2008 Review - 2009 Thoughts

All in all this was not a year of big accomplishments, but lots of little fun ones.

Outside

Got to spend 7 weeks in CO and enjoyed many days of telemark, backcountry and XC skate/traditional skiing. Glorious trip to Meadow Creek/Chief Mountain and a banner day on Tucker Mountain. Never did much skate skiing before but it was a blast with one day of 25 km. Got some new Karhu 10th Mountain skis and Switchback bindings, perfect for my Garmont Veloce boots. Old tele boards out and new K2 World Piste skis and Hammerheads in. Now I need some new tele boots...

Cycling was erratic but I had a slew of great club rides, a Fleche, some 200km brevets and a few centuries thrown in. Best of all was going to the NAHMBS in Portland, meeting Tony Pereira and taking home my new 650b Hetre randonneur. Yay! Finally got to do a S24hO with Kent and Matt, though the weather was dampish, spirits were not. A few nice family rides were had. Need more of those.

Camping in the Bus: Needless to say, we did very little this year...that should change for 2009.

Maui-Wowie. Spent two weeks in Maui for my parents 50th anniversary and had an absolute blast. In the ocean every day, swimming, surfing and boogie boarding...followed by copious beverages and piles of food. Really fabulous.

Inside

15th year in business...back to the beginning with just me as Carrie moved on to work in school administration/management. It was odd, but I'm getting to like having a home office again and no employees. So far, so good. I have some great long-time clients and it gives me some freedom to be outside when I want.

Organized my shop, office and cleared out years worth of maps, magazines and papers from art school 15 years ago. Whew. Sold some bikes, got twice as many again, so I've given up on reducing. My only goal now is to build a bigger space for them, some machine tools and whatever else comes my way! (For instance, going from zero bike trailers to now having 4).

Life

My wife's father is dying, so there's been frequent trips to MN. That's been a lesson in many ways. My dear kitty died after 20 years. No more felines for me for awhile, I'm not ready yet.

2009 Goals

Taking my daughter on a backpack trip and a bike tour
Family camping in the Bus
Full brevet series or two starting in March
Gold Rush 1200 km (Davis, CA) July
Last Chance 1200 km (Boulder, CO) September
Some S24HOs - summer
Good ski days, especially backcountry - winter/spring
Less wine, more sleep, better food, more nights under the stars.