Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The Proverbial Roller Coaster

So, I haven't written in quite awhile, and not because I haven't had something to say. Apparently, I always have something to say. Hahaha. Seriously, though, since the last time I've posted, things have been all over the place. Everything in life needs to be balanced. It always seems too bad to me that the really high times inevitably get balanced out with some not so great times, but I guess this makes you appreciate the awesome times that much more. Anyway, on to the good stuff and leaving out the not so good stuff...

Last Thursday TJ and I met up super early to head down to Arbor for a nice early morning dirt jumping session. Whenever I do drag myself out of bed to enjoy the early morning experience, I am rarely disappointed. Last Thursday was no exception! I had been thinking a lot about the Couch line at Arbor, in fact I was pretty nervous about hitting the line on the way down there. I knew that I could do it, but I hadn't done the first jump very many times, and I had ONLY done the first jump before. Well, watching TJ dirt jump is always inspiring as he is very fluid and makes it look completely effortless. Thursday was no different, even though he had a bum ankle from a small fight with the tramp bike. After we had been there for about an hour, TJ decided to pull out his camera and his brand new fisheye lens. I wasn't quite sure what he planned to take pictures of, as there weren't any cool dirt jumping kids there that early in the morning. I guess when you really want to experiment with your new equipment, you'll take pictures of anyone! Well, after I got over having a little undisclosed stage fright, I decided just to pretend like he wasn't there. I'm not quite sure how the camera inspired me, but as soon as he started taking pictures, I decided I was going to do the 2nd and 3rd jumps in the line. Although they weren't perfect, I was very excited that I was going for them and hitting at least the first and second ones fairly well! It was one of the better dirt jumping days I had ever had. TJ took a couple of pictures that I really liked, too! What a great way to start the day!

Photo by TJ Sharp

Couch line

Photo by TJ Sharp

What an amazingly beautiful Colorado day!

Emily came down from Fort Collins on Saturday to do some riding, and then we headed to Denver for the premier of Earthed 3. It was an awesome film that was nicely complimented by John Reynold's production, So Hot! That was really fun to watch, as it featured several of our very talented local riders!

Sunday we all woke up to the howling wind. I'm not quite sure how the wind knows when it's the weekend, but it sure seems to show up every weekend and die off during the week. Maybe all of the commuter pollution does something to affect the wind patterns. Okay, probably not, but I'm looking for a plausible cause here. Anyway, a few of us headed back to Arbor for a super fun session of 20 mph tailwind dirt jumping! Howse and Fisher were going to town making up new ways to transfer back and forth through many of the different lines. It was a lot of fun to watch! I'm so glad that I can actually jump at the real jumps at Arbor and don't have to pretend on the "kiddie" jumps anymore!

Lisa got back from her Cali trip on Monday (check out her posts for the amazing adventures she had down there!) and the One Hit Wonder Trick Learning School went into full swing! Lisa, Tammy, Jonathan, and I all showed up for an awesome before work session. We are all having so much fun learning new tricks. Tammy was going crazy learning no handers and had a bad super manual down the backside to serious loop out. She took a really hard fall on her butt, back, and head. She is okay, but is pretty darn sore. Lisa took about 10 minutes to learn no footers. (It only took me 2 weeks!) I decided to try to mix it up a little bit and learned a turn bar no footer. I was pretty excited about that one!

Well, again, I said I was only going to mention the awesome stuff, so I will stop now before I am forced to mention the counter balancing stuff!!

Ride hard and have fun. If it's not fun, stop!

1 comment:

joanna said...

i really love the photos... you look so stylie!