Hardrock Sport Disc

This spring I have dealt with a "mid-life" crisis. I'm only 30, so I feel obligated to put the words mid-life into quotation marks hen referring to my current "crisis". When I was 18, I went rock climbing for the first time in my life. I went with the Outdoor Recreation Group at Georgia Tech. We went top-roping at Rock Town, Georgia. Over the next 12 years, I would spend most of my free time climbing or traveling to climb.

Let me be blunt. Climbing is one of the best things that ever happened to me.

When I moved to New York a few years ago, I started ice climbing as well. I also did a little skiing (XC & downhill) but mostly I climbed. I've led 5.10 trad in the Gunks and 'Daks and I've led W4 in the winter.

When I graduated from the SUNY MSW program, I started working with a consulting firm based in Troy. This job requires an obscene amount of travel. As a result, it is often difficult for me to get into the rock climbing gym to train. When I'm on the road, I am often in random small rural towns that don't have much in the way of rock climbing gyms. Equally difficult is the amount of time climbing takes. A day of climbing is . . . an entire day. (or most of it.) When I get in at 11:30 on Frida night from XXXXX, XX it is really hard to feel motivated to get up at 6:00 the following morning to go rock climbing all day.

I need a break from climbing. My climbing partners all feel like I've abandoned them, (Sorry guys.) but that's what I need to do for right now. I am going to take the spring and summer off from climbing. In the fall, I will re-evaluate my decisions.

In the meantime, I need something hair-raising to do. When I was in undergrad, I owned a tricked out little hard-rock mountain bike. That bike and I went everywhere together. My old ride was a nice little 17 inch red chomolly frame, no shocks. It's been a long time since Specialized sold a bike like that. I wanted to buy a bike with an aluminum frame, good components, and no front shocks, but I settled on an aluminium frame, OK components and a front shock. Oh well.

If this bike is 1/2 as dependable as my old ride, it will serve me well. I can't wait to get it.