Ah, the last of the classic late-spring snow is melting away and temperatures, like gas prices, are on the rise for tomorrow.

Anyway last week I saw some amazing riding go down. Where? Well, just about everywhere.

Midweek Pump Session:
LLB Style

• It was really impressive to watch Steve and Lee upping the anty's every round. It went from jump-to-manuel this thing to double everything that is possible all the way around the track.



• I rode away from Lee's backyard last Tuesday exhausted and inspired, dissapointed and pleased.
  

Precision and speed are often two very difficult things to attain. But to accurately combine both takes innumerable hours of practice.

Saturday: Airtime Madness
Local: Wilson's Woods

• Props to Elliott & Shane for always stepping it up to the next big one.

Rider: Elliott Hoover

Also Gale Dahlager made a guest appearance up at Evergreen on Saturday. I can't begin to explain how good it was to ride with her. Thanks for coming out Gale!

I wish I had a picture of Gale just sailing through the line of doubles. All I have is a picture of Gale taking a picture and a sweet group picture of people witnessing the events in the picture above (hah, how many times can you put picture in a sentence). Gale and I were to busy chasing eachother through the line of doubles to worry about snapping the digi.



Saturday Night: Snap Sesh
Bangert Residence, twin lakes

• Drive up through Leadville viewing a brilliant Rocky-Mountain sunset; hop out of Molly (elevation: 9200') and jump directly into a full on NBL-gate-start session which included a super smooth double into the most brilliantly crafted berm.

• Those in attendance: Cole Bangert, Mik Hannah, Steve Wentz, Gale Dahlager, Neven Steinmetz, and of cource the Lasian.

• Official Gate Keeper: Deryl Bangert

Rider: Cole Bangert
like the wheels?

SUNDAY: Final 4x Race in the Spring Series & Hammock Fest



It was really good to see everyone out at Darner's ranch. The coolest thing I saw that day was Neven killing it over the table and I think it wins the best-picture-of-the-post award. Check it yo's

Neven has really been stepping it up latley. Nice riding!


Something else was on my mind other than racing this past Sunday. So, I split shortly after quilifyers and went back up to Twin Lakes running solo. I spent the rest of the afternoon in a rotation of 4 different places:

• Kitchen table with a variety of BBQ leftovers and Oreo Cookies
• Riding the massive berms on the backyard mountain side
• Dozing off in the hammock tied between two aspen trees
  
• Practicing whips over the double into the berm

After the race, everyone came back to the Bangerts for more riding. Neven and I finished off the day on Cole's trick jump. I was the last person to finish riding that day. Neven only sat out the last five minutes though. I really didn't want to see the day end.

Precision and speed are often two very difficult things to attain. But to accurately combine both takes innumerable hours of practice.

Colorado Biking Secret #1

If you want to pound out run after run of uniteruppted Arbor goodness, go early in the morning when the air is still and cool and crowds are at a minimum.

Evergreen, yet again, saw some righteous riding this weekend. Here are two of my favorite pictures.

Patrick Hooper Steps up to the big drop and dials it first go. Huge Props!

Classic E-dawg smoothness.

Book Review

Book Review: Under The Banner Of Heaven

Author: Jon Krakauer
Copyright: 2003
Non-Fiction



My Impression:
When I first put my hands on this book, I thought I would be reading a bloody anecdote of a murder upon two innocent vitoms, Brenda and Erica Lafferty. I was right. What I didn't realize is that this book takes a comprehensive look at the Mormon religion, its violent history and Fundamental roots. The book is far more than a bloody murder; it's a compelling history of our own American culture. The book was both entertaining (although not a page turner) and enlightening.

Pluses and Minuses:
+I love Krakauer's writing style. Although I had to have a dictionary by my side most of the time, I feel he chooses his words very carefully and his thoughts mesh together alomost seamlessly.

-Since it takes a good amount of energy for me to keep names, dates and locations neatly sorted out in my brian, well, this book was a little taxing in that department. Needless to say it is a history book of sorts and basic data processing is inevitable.

Quote: The last paragraph of the book holds the quintessential quote and my personal favorite, but I'll just entice you with a quote from Jon Krakauer in the Authors note.

"...those who write bout religion owe it to their readers to come clean about their own theological frame of reference. So here's mine:

I don't know what God is, or what god had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair , or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.

There are some ten thousand extant religious sects -- each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviciton, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain -- which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief.

And if I reamin in the dark about out purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why -- which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive." - Jon Krakauer January 2003

Boulder Public Library Link

Check It Out

Boredom Magazine Issue 2