Buy My Bike

Thanks folks but it has now been SOLD!

I have a great bike for sale. It would fit you perfectly and make you rider faster. You should buy it.

Here are the specs.

Niner Scandium Air 9 Frame     Size: Large           Color:  Raw            Year: 2010

This frame is a 2010 Niner Air 9 Scandium. It is in excellent shape. The frame is a size large and has the raw clear coat finish.

Wheels: DT Swiss 485D (Brand New - never ridden)
Tires: Conti (1) Mtn King 2.2   (1) Race King 2.2
Crank: Shimano XT
Cassette: Shimano XT
Deraileur: Sram X9
Fork: Rockshox Reba 29 with Pop Lock
Brakes: Avid Juicy 7
Saddle: WTB Silverado
Seatpost: WTB TXC
Stem: Maxm 120mm
Handlebar: Maxm
Bottom Bracket: Chris King

This bike has been set up as a 1x9. However I do have the other chainrings and front derailleur and shifter should you want to run it fully geared. All included in the price of the bike.

Pedals not included

Price: $1799

Shoot me an email if you are interested: jonrobjames at gmail dot com

I need a prescription

Since it's been a couple of months since I last updated I thought I better log in to see if this thing was still alive. I originally created this blog to track my adventures. I haven't been on many lately and when I have I haven't remembered to bring my camera along.

The lack of adventures has been weighing on my mood along with the passing of my grandpa. Skiing and cycling are my outlet for all of lifes frustrations. When I don't get out I'm not a very good husband or father. Luckily I'm married to a girl that understands that. So Saturday morning when I kissed her goodbye and told her I was meeting Ben and Mike she said I'll see you at 5. We had a great day skiing At Snowbird, even if they had half the resort shut down with 80 mph gusts.

When I'm feeling cagey I often think to myself that I was made to be exploring the frontier and that it's entirely possible that I was born 100 years too late. While i really enjoy my job...Spending 10-12 hours a day in my office has to be offset with some quality time outside. This past summer a good friend of mine broke his hip mountain biking. When I called to check in with him he told me he was going nuts not being able to get out and ride and that he was pretty sure he was clinically depressed! We lauhed about that together, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. Some of us dont take our meds out of a prescription bottle. We get our fix riding the frontier sitting in a saddle of different sorts. I cant wait for the trails to dry out.

187 Minutes - Feature Length Film

As promised in my previous post. Here is the film footage of our most excellent adventure of being stuck on a chair lift for 3 hours on our 15th wedding anniversary. Don't worry Solitude gave us each a free ski pass AND a $5 coupon that we can spend anywhere at the resort! As the minutes and hours ticked by we were yelling back and forth from chair to chair deciding what the resort was going to need to do to make us happy customers again. This wasn't what we had in mind. Maybe I'll use that $5 coupon to get a drink the next time I ski there.

I don't know if this will be entertaining to anyone other than the people stuck on the lift. You get pretty loopy after being up there for a while. After I went back and watched it, I thought it actually was pretty funny. You be the judge.



187 Minutes from Jon James on Vimeo.

187 Minutes - a true story

For those of you who haven't heard. Today Big Cottonwood Canyon had a tree break and fall taking out a power line that cut power to the entire canyon. It was a little before 1:00 and we had just made the decision to do one more run before heading over to the Stone Haus for lunch.

Here is the Trailer for the movie that will debut tomorrow. Its all true and yes it was our 15th wedding anniversary.  One we won't soon forget.

Crashing is Fun!

So after a long week and an exceptionally hectic and challenging week at work an early morning Dawn Patrol seemed like a good way to clear the mind and blow off some steam. So Mike and I made plans to meet up for a little pre-work powder festival.

When we pulled into the parking lot across the street from Alta we knew it was a big day when we had a tough time finding a place to park. We looked up onto Flagstaff and could see dozens of headlamps working their way up the mountain. Its kind of crazy to to see how popular backcountry skiing has become.

 After both Mike and I agreed it would be a nice change to take it easy on the way up, we called a truce and took it as easy as you can while climbing a mountain. Once we hit the ridge we checked the time and decided that if we hurried we could do a lap on the north side and get me to my 9 o'clock meeting.

The Snow was so good! I was trying out a new pair of BD Megawatts. Ya they are pretty good in the powder (Ben you are never getting these skiis back). I couldn't believe how that rockered tip just plowed through things. 

 After hiking out of the north side we hit the ridge and headed back toward the car. About half way down we dropped into a little gully for some fun. I was riding the ridge, popping in and out of the gully, when I decided to go back on top, pick up some speed and air back in. When I popped off the lip I was surprised at how much air I ended up grabbing, but was more surprised when I hit and had my bindings pre-release and send me tomahawking head over heals down to the bottom of the gully. Crashing is fun. Its like getting tossed into a washing machine on spin cycle!

