Jay Richards

What a great run of weather for the end of April. I am sure we will have a cold blast here in due time. I always look at Alaska weather because you can count on any cold weather if Alaska is running colder than average for a 5 day block and usually we will see the same. Anyways, Steve came out yesterday afternoon to test ride his new 29'r Gunnar Rockhound. Pretty sweet ride. I have done 1 hour road ride the past two weeks upon returning from Mexico. All the rides have been on the course "buffing" it out. Getting better and better each day as the frost works it way out way down in some areas. Jens learned to ride without training wheels this weekend so that was exciting. He is a biking fool now. Took off without his helmet yesterday morning. He stands up and points his nose forward and dismounts like a pro cyclocross. Fun stuff. His calfs are getting ripped, starting to look like Brendan. HA~ Jon can't let go of his hockey stick which is fine I guess. Drives Jakes nuts who was catching big air and said, "thats boring, we need to build a bigger lip" I said if my front wheel was 10 feet off the actual ground, I wouldn't be bored with that!! The ice went off the lake so Jack decided he would get a jump start on getting the dock in but wasn't really planned. He was doing the spit play thing and ran on the dock and next thing it was rolling towards the lake, moving 15 feet. It was one of those moments you thought something bad was going to happen or just pan out okay. Panned out okay and Jack said " Dad, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. So the new placement was perfect for Jake to ride from the shore to the dock until Steve and I put it in the lake last night.


Watched the ice move on the lake for about 15 min on Saturday. Just fascinating stuff. All the different waterfowl and other migratory birds that come in and check things out is awesome. One of our church members gave me some ice out/freeze up data going back to 1893. The latest ice has gone off since then was May 17th in 1950. The earliest was March 23rd in 1910. In 2001 it was as late as April 28th. So when I look at all those dates going back to 1893, I can't identify any trend that would indicate earlier ice out and later freeze dates as a result of a various reason, in particular, global warming. Data for the east though, would indicate otherwise and the "experts" there say a result of global warming, freeze ins are later and ice outs are earlier. However, I might mention that before 1930 there were five freeze dates in October and since 1930 the earliest freeze date has been November 3rd in 1991 and the latest date on record was a recent as 1999 with a freeze on December 16th. Enjoy the day!