Rendezvous and Reconnaissance

Toomas Kollo

The last time I saw Toom was on the sidewalk in front of the Three Bears Lodge in West Yellowstone last March, after the Rendezvous race awards ceremony. Toom drove back to Bozeman to meet the team that evening, and I was off to Jackson Hole for a few days of alpine skiing.  We planned to rendezvous four days later in Bozeman, wax up some skis, and get ready to slay at the NCAA classic race. But of course things went sideways and we still haven't managed to meet up, all these months later. What an unexpected turn of events!

Toom called me up this morning and asked if I'd be interested in taking a little bike ride around town to scope out some of Anchorage's rollerski roads at Kincaid, Potter Valley and the Hillside. As eager as I was to visit with Toom again and hear all about his summer adventures, I was a little apprehensive because I know how dangerous he can be on a bike. (And I'm not talking about dangerous crashing. I'm talking about dangerous power output.) But when it was clear that Toom was going to be on his mountain bike - for a road bike ride - I thought maybe my suffering might not be so bad after all if I would be riding my fourteen pounds of aero carbon fiber and he would be on knobby tires. 

Over the course of a fifty mile ride around town, we discussed everything there is to discuss regarding the 20/21 Seawolf Ski Team. The 'Wolves should be coming back to town over the next couple of weeks, and we are pretty excited to get started. Toom and I are pretty fired up. We are ready! 

There's a limit to how aero you can get on the downhills when your handlebars are as wide as a pair of skis is long.

We had a really nice ride today.  It was so nice to reconnect with Toom again!  And I was even able to keep up... on the downhills.