In other biking news, I just ordered another farkle today: a set of grip puppies to bring down the vibe. I’m concerned about how they’ll interact with the heated grips (believe me, the other students were jealous of those yesterday!) but I really want to start riding higher in the rev range, and to do that for any amount of time I’ll have to find a way of dealing with the insane engine vibration in the right half of the tach. I’m thinking I should put together a list of the farkles I’ve put on (most I ordered with the bike), either for fun or so that I have an easy-to-reference list for the insurance if I have to lay ‘er down sometime.

• Grip puppies – see above, not yet here
• Mirror wideners – got ‘em, but not yet installed
• Tank pad – carbon look, BMW logo
• FLM seat bag. Plenty of storage capacity for everything I’ll need at my destination.
• Engine bars (factory) – to prevent serious damage if I lay it down
• ABS (factory). Duh. I hear it’s standard on all 2012 BMW bikes now (it was actually standard on mine as well, though not on the American version)
• Heated grips (factory). Oh lordy do I love thee.
• TPC (tire pressure sensor) (factory). Let’s me know if the air inside the spinny parts is too much or too little.
• Power outlet (factory). Never used it, but if I ever decide to buy heated gear or something, I’ve got a place to plug it in.
• Center stand (factory). Let me tell you, this bike goes up on it’s center stand easier than any bike I’ve ever heard of before. I rarely use the side stand!
• LED blinkers (factory). They look pimp.
• Fly screen (factory). I can’t remember if it’s an option or not, but I think so. Like the headlights it’s a bit odd, but effective enough. Rattles due to vibrations, though.
• Raised seat (factory). Gives me a couple extra centimeters, makes my legs feel a lot better.
• Tom Tom Urban Rider GPS. I actually got it as a gift a month before I bought the bike.

That’s all, folks!

That’s twice I’ve been to Davos, and twice I hated it. I hit Jakobshorn today with Leon, who is quite frankly way out of my league when it comes to skiing. My legs were unaccountably sore from running during the week, and visibility was such crap that I couldn’t see 4 meters in front of me at one point. Why can I not see Davos when the sun shines? Does it never shine here?

Not a good way to end the season, but it’s practically summer already, and there won’t be any more skiing for me this year.

In order of priority, the items I want are:

• Grip puppies for bikes with 7/8″ bars. These are cushioned grips that slide over the top of existing grips, apparently don’t cause too many problems with existing heated grips (beyond a slight delay in the heating), make the bars bigger, and reduce vibrations. I’d really love these – and given that they’re 10 bucks, I may wind up buying a pair before I finish posting! Also available from their British arm sporttouring.com for 12 British pounds (you have to search “grip puppies” on the site); after shipping, I don’t know which is cheaper. Edit: got some on order.
• Throttle lock. Oh, how I want thee. Install it on the right handlebar and it applies a small amount of friction when activated, such that the throttle won’t close unless you manually close it. So in effect it becomes cruise control, enabling you to use your right hand every now and again (or mostly just relax it!).
• Mirror wideners. The mirrors on my bike are such that I don’t get a clear view behind me unless I turn my shoulders. For 50 bucks, I can put the mirrors further out. Edit: I’ve got one, now I need one for the other mirror. I’ve contacted the company, as it looks like a mistake in the shipment. Edit: Second one received.
• Frame sliders. Not sure about this one yet, as I have the full engine guard already on the bike. However, the guards are quite big and bulky, detract somewhat from the naked look, and occasionally get in the way of my toes. Might be worth the 150 bucks to replace them with something offering slightly less coverage but a better look.
• Carbon fiber parts. They’re strong, lightweight, and just look pimp. Low on the priority list, though.

Beautiful weather though. Instead of driving up out of the clouds as often happens, the clouds simply… stopped 10 km or so before we started our ascent up the mountain. Very odd, but they later rolled in and covered the valley run, making for a fairly miserable route down at the end of the day.

I’m not going to post any pictures at the moment, but I did manage to get my goggles tested at 68 kph. Still working on getting some real speed – I won’t be happy till I’m in the 80-90 kph range!

Still, the absolute best part of the trip was trying out the new goggles Steph gave me for Christmas. With GPS and similar goodies built-in, it shows you some great real-time stats including speed, distance skied, altitude, temperature, etc. It also does an amazing job of calculating when you’re on a lift, when one run ends and another begins, and more. The photochromic lenses are pretty great too – the tint changes based on ambient light, so you can see well regardless of whether it’s sunny or cloudy that day.

When I plugged the goggles in afterwards, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they already knew the name of the resort I was at. I was able to review my runs, add highlights, and on some resorts (unfortunately not this one) tie them to a piste map so that I can show only blues, reds or blacks. I could also export a google earth file to make the runs available to anyone with Google Earth installed. For now, I just exported a screenshot of the application, but maybe in the future I’ll make the full interactive map available here.

