Yes, my name's Jeff. And I like...No scratch that, I LOVE mountain biking and skiing. I'd like to share that passion. In fact, I don't care if not one single person actually reads this blog, after all it's one in a bazillion, right? What I do care about is getting my feelings for these two sports down for posterity's sake.
Funny word, posterity. It means, for future generations. I think that's apropos in this instance.
A little bit about who I am might help to frame any future posts. I grew up here in Colorado. My parents are Canadian. I have a family, which consists of two beautiful young daughters and a fantastic, wife, who coincidentally is also my best friend. We met at the University of Colorado and became ski pals. No huge surprise there.
I'm not a young guy by any stretch of the imagination, but I keep myself in pretty decent shape. I don't claim to be any kind of a hyper-athlete either. After riding and skiing with some VERY good athletes, I can honestly say that I'm a bit above average, but no more than that.
My wife, like many Colorado children, started skiing when she was 6 years old. I, on the other hand, didn't start skiing until I was 13. And that was cross country skiing. It was an expensive sport, even back then, and we didn't really have all that much disposable income. That, and my mother wasn't a huge fan.
Dear old dad though, he did grow up skiing. In fact, skiing was a form of babysitting for my grandparents. They used to stick him on a the ski train out of Denver, with $10 (or so) in his pocket, and let him spend the weekend up in Winter Park. He'd spend the nights in the quanset huts up there and ski his heart out all weekend. He used to jump off the ski jump (that's now gone). He used to be on Jr. Ski Patrol. He skied and skied and skied....For many years. My father was quite good.
But, as things often go, he grew older and dropped the sport. Funny thing about that too, as I grew up, I never ever considered my dad to be an athletic guy. As I look back on it though, he really was. He competed in the rings and high-bar as a gymnast, and also held the school record for pole vaulting until fiberglass poles came out. In the summers he worked up at Grand Lake, driving the Chris-Craft boats for the summer visitors, and water skiing.
He might not have played the traditional teams sports while growing up, yet my father was most certainly an athlete while he was younger. As he grew older though, he somehow left those things behind. Which makes me rather sad. He and I certainly would have had a completely different relationship had he carried those habbits forward into his adult life. Water under the bridge, as they say.
Back to my story though. (I'm selfish that way I suppose.) I played all the standard team sports, from the time you could get a kid into the sport, all the way through high school. And even a bit into University. So skiing wasn't one of those things that a lot of athletes my age took the time to do. In fact, my basketball coach forbade us from doing so. He wasn't excited about having us injure ourselves and missing the season. Nevertheless, I snuck out as often as I could.
Once I graduated high school though, the shackles came off. I didn't have a ton of money, but I hung out with guys who either did have some spare cash, or who had worked in the industry and could spare extra tickets. I started skiing a lot and that's when it really took off for me. More on that later.
Bicycling is a different story, and probably one that is as familiar as apple pie. I grew up on a bike. All kids in the 70's grew up on bikes. Especially in a small town. We tooled around, and explored our freedom. As we grew older we pretended that we were BMX riders too. We built jumps and dirt ramps and emulated those kids that we knew, who had money and actually DID race BMX. I wasn't all that great. But I sure loved it.
When I grew a bit older though I took bikes to a different level than most others my age. When guys came of age, and were able to drive, they sort of left their bikes behind. I on the other hand, had no interest in cars. In fact, I was such an odd duck that I didn't get my licsense the moment I turned 16. I waited several months. And it was only through the urging of my friends that I ended up getting that piece of plastic.
Fast forward to University and the early to mid 80's: I was working on the campus during the summer at the University of Colorado as a landscaper, and I found an old discarded Specialized Stump Jumper in the roll off behind one of the dorms after the students had moved out. This was my first look at a "mountain bike". I'd never seen anything like it and I was instantly intrigued.
I took it into the campus police station where they looked at the VIN (Is that right? VIN?) and held it for two weeks. They contacted me after this period and told me that the bike was mine. I cleaned it up a bit and took it out for a spin on a trail that was close to a camp spot one summer afternoon. Frankly, it was complete hell. The trail was a super steep jeep road that was full of baby-head rocks.
I must have fallen no less than 20 times. By the time I got back, probably 2 hours later, I was beaten and exhausted. But I was also in love. The deal was sealed, I had found my sport.
As the years "rolled" by I started hanging out with guys that had the same passion. This was at the height of mountain biking, so of course, since I had the fever, I raced as well. I wasn't all that talented, not like the group of guys that I hung out with. Some of these guys went on to race professionally and a few of them went on to get jobs with the big bike manufacturers. These guys, like me, lived their passion.
In the end, I raced pretty seriously for roughly about six seasons. The sport category was mainly my "hangout", but every once in awhile, when I was really feeling my oats, I'd dabble in expert, and get crushed. So all in all, I was a casual racer. I was what we called a privateer. I didn't have sponsors, and ended up relying on my friends who worked in shops for most of my support. But I rode and rode and rode. And I never gave up.
Which brings me to today. I still ride as much as I possibly can. Which is to say that I ride about 4 to 5 times a week. I don't have a huge selection of trails here on the front range but I feel lucky that I can jump in a car and be at one of six or seven pretty challenging rides in less than thirty minutes.
I've even jumped on a race here and there, just to see how that scene was progressing. It's still a hoot, in case you were wondering. One of my dreams though is to do like those guys back in University had done, years and years ago, live my passion.
To use a tired addage, I'm not getting any younger, and I still have this passion burning inside of me. I would LOVE to be involved somehow. I don't really know in what capacity I could contribute, but I certainly know that there's little question in my mind of my dedication. I would bend over backwards to learn what I had to learn. I'd jump through rings of fire to work in either the bike or ski industry.
So I suppose that that's what this blog is going to be about: How a guy like me, who's currently in the technology sector, can possibly edge his way into a very tight niche like cycling or skiing as a profession. I have no illusions that I could compete. This is a story of a guy who would like to do something different. I believe that bikes can save the world.
Cycling and skiing...those are the Passions that Drive ME.
