Absurd Goals and Unexpected Growth: the year of experience

Despite my moaning and puling back in the spring about knee injuries that promised to rule out any ambitious cycling this year, I found my way to one of the strongest and most adventurous outdoor seasons of my life. The most notable part was training for and riding the nefarious Deerfield Dirt Road Randonee, an event I’d dreamt of for years, but thought ridiculously out of reach.

Just Go

We were hanging with our dog at the gorge on a sunny Sunday, our annual pilgrimage, digging on the eddies, riffles, and glassy cool flow. Upstream about thirty yards from us, a few guys put in with kayaks and a one-person canoe. 

Turned out only one of them knew what he was doing, and the other two immediately got caught in a bunch of rocks, tipped to the side, and swamped.

Don't Call Me Brah and I Won't Call You Dude

The first time it happened, I was sure I’d heard wrong. That 35-year-old guy could not be calling this 53-year-old guy brah.

Middle Age: Staying Active with Limits

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The other day, while briskly sticking needles into my arms and legs, my acupuncturist gazed at me knowingly and said, “You should be exercising to the point where you feel energized afterward. Listen to your body, and stay away from goal-driven workouts.”

I felt like a pinned butterfly—as if he had looked into my soul and seen my dirty secret.

Reviewed: Schwalbe G-One Allroad Tires

The 2010 Salsa Vaya is my go-to road bike. It takes me confidently down paved, dirt, and gravel roads, and handily manages the bits of singletrack I often discover on familiar routes. For the last few years, it’s been shod with the celebrated 40 mm Clement X’plor MSOs. To be honest, I never liked those tires.

The Roof of Zion: Safety in Vastness

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It had been an 18-hour travel day, but it was the last thing our trip leader said before sleep that most clearly brought home that I wasn’t in New York anymore: “Good night; Check your boots in the morning for scorpions.”

Orchard Hill Assault Mountain Bike Race

Saturday, April 29, 2017—I hied myself down to the UMass Amherst campus for the new Orchard Hill Assault mountain bike race, a revival of a course that was a hot ticket back in the hoary early days of the UMass Bike Racing Club, but neglected in the decades since.

Dear Body: An Apology

Dear Body,

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing; I’ve never done this before.

For years now, rather than communicate with you, I’ve judged and pushed you—trying to get rid of your fat, make you pedal a bike harder and faster, keep you more and more awake. I basically tried to make you stay 33 years old for the last 20 years.

New England is Epic

Every winter, my wife and I start brainstorming what other places we could live, and every spring, summer and fall, we are reminded there could be no better place than right here in perfect Western Massachusetts.

3 Tips: The Head Game of Overuse Injuries

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If you’re an active person with an overuse injury, you know about the ocean of websites and Youtube videos promising to heal you in no time flat.  Endless strengthening exercises, foam rolling, massage, and stretching, in a hundred different combinations. Too often the most important part of your body in the healing process goes ignored: the head.