Jay Richards

First full Saturday off since December 5th.


Mid-winter ski conditions in the morning with a few icy spots etc. for March 28th..... pretty darn nice. No watch, no gps, no hrm...just skied.


Pretty much the same crew as last year out this morning one year later except for the Fargo/Moorhead folks, unfortunately.

Dan and Nikki heading out later. Probably still jet lagged after skiing Norway Birkie last weekend. Nikki sent me a very cool link from the groomers page for the trails used for Norsk Birkie. Basically they have GPS units mounted to the groomers and the information is transmitted to a website for grooming reports. Signed up with Twitter. See if it lasts longer than Facebook. Was thinking twitter might be good for updated grooming. Normally most grooming is done before skiers hit the trails but the days when grooming during a storm, people always want to know what was most recent groomed and twitter might be a nice way to convey. It would be cool to have a big monitor in the rental shop/wax room with weather information from our own station mounted to top of lodge, current radar from Intellicast and grooming feeds.
Nikki also rolling out a new website for DL Nordic skiers .
Ride this afternoon found snow packed roads but the colder temps bit better on the bikes than slop and mud all the time. Few transition areas making things interesting and sending the front tire in different directions. Like the ski this morning, no watch, no gps, no cyclometer. Just riding. It would take a month for us to equal the miles being put on by fellow cyclists in a week as most of our rides in the 15-30 mile range. But lots of gravel/snow riding makes for slower riding, and working on the bike handling and getting the legs back. Its a long season. Better to be undertrained than overtrained, have fun and enjoy what you are doing.
Over the years, Mountain Bike Action has had 1000 of tips for this and that. Never seen one for using snow to clean off the bike. Works very nice.
Our new friends from Fargo. Jack and Jens enjoying having the families sledding this afternoon and hide and seek in the lodge. Glad we could have them. Things are looking better in the Red River zone but still 6-8 days to clear. Thinking about those folks constantly. All city band this evening and pretty much everyone I talked to was helping out one way or another. All city band is always good. 444 kids together cranking out the music. Mass band is the best. First time Jake and Jon together. Only saw one instrument fall on the floor, lots of restless kids doing funny things and no one passed out which was good considerin the temp usually jumps 30 degrees in the gym with a full house.