While I normally ride purely for my own enjoyment, riding faster is more enjoyable, so I’m constantly trying to find new ways to improve my riding. When you’re out-of-shape, an amazing epic trail is like an exotic car given to you when you’re broke and can’t buy gas–it’s nice to look at, but that doesn’t make it any less useless. Hence, here are a few things I like to do … Read more

Over the course of the past winter I’ve been experimenting quite a bit with making my own freeze-dried meals. They are remarkably cheaper than Mountain House or other name brands and I know exactly what I’m putting into my body as fuel. The idea came from a book I got for my birthday several years ago published by FreezerBagCooking.com. It’s method uses freezer-grade ziploc bags to store the food in … Read more

For a ski mountaineering race I competed in this season, I needed a convenient way to carry water with me. During winter activities I have had problems with hydration bladder and hose systems freezing. Not only are you unable to hydrate then, but you’re carrying a lot of unnecessary dead weight. Then, even in the summer I have started to move away from hose use since I like to keep … Read more

Recently I’ve been keeping a training journal, carrying it with me when I go to the gym and planning workouts on my desk at night. I’m kind of old school: I write everything down in a composition notebook, and then transfer some stuff into excel and chart my exercise history. For some reason writing it all down and having something tangible in my hand works for me. There are a … Read more

As an outdoor junkie, I like trying all kind of different outdoor activities. While I began my outdoor obsession as a mountain biker, I picked up rock climbing over a year ago and I am amazed at how it’s improved my mountain biking abilities. Take a look at a few areas of improvement affected by rock climbing. Grip Strength Any experienced rider will tell you that it’s important to keep … Read more