When I stopped one of my skiis tagged me in the back of the helmet.  The other one was nowhere to be found. Mike was above me so he skied over to probe the snow. After about 10 minutes of not being able to find it I turned around and took a look down the gully and noticed a single ski track following the bottom of the gully. Mike skied down a couple hundred yards to see if he could see it. There it was sticking straight up. Too funny.

No I didn't make that 9 o'clock meeting but I did have a smirk on my face the rest of the day. Life is good in the Wasatch.

A little of this and a little of that

Over the Thanksgiving holiday there was a lot of skiing going on. A couple of tours in the backcountry, and a couple of days at Solitude with the kids. Here are a couple of photos to tell the story.

Thanksgiving morning we got up early for a quick tour. Turned out it wasn't so quick after we hit a sketchy spot on the top of Mount Superior and decided to back off it and take a detour. Good times either way.

Hitching a ride back up with hill to retrieve the cars.

 Friday it was just me and the girls for a day on the hill. They are getting really good and lots of fun to ski with.

We took P-diddy up the next day thinking we would schlep him around in the baby backpack. At the last minute I threw in a pair of skis and boots for him thinking he might like to slide around a bit. He liked it a lot and the baby backpack stayed in the car all day. We had a tough time convincing this guy to come off the hill. He told me on the lift ride up that we were both Batman. "We have capes and that's why we can fly up the mountain"!

Here he is in the lodge attacking that hamburger the same way he attacks his sisters with his Batman pajamas on. He says he likes to wear his hair "Fikey"!

I've got a new ski buddy!

It's all about Confidence

So I never made it out on that ski outing I promised to write about in my last post.  Damn 8 am meetings! But I did make it out for some Tram laps at Snowbird for a couple of hours on Saturday. Here are a couple of philosophical thoughts that came from that.

So my brother and I both lived in Mexico for a couple of years. Neither one of us has been back for a long time. His company is opening up Mexico for business and he went down to the Distrito Federal to get the ball rolling. As we were talking the other day we were discussing his trip and I was asking him how his Spanish was holding up. He mentioned that he was a little rusty and was a bit hesitant to break into his Spanish until after he had built up some confidence after having been there for 4 or 5 days. We talked about how it takes some confidence to go bust into the christian tongue.

So what does that all have to do with skiing?

While I did get out for a quick lap in the backcountry a couple days before Halloween I haven't really skied for about 6 months or so. I knew that this day would be a good chance to tune up my technique. When I got to Snowbird Saturday morning I went straight to the ticket office to pick up my pass for the year. After sifting through 5 or 6 other Jon Jameses in the computer system, the nice guy in the ticket office finally found me. Who knew there were so many season pass holders with the same name?

I was scheduled to meet up with some friends, but I was 99% sure those friends would be late. So I headed out to see what lifts were open. After a quick discussion with one of the Ski Patrollers I figured I would hit the tram before they shut it down for the day due to high wind gusts (the forecast said there had been gusts up to 90 mph the night before). After I fumbled my way down Chips to try and remember how to ski I  quickly headed back up to see what the Cirque had to offer. The traverse to get out there was pretty bare and riddled with rocks and grass. After picking my way through it and getting my face sandblasted off with ice crystals from big gusts of wind, I made it out to the upper cirque. The snow coverage didn't look great so I worked my way down the traverse until I found myself at the lower portion. The coverage was good and there wasn't a track on it. After gathering myself I dropped in and couldn't believe how good the snow was. I started ripping turns and picking up speed. My brain shut off and my legs took over. After catching some air off the lower roller at the bottom I stopped, looked back up and smiled about as big as you can. It was so good that I headed straight back down and caught the next tram car up. I must have done 5 or 6 laps through the same run throughout the day. Every time I went back the wind had swept it clean of any tracks. Each time down I would take a little faster and ski a little more confidently. About mid day I met up with my friends and took them back up there. We weren't disappointed as we crested the top and looked down into an untracked field of snow. My friend commented at the bottom that he felt a bit tentative, but couldn't help but notice the way I was charging it. I had to come clean with him and tell him that was my sixth time down the run that day.

It had me thinking about confidence. How it determines so much of our attitude and the way we approach life. Life is so much more enjoyable when you attack it with gusto. Everything from speaking Spanish to attacking a hill on skis. So be confident. Know what your talents are and believe in yourself.

The weather man says I will be waking up at 4:30 am on Tuesday to test the goods. Hopefully this time I'll make it out and will have a story to tell.