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   Everyone has done it before on some scale. Popping off the side walk onto the street is a drop to flat. But let's quantify this and say that a drop is a mandatory air. It's past the size where you could safely roll over it. Start at three or four feet and just go up from there. Behind my elementary school was a retaining wall of white limestone. It was probably about four feet high. We rode off of that on bmx bikes and landed flat on grass. Not because it was fun or it felt good, but just so we could say we did it.    That last sentence sums up all drops to flat. I know I still do them way more often than I should, on a bike or skis. Drops to flat are like choosing to watch an 80's action movie, you know what you are getting into. It's a cheap thrill and you may regret it. You're not going to find fulfillment when you land flat. If the drop is big enough it can even be damaging to you and your equipment.   Yet, they still exist. When I was starting out jumpi

   I wrote this in the middle of summer when the bike madness was sweeping the country. I was helping at my neighborhood bikeshop tuning bikes. Then, when big orders would come in at Longmont Bicycle Company I'd bring my girls in after-hours and together we would unbox and assemble the new bikes. I'd pull bikes from the box, the girls would cut off the shipping material and put wheels on. It was a great experience. But when the summer was in full swing, bikes and parts were in high demand. People got a little crazy and I came home and wrote some of it down. I didn't publish it at the time, because it sounded pretty negative. Now it just sounds kinda humorous. And I'm no longer annoyed by some bike people, now I love everyone. So I present you with a small glimpse into world of a small bike shop in mid-summer 2020... The country is still experiencing an unprecedented demand for bicycles and all cycling accessories and parts. Tubes and tires are in high demand with Amazon

 In the before-times, I enjoyed several types of dancing. Hopefully soon the world will be dancing again. But until then I'm just gonna reminisce.  While I was in high school, a tiny ski area near us would host Rock-n- Reggae Fests. My friends and I would sit on the hill and try to bum beer from older kids, or we could go down and dance in front of the stage. Hay would be spread on the ground in front of the stage and I would do a slow and groovy hippy shuffle to bands like Leftover Salmon or Bunny Wailer. These events were a highlight of each New England summer. Often there would be a whole pack of us. We'd set out blankets and coolers in our area and dance, hang out, and then dance some more. When I moved to Denver I quickly discovered the underground rave scene . Pulsing techno music prompted non-stop dancing until dawn. There were no set breaks, no sound checks or tuning instruments between songs. When a new dj took the control of the turntables, they blended their first be

  While I'm still injured seems like a good time to cover the topic of crashing. Normally I wouldn't want to mention it. I treat crashing and injury like "He who's name shall not be spoken." As if talking about the subject will cause it to appear. This is part of the superstition and mojo that I believe in. It's the same reason no one should say " Let's make this the last run and head on down." Calling it the last run puts a serious hex on that run and drastically increases the probability of a crash. My friend Rex will say, "Two more, skip the last." And another friend Gurion will call the final run a 'Victory Lap.' Both are ways to make the call without summoning the bad omens.   The last trip down the run can also be a way to break a hex. If you suffer a crash towards the end of the session, you should try everything in your power to complete a run after that without crashing. Ending the day on a crash taints the mojo of the

        A friend in California was telling me about one of his weekly surf sessions. He said that a shark had been spotted at his regular beach. Then he explained, "A shark only swims about 15 miles an hour, so we went to a beach 25 miles up the shore. I figured that would give us a solid hour before the shark could even get there."     I know his math is faulty, and yet, I understand his logic. Every thrill sport enthusiast creates their own twisted logic to convince themselves and others that whatever they're doing really isn't that dangerous. I mean seriously, you can get hit by a bus just walking across the street. Yet, if I jump my mountain bike from this dirt pile to that one over there, it's impossible that I will be hit by a bus. Therefore dirt jumping is basically safer than walking. Me and my old friend, The Ground    Surfers have sharks. Backcountry skiers have avalanches. Sky divers and mountain bikers have the ground. As an antagonist, the earth doesn

   Bikes are so hot right now! The global pandemic has brought massive popularity to a thing that many of us already knew about. Bikes are cool. Riding Bikes is fun. It's conceivable that social distancing has killed many sources of recreation that people had come to rely on and enjoy. Obviously bowling isn't a sport, but it did provide entertainment to many people, and now bowling alleys are closed.    It would have been great if bowlers had taking the sport back to it's rough and tumble roots. I'd be interested in watching some gritty, underground 'street bowling.' I picture it in an abandoned warehouse run by bowling gangs. But that didn't happen. Instead everyone in the country said, "Hey don't we have some bikes still in the garage? We should ride those." or even better, they said, " You know, I think I'd like to try mountain biking, that looks fun!"   And so the Golden Horde was unleashed on an unprepared cycling industry. B

     I've mentioned before that I suck at ball sports, but I did run cross country and track all four years in high school. Of the two, cross country was a lot more fun. Each race began with a mass start, then the racers would funnel into a dirt trail through New England forest. I wasn't very good, but I could just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Both the boy's team and the girl's team had some very fast runners. A few of my team mates were top runners in the state. All I had to do was cross the finish line, and they would qualify for the podium.   This arrangement led me to develop a whole new racing tactic...The Decoy.  An underclassman named Joey MacRitchie and I would toe the line with all the best runners other schools had to offer. Everyone would put on their game face. A starter gun would go off and the group would lunge forward. That's when  Joey and I would jump into action. We would explode into the 3.1 mile course at a pace that was barely

  I knew John Biro. I was lucky to meet him early in my short time in that part of the mountains. At his service lots of people told great stories about him. Lots of people knew him better and new him longer. My Biro story is just a tiny scrap in the mountain of stories that could be told about him. But I want to tell it anyway, because I feel like one day his boys might be looking for new stories, little stories, everyday stories, about  their dad. I don’t want to tell a story about myself, I want to tell a story about Biro, but I just happen to be in it.   I first met Biro on his birthday in 1998. Shane and Marvelous Marvin led me up to his cabin. I had been sledding up Kebler before, and into Robinson basin. But I had always skirted around the townsite. The town site was forbidden, unless you had a reason to be there. I was excited to finally enter this mysterious place where smoke trickled from the chimney's of odd little cabins covered in snow. I stayed all day at the party a