ReconHQ Hoch-Ybrig

Matus has dessert

Later that day, Steph and I opened Christmas gifts (yes, a few days late). She got me a pair of Transcend GPS ski goggles by Zeal Optics. The first ski goggles in the world – to my knowledge – to integrate GPS, they include a small heads-up display that shows your speed, altitude, distance travelled and more. Since all those stats can later be uploaded to your computer, I expect that future posts will include some extracts.

It’s one of those places that’s kind of ridiculous to get to by train; it takes almost twice as long as by car. Fortunately, some German friends of mine were heading over, so I took a 20 minute train to Zug then rode over with them for another 50 minutes, thus shaving 40 minutes off my travel time. Turns out Matthias is a much better skier than I gave him credit for, and far better than me; the man could fly down the slopes.

The snow was kind of crappy, which has little to do with the resort, so I’d like to go back and try it sometime when the snow is better. There were 3 primary chairlifts but almost no lines most of the time, and there were some fairly steep fun pistes. It’s the sort of place where you can see any piste from any other, though, so you don’t have the wandering feel of exploring a mountain. All in all fun for a day trip, but I wouldn’t put in on the “must visit” list, despite a typically Swiss panorama (I didn’t get any shots, but at the top of this page you can see a borrowed picture of the mountain).

Two points did stand out as being worth noting, though. First, there were more restaurants per skier than any other mountain I’ve ever been on. There must have been a seperate restaurant on every piste! Some at the top, some at the bottom, some halfway down; in any case, I had a good raclette for lunch.

Second, I saw more pairs of Stöckli skis there than I have ever seen before. A local brand, I purchased a pair last year and have always been surprised by how few I’ve seen at the bigger resorts, where people apparently prefer Head and Rossignol and other big-name brands. Apparently more local Swiss ski at Hoch-Ybrig, however, and like people everywhere, they prefer to buy local.

Anyway, if you’re in the area, give Hoch-Ybrig a try; but not till you’ve already had your fill of the bigger placse like Flims-Laax or Davos (or even Flumserberg).

I really wasn’t sure if I was going to go or not; I had no plans with anybody, and a little advertisement on Facebook didn’t come up with any hits. But in the end, I decided that I need to practice, and the weather was great, so I grabbed a book for the train and headed off.

I can see Zurich from the top!

As fortune would have it, Nick and Megan were on their way over as well, and sat just one car behind me. We met when we switched trains, then took the gondola up from Unterterzen together. There we parted ways for the morning, while they met some other friends and I skied some of the more aggressive pistes at the top.

These “aggressive” pistes were two of the very few black pistes on this mountain, and weren’t yet open when I was there two weeks ago. With an average of about 20cm powder everywhere, it was very hard in one sense; turning was difficult. In another, though, it was very easy to keep speed down, and there was no sense of fear; falling in powder doesn’t hurt at all.

Looking down a black

I had some good fun there, but once was enough, and so I headed across the mountain. After lunch with the Deloitters, where I also bumped into Nathan and Claire, we headed up and down the mountain as a group. I worked on my form a bit and just hung out with the others, sometimes going with the less advanced people and sometimes pushing it a bit more with the more experienced folks. At one point, Nathan and I hit some pretty deep powder on an almost vertical incline as we went looking for a piste that was on the map but not marked anywhere (guess that’s a bit like following your GPS off the road because it says turn left here, eh?). Good times all around.

By the end of the day it got dark and cloudy, and let’s face it – this time of year, you can’t really hope for any sunshine past 16.00 anyway. So we bounced back to the gondola, got in line, and made it down just in time for the 16.58 train back.

Now I need to start planning Christmas weekend’s destinations…

Steph imitating a raccoon

As with the day before, the weather was absolutely flawless. Saturday also marked the first day of the full-on winter 2010-2011 season, so the mountain really opened up. The snow was great, the lines were small, and it was so warm that I skied with my jacket unzipped most of the time. Of course, in such bright sun, a bit of “racoonism” was inevitable, as ably demonstrated by Stephanie.

At the end of the day, with Steph worn out, I suggested one last ride up the lift before we called it a day. She suggested that I go instead and ride as aggressively as I wanted to, which I did. Before heading down, however, I took a photo of the view from the peak.

Following a valley run, in which Steph – mostly – took the long winding blues, meeting up with me at the bottom of some more aggressive reds, we watched an old Bond flick, then went to dinner at La Pinte. Apparently under new management this year, we happened across them during their grand opening. We had a cheese fondue with tomatoes over potatoes, followed by a Créme Catalone (sort of a Spanish Créme Brulee), along with a local wine. Again I was surprised by the fair price – just a rappen over 80 Stutz for the two of us. So much for being a rich-folks-only town.

The train home on Sunday was mercifully quick, weighing in at just 3 hours 39 minutes. But I miss it already….