You’re blinking your eyes to make sure you read that correctly. The mountain biking part you get. But
Nebraska? Yup. Odd as it may seem, there is some superb
mountain biking to be done in on of the nation’s flattest states. You have to head West a bit to the
Pine Ridge National Recreation Area
near the ranching town of Chadron. The ridge is a distant outcrop of the Black Hills where ponderosa pines tickle the
sky and a hundred-plus miles of mapped and signed trail stretch across the land like a mighty Web of fat tire fun. You
will be out there in the vast wonderful wilderness nearly all alone, and if you’re lucky, as you head out on the 6 mile
Spotted Trail, you
might even spot the glistening (and freshly cleaned) pates
on Mount Rushmore is the distance.
Sandy Hook
The key to dealing with blazing hot summer days in New York is getting out of the city. But it
takes forever to motivate sometimes, and you often need a car to get anywhere worthwhile. Well, the New York
Times has got a feature on an excellent day
trip that gets you out of the city and onto the beach in about 30 minutes.
You reach Sandy Hook New Jersey from Manhattan by taking the ferry, either the SeaStreak and New York Waterway, and
riding to Sandy Hook. You can ride your bike around the area and check out the lighthouse or the small museum at Fort
Hancock. There is a multi-use pathway for biking if you haul your two-wheeler along with you. This is about as easy as
it gets when it comes to gettting out of the city. Personally, I’m not sure what the crowds would be like at this
place…could be dodgy. But we may give it a try ourselves to find out.
Mountain Biking Japan
When I think of Japan, I am more apt to picture teeming throngs of people moving like bovine herds through the
streets or crowding onto subways. With the exception of a long-standing desire to hike Mt. Fuji, I generally don’t
think of outdoors activity. But as this article points
out, outdoor sports are becoming all the rage in Japan, including mountain biking.
The author gets to hang out for a bit with Team Kaminari, (which translates to mean “Lightening &
Thunder”), and checks out some of the mountain biking offerings in the Land of the Rising Sun. He heads to (well, here
you go) Mt. Fuli, where for a brief period in and around mid-September, the mountain offers itself up to mountain
biking. Heading out with team Lightening & Thunder, he navigates the twisting trails, gnarly switchbacks,
all-too-frequent checkpoint, and the piles of loose scree to find himself enjoying a pleasantly unusual biking
experience. Add this one to your list of mountain biking must-dos.
Lance Armstrong on Charlie Rose
As an audible.com listener, I have long been a subscriber to the Charlie Rose show. As part of your subscription deal with them, as a basic listener, you get both a book and a subscription each month. The subscription can be news shows like Science Friday or This American Life (sadly, NPR just pulled a bunch of their shows from audible). I love Charlie Rose’s show and I am grateful that I can listen to it on my ipod as I’m walking around the city.
So with that as a prefacing note, you might be interested to know that Lance Armstrong was on Charlie Rose two nights ago, and the interview is now available on audible.com. It’s very good. They talk about the Tour de France and what he’s going to be doing with his life (a run for governor of Texas?)
(interesting note: I was actually coming back from a run a few months ago and saw Charlie getting out of his car. I was listening to his interview with Lee Raymond of Exxon on my iPod, and I ran up to him, said “Hey Charlie, you gotta hear this!” and stuffed my sweaty ear buds in his ears. He was completely surprised, but very pleased when he heard his own voice coming out of my iPod. I think he suddenly felt more in touch with the younger generation.)
NOW: No Opportunity Wasted
Here’s a new show I was unaware of…it’s called No
Opportunity Wasted and jumps on the whole “Lifelist” concept that is so popular now. I think Men’s Journal had a
big series on Lifelists recently.
The point of the lifelist, if you don’t know, is to sit down and thoughtfully put together a list of all the things
you want to do in your life, from learning another language to climbing Everest. This is true gadling kinda stuff. In
fact, very soon, today perhaps, I’m going to start a lifelist feature where we highlight one cool thing to add to your
lifelist. I should note that the lifelist concept was largely popularized by a friend of mine,
John Goddard, who lives in my hometown. I’ve visited
Goddard and can tell you he is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. A true hero of mine.
Now that said, thiis new show does exactly that. Sort of. The host Phil Keoghan asks people what they would do if they
had 72 hours and $3000 and could do something they’ve always wanted to do. Then they follow them as they do it. I
haven’t seen the show yet, but apparently it airs on Fit TV and Discovery HD TV. I’ll try to tune in and will post a
review.