Weekly Newsletter: March 11th-17th, 2024

This week flew by! We had a dinner double-date with some friends and enjoyed incredible bluebird skiing days at Snowbird.

Check out our new posts and videos 🆕 🎥 📝

Utah Adventures With A Friend: Part 1

Yi visits us in Utah to hike, bike, and adventure. This is part 1 of the multi-part series.

Keith and LindseyLindsey Huster

Steak dinner at Carvers 🥩 🤤

Our friends, Brandon and Steph, whom we typically ski with had been talking about wanting to get a good steak dinner somewhere. We suggested they check out Carvers Steak & Seafood in Sandy, UT. They were excited to try out this new-to-them restaurant and invited us along. We definitely couldn't pass up a steak dinner and the opportunity to get to know our friends better.

We had eaten at Carvers Steak & Seafood once or twice before and the steaks were some of the best that we have had in Utah. We were excited to eat there once again since it had been over three years since our last visit. The meal was fantastic even though it wasn't quite up to par as we remembered it. I think this is a general trend for all restaurants due to rising food and labor costs. Even so, we were all very happy with our meals and it was so nice to sit and chat with our friends. It's often difficult to find an opportunity to talk to each other while skiing or mountain biking.

Unfortunately, we were all so busy hanging out and chatting that we forgot to take any pictures of our food. We also forgot to get a group photo. 🤦‍♂️

Bluebird skiing and tailgating ⛷️ 🍔

It's starting to feel like Spring out here! We enjoyed fantastic bluebird skiing conditions on both Saturday and Sunday at Snowbird. On days like this, the snow tends to start somewhat frozen due to the overnight temperature drop. However, it slowly thaws throughout the day resulting in a creamy slush layer that makes for buttery skiing. It's worth sticking around until the afternoon so that you don't miss out on the best snow of the day.

On Saturday, Keith hiked up to the Baldy Shoulder with Brandon and Steph. Lindsey isn't interested in the hiking portion of skiing so she opted out. For once, there was almost nobody on the Baldy traverse so Keith took this opportunity to snap a few photos. Typically, there is a consistent line of hikers which makes it difficult to stop midway.

The crew skied over to one of their favorite runs, Fields of Glory, and began the descent down to the cliff-lined amphitheater area. This is the area where Snowbird recently held the Freeride World Tour Qualifier session. Brandon and Steph bypassed the amphitheater by traversing through the woods to a secondary exit. Keith opted to ski the Thanks for the Memories chute. The chute turned out to be the wrong choice as it was completely iced over. This made for a tricky descent but Keith was able to navigate his way down without much issue.

The rest of the ski weekend was spent enjoying the best of Snowbird's varied terrain under the sunny and warm skies. We also had the opportunity to ski with Brandon's old college roommate on Sunday. It's always fun getting to show people around the mountain. We wrapped up our time at Snowbird with a tailgating session. Steph grilled out hamburgers and hotdogs for our small group and we chilled for about an hour chatting with another group that was doing the same.

This was such a great way to enjoy the weekend. There's nothing like skiing, catching some sun, and grilling out at 8,000 feet (2,438 meters)!

Tour Divide training update 💨 😅

This week was a mix of indoor and outdoor rides along with a lot of second guessing Keith's planned equipment list.

Keith started the training week with a solid indoor Zwift training ride. Keith took on the Sugar Cookie route which consisted of 24 miles (38.6 kilometers) and 850 feet (259 meters) of climbing. This was a great ride to test out Keith's knee since it had been sore last week. Keith quickly found that he was able to put full power down once again with very minimal pain in his knee. This is a good sign that things are healing properly and that the pain is just a symptom of overuse, not a larger issue.

Keith spent the middle part of the week combing through his packing list spreadsheet. He is starting to get nervous that he will be carrying too much weight which could make the Tour Divide even more difficult than it already will be. He is now scrutinizing even single item on the list to categorize it as a necessity or a luxury. The term "luxury" is used very loosely here. 😆 The biggest weight factors right now are extra clothing, tools/repair parts, and his camping system. Keith will need to finalize this list in the next few weeks so that he can be sure he is training at the correct riding weight.

Keith also managed to squeeze in an outdoor training ride on Saturday afternoon after a full day of skiing at Snowbird. For this ride, he decided to find out just how much bike weight really matters before he drives himself crazy trying to whittle down his packing list. Keith rode a 40-mile (64-kilometer) loop with 840 feet (256 meters) of climbing while carrying only his tent and some basic riding essentials.

The ride feel was dramatically different from carrying so much less weight than he has typically been training with. Overall, speed really wasn't affected much which is somewhat surprising considering he was carrying ~25 pounds (11.3 kilograms) less weight. However, the most notable difference was in acceleration and deceleration. When applying power to the pedals, the bike felt so much more responsive and quickly accelerated up steep pitches. The bike also decelerated less quickly when traversing rolling hills which made it a lot easier to crest each hill.

This experience has taught Keith that he does need to scrutinize every item that he will carry during the race. This will be critical in maximizing his overall comfort and likelihood of completing the race.

Upcoming posts and videos 👷‍ 👷‍♀️️

Well, Keith slipped and didn't work on the Las Vegas posts like he was supposed to. Instead, he went down a rabbit hole of watching bikepacking equipment list videos on YouTube and spending way too much time staring at his spreadsheets. Lindsey however has been making great progress on her series of posts from our friend Yi's visit. Stay tuned for the next post in that series.

We hope that you are enjoying our newsletters. Are you looking forward to Spring? What are some of your favorite springtime activities? Let us know in the comments section below.👇 💬