Your faithful Ed, like many of you I suspect, has other interests besides sailing. The one that I dig the most (besides internet porn, of course) is mountain biking. One of the spin-offs of that is downhill riding. Many of the ski resorts have opened up their mountains in the summer to us freaks for this exact purpose. What is particularly cool about that is not only do we get to haul ass over miles of wicked downhill single track and fire roads, but we don't have to pedal back up the mountain. You just take the gondola back up to the top! Very sweet.

One can ride normal or cross-country bikes at these places, but the coolest thing is to have a downhill-specific bike. In your best Tony Montana imitation, "Say hello to my little friend."

Not so little, it is my 42 pound KHS DominaTrax, a bruiser of a downhill weapon. 8-9" of suspension travel, oversized disc brakes and tires that would do a Hummer proud, this fucker is built for some serious abuse.

Of course it remains to be seen if I am capable of doing it justice, but I'm pretty sure I can give it a good go. By the time you read this, I will be at Mammoth Mountain, CA, for a few days of gettin' dirty.

Our friends at Dirty Dog have outfitted me with the latest in sunglass and goggle technology, so I'll report on they performed when I return.

In the meantime, fear not about SA. Webbdawg and I have a bunch of stuff for you for the rest of the week while I am away, doing my best not to break my collarbone!

08/19/2002