn’t care (well sometimes i did) and i enjoyed the camaraderie. i no longer run. period.
i swam a lot in college to keep in shape. i loved learning the technique and the feeling of moving through the water. after separating my shoulder in a bike crash, i no longer swim.
here's a view from a nice vantage point on the 17 mi. climb up to the hurricane ridge lodge:
and here's the lodge itself at the top of the climb:
here’s another ride in the olympics i’d like to do some day, up on crescent lake:
