TGIF

So last night was epic. I went out to do Happy Thursday and it was epic.  Probably 400-500 bikes in attendance.  Had a lot of fun on my BMX and met another guy who's new to town and is way better at me on his bike.  Hoping he can teach me a few things.

Today, Josh, Helen and I went out to Eldorado Canyon and climbed The Naked Edge.  It is 6 pitches of beautiful scenery and amazing climbing.  Thanks to Josh and Helen for leading the majority of the route.  Very good day climbing.

Found out this evening that I'm developing quite the T-Shirt tan.  Need to work on that cause it's only gonna get worse.  Bare chested Merriams are likely in Boulder's future.

Otherwise, a pleasant evening in the hot tub and now off to watch the new Robin Hood movie.

Some better skate park footage

Went out this morning to the skate park again to try and get some more practice and better footage.  Here are the results.



Tonight I'm off to the Happy Thursday ride.  Hope everyone has a happy Thursday.

Bouldering Flagstaff

Went out yesterday evening for some fun easy bouldering.  Here are some shots of me up on a V0 on the Beer Barrel Boulder climbing the Southwest Prow.

Easy climbing but a lot of fun.  Been working on getting my fingers and arms back in shape so I don't burn out after 2-3 routes.

First day at the skate park

My good friend from back in Beaumont Mike just recently got into riding fixie. For those who don't know, a fixie is typically a rode bike frame and geometry with a single gear and no brakes. The crank and rear cog are set up so that you can't coast. The trade off for this is that when you petal backwards, the back wheel goes backwards as well which opens up a whole world of tricks and what-not. I'm sure I've not done the fixie community justice in this description.

Long story short, the tricks interested me, but the bike didn't. In comes BMX


I bought it the second day I was here in town, used off craigslist.  I spent hours true-ing the rear wheel and getting the brakes working and finally took it out to the park to likely hurt both my body and my pride. The result was super fun.

The video really doesn't do the skate park justice. The whole thing is still really intimidating for me but I've begun to feel a lot more comfortable dropping into the bowls and getting some air off the jumps. I promise better video in the future.

Beginnings

4 Days ago, I got on a plane in Houston Texas headed for Colorado. I've been dreaming and planning of moving to Boulder for three years now that it almost feels unreal to actually be living here. Sitting on the plane, looking out the window as the plane broke through the clouds I was nervous and excited. All my hard work was finally paying off.


My name is Aaron and here is where I'm hoping to tell my story. I have spent the majority of my life living in Beaumont Texas. Beaumont has very moderate winters and hot summers. Although the name Beaumont means "Beautiful Mountain", whoever named it that must have had a good sense of humor. I remember being excited as a kid to have a dirt mound to ride my bike down because that was the extent of terrain change you can expect there. Beaumont is about as flat as it gets.

Most people from Beaumont don't hate it so much as they just don't have much good to say about it. Listening to someone talk about Beaumont always reminds me of a girl describing her fat friend. They're careful with their words and tend to skirt around the obvious points.

There are a lot of good people there, and I've made a lot of good friends there, but geographically and culturally it is less than ideal.

And what Beaumont isn't, Boulder is. Before the first settlers moved into this area, there was an Indian tribe (feathers, not dots) that lived here. Their leader, Chief Niwot is said to have left a curse on the valley.

"People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty."

- Chief Niwot

It's a funny curse. This place is so amazing that once people come here they'll never want to leave. Can't say he was wrong.

So what's the point of this blog? Why write it?

I hear people talk all the time about how much they dislike where they live. Nothing to do, etc. I don't understand why these people don't move somewhere better if they hate where they're at so much. I made that choice and I want to share with people how it effects my life over the next 90 days.

I came here in good shape. I'm 5' 10", about 140 pounds with a pretty athletic build to start with. I'll be taking a picture of myself every day to keep track of changes to my physic. I've considered calling this project B90X which would be an intentional rip off of P90X which is a 90 day fitness video work out that is supposed to be amazing.

I won't be doing any weight training or working out for the sake of working out. Everything I do is going to be based on my day to day lifestyle and not a training regiment. I won't be doing any special dieting, and in fact, I will likely be eating more and possibly worse food than I did before moving here.