What's old is new again...

You may remember my nifty Willits 29er frame getting weird rust issues and cracking this past summer.  That was a pretty big bummer, especially since I don't have money to buy a new frame at the moment (never realized weddings cost so much!).  However, I was never able to sell the Salsa frame that the Willits replaced, and I still had the wheels and forks to make it work.  So it's back to the Salsa for the foreseeable future.  Nothing wrong with that, I always liked the way it rode.  It just feels a bit small to me now, but I can get used to that.  Here's the Willits last Spring:

And here's what happened to it:

Here's the good ol' Salsa back at Southfarm (at Mississippi State University) in 2006:

And here it is now, laying on my living room floor, anxiously awaiting Spring:

Unlike the Willits, the disc mount on this one has a brace, so hopefully it won't crack there again (though I blame that on the internal rust).

Enough about bikes though.  Despite that little warm spell a week or so ago, Spring is a looooong way off.  After that weekend, the temperature got back in to the negatives, and yesterday we got about a foot of snow.  I can't believe I fell for it.  So lately, it's been back to XC skiing.  As long as I've been XC skiing (since I got frustrated I couldn't ride in winter in Maine), I've wanted to learn how to skate ski.  It's much faster, and honestly, it just looks cool.  I've always struggled with it for some reason, and I usually blamed my equipment.  When I first started learning, I was using some garage sale skis my folks gave me.  They worked well enough for classic skiing, but the didn't seem to bit well when I tried to skate.  I eventually got a pair of Fischer Explorers, which are sort of backcountry XC skis.  They are waxless and have metal edges.  I was convinced the metal edges would give me the grip I was after.  Well, fast forward 5 years or so, and I'm still struggling to skate on those skis.  Since I still have those original garage sale skis around, I decided I'd give them another chance.  Besides, there's been so much snow this winter, my ungroomed route has been more like snowshoeing anyway.  So I set off on the old skis, and wouldn't you know it, I could skate with them better than I've ever skated before!  It was a revelation!  I'm not sure why, but those skis worked much better for skating now that I've had some experience.  They're a bit narrower, and a bit taller underfoot, which I think give me the ability to edge the ski better and get that grip I was after.  Anyway, I'm super stoked that I gave those old skis a second chance.  Good times.  Here's a comparison... "New" skis (Fischer Explorer):

Old Skis (Jarvinen ???):

Last but not least, here's a video from out on the reservoir on a cold, windy, but clear and beautiful day:
(By the way, the blaze orange hat is so the snowmobilers can see me better on the mile or so that I'm on that track before I get down to the lake.)