KICKING IT OLD SCHOOL

I know what does this post have to do with mountain biking? Well after reading Timmy's blog tonight I became inspired. You see long before I gave a shit about actually racing my mountain bike I simply rode for the pleasure of riding. When the weather turned cold some of my friends and I would turn to snowboarding. Alpine Valley in the heart of Highland Mi was where I used to LIVE in the winters. Season passes, you might say I had a few. I think in 1990 was when I got my first. I remember the days when snowboards first came out. The wooden Burton Performer was my first. Concave bottom and three aluminum fins. Couldn't turn that thing for shit. Recalling some of those early boards it's hard to believe that the ski resorts even let us ride at all. I remember Alpine let us ride on Thursday nights after 6pm when the lifts re-opened after the grooming/dinner break. This was back in the day when Pine Knob, Mt Brighton and Mt Holly wouldn't even allow snowboarding (imagine that now). As technology grew and boards got better more and more kids took up the sport. We even had the Alpine locals (or the AVC) as we were known in the day. Guys like Scott Ray, The Dean brothers Scotty and Jimmy, Scott Hope, Matt Globke, Mike Lantzy, Jay Wahl and even a skinny kid named Billy Holmes (who always said he was trying to get sponsored to ride a snowboard but that Mountain biking was what he got paid to do). Yeah OK whatever Bill. But anyway we were there riding for the comraderie almost like an extended family. You never really kept in touch with many of the guys in the off season but you always knew that as soon as AV could start making snow you would surely see the same faces lining up in the park to take runs in the pipe or digging out hits on some of the parks gaps. Unfortunately as most of these kids grew older they got into drugs. I remember Scotty Dean was smoking pot by the age of 12 and doing acid and shrooms shortly thereafter. Soon the core group of kids that used to hang out there were more into looking to score their next bag of weed than they were into riding. Familiar faces didn't show up anymore and I kind of lost the passion. It's funny I ran into this guy Gregg who was working at the Apple store in Somerset about two years ago. He used to ride AV on occasion and kept in closer contact with some of the kids we used to ride with. Apparently most of the guys have turned into delinquents and I guess Scotty Dean totally lost it after doing to much acid and was permantely living as a ward of the state in some mental health institution. It's to bad because that kid had the most talent of anyone. So, Tim I know what you mean by running into the same loud mouthed punk kids AKA "the winter friends" every year. I miss some of my old ones and wonder what they are really up to. I hope everyone is doing well. I even think this winter I'm going to break out the old Joyride El Feugo 154 (only true AV locals will remember that board) and take the kids out to the hill, errrr old trash heap. I do wonder if I'll run into any of the old crew but I doubt it...TC