PERSPECTIVES OVER MY HEAD

BY MITCH BOEHM

It’s nearly Christmas along Utah’s Wasatch front as I type this, and since we’ve gotten a ton of early snow in the local mountains, ski season has started early — which makes me happy.

Motorcycles, for the most part, go into hibernation here during the winter months, and for me, at least, skiing is a darn good replacement. The hobbies are obviously different, but as I rode the Snowbird tram to the top of the mountain the other day (11,000 feet) trying to rest my out-of-shape and suddenly-in-shock quad muscles, all while realizing once again that Snowbird seemed a lot steeper and deeper than when I skied (and worked) here during college, I flashed on some common elements:

One, just as on a motorcycle, you can go really fast on skis if you want (and if you’re new to the sport, you can go really fast even when you don’t want to). Two, it’s easy to get in way over your head on a big ski mountain. And three, you can get really hurt. I know all about that last bit, having broken more than a dozen bones on the slopes (and the bikes) over the years.

I have skied for nearly 50 of those years, almost as long as I’ve been riding motorcycles, so I’m pretty decent at it, even on mostly-expert mountains such as Snowbird or Alta, which do not suffer fools or newbies gladly. Steep and deep isn’t just ad copy here in Utah. It’s real.

But as I looked at all the black-diamond runs through the tram car’s windows, and then considered my general rustiness and still-weak quads (this was only my second day on the mountain), I got the distinct feeling I was in a little over my head on this section of mountain.

Funny thing is, this in over your head thing had bitten me before in this very canyon, not just at Snowbird (broken wrist and clavicle) and Alta (broken fibula), but also on a motorcycle, and just a mile or so down the road.

It was 1982 and I was coming down the canyon on my then-new (to me) Suzuki GS1000S. At the time I had very little streetbike experience, but I was cocky as hell and had been a decent motocrosser for almost a decade by that point, so hey, riding a 600-pound streetbike with weak brakes and worn tires at high speeds through all sorts of downhill corners is easy, right? Right.

Somehow I survived death or dismemberment when I got into a downhill left-hander way too fast, grabbed the brakes and ran off the road into some boulders, but I can’t say the same for my poor GS, which was totaled. It’s a painful lesson still.

Reliving that sad experience as I looked down toward that very corner from way up high in the tram car had me thinking about all the riding I’ll be doing in just a couple of months, or all the riding many of you will be doing — or doing right now if you live in the lower tier.

The amount of on-road exposure

I’ve had to the aforementioned D&D (don’t say it!) during my nearly 40-year career as a road tester and magazine editor in So Cal is staggering, so this seems like a good opportunity to share some of the hard-learned lessons I’ve learned over the decades.

Be wary on roads you don’t know, or don’t know well. Get yourself to a comfortable speed before the corner. Don’t let ego drive you to keep up with faster riders in your group. If you do get in hot, brake lightly and try to steer through the corner. (Easier said than done.) Wear All The Gear All The Time. (Cuz you never know.) And most of all, don’t let overconfidence or ego run (or ruin) your ride, as I did back in ’82.

The late and wonderful Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac wrote this for the Mac’s 1975 “White” album: “I’m over my head, oh, but it sure feels nice.”

Be sure you’re around to enjoy that feeling, eh?

With each mile, the icy farm fields and harsh winter winds of my Indiana home fall farther behind me. I’m headed south toward warm, Florida sunshine — but don’t mistake this for a vacation. It’s far from it.

Every pro racer is different, and all approach their off seasons differently, but the common denominator for those living north of the Mason-Dixon and east of the Mississippi is that you head south for preseason prep. Usually this means Florida, though sometimes it’s the Carolinas or Georgia.

Back in college, thoughts of this annual southern migration would drive me to distraction…sitting in a not-in-Florida library trying to study while trying not to imagine all my competitors pounding out training motos in the Sunshine State sand. Ironically, the two things had a common theme — suffer now for a greater payoff later. Still…

My training days in Florida look like this: Wake up around 6 a.m., shower, and then do yoga. I make breakfast and pack a lunch for myself and my dad/mechanic/roommate, and then we head for the trails. We stay in Tallahassee, and there’s a big OHV area just south of the airport in the Apalachicola National Forest. After three years wintering there (thanks to some very helpful locals) I know the place like the back of my hand. There are hundreds of miles of trails, from single-track to something you could drive a truck down. In places the whoops are so deep a small child could hide in them.

I aim for two to three hours of ride time each day, and aside from my once-annual “three-hour-race-simulation-of-doom,” putting two or three hours on the bike will take most of the morning and afternoon.

After riding I go for a road bicycle