Monthly Archives: February 2008

It’s hard to write a travel blog when you’re not traveling. So I spent the week looking at New York as a traveler (and celebrating my birthday over and over and over again). A few things I learned …

No one actually wants to take your photo when you ask them on the street:

As I sit here in an uncomfortable (yet ergonomic!) chair, at my desk, in an office, under flourescent lighting, Lindsay files this report from a cafe in Monaco. I am having a hard time finding pity for her travel woes …

Some days, it can be so easy to hop all over the world. But on the days when the travel gods throw you a curve ball, that thing really falls off the table.

My article on San Diego triathlete Matt Bigos is out, in the March issue of Men’s Fitness. Check out a PDF of the story on my ARTICLES page (It’s the top story).

A bit of backstory on Bigos …

Matt, a former motocross racer, was paralyzed in a 2003 car accident. Travis Pastrana was driving the car. This summer, Pastrana gave me a call and asked me to talk to Matt. He said he was doing well and ready to tell his story. I flew to San Diego to meet Matt last August and couldn’t believe what I saw. Not only had he fought his way back to two feet, he was training for the Florida Ironman triathlon in early November. I knew this was a story I had to tell.

You know the saying, and the song … a whole heck of a lot happens in a New York minute. As the theory goes, time here in the Big Apple flies by at warp speed. Blink, and Monday is Thursday. Unless, of course, you are me, and it is this week, and I am all too aware that it has been more than 48 hours since I’ve had a snowboard strapped to my feet, seen snow, or scared myself dropping into an area marked with a caution sign. No, Herald Square doesn’t count. It’s close, but …

So to cure my sports fix, I’ve attended a couple Olympics events and chatted up some of our biggest U.S. hopefuls. It got me excited for this summer …

While I was taking powder runs (and working very, very hard) in Jackson Hole, Miss Berra drove from Jersey to D.C. to accompany the Anaheim Ducks to the White House. Here’s her account of the day …

I HAD NEVER been to the White House, so when my editor Mark Giles got a call from a Bush staffer asking if we were sending anyone to cover the Stanley Cup Champion Anaheim Ducks’ visit with the President, I happily obliged. And all I had to do was send them my D.O.B. and Social Security Number for security clearance. Shockingly, it’s a lot harder to get a U.S. Open tennis credential.

Those of us who cover action sports don’t need to be reminded how much these sports are growing, both in popularity and coverage. This weekend at the Natural Selection, writers from Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, Outside, Men’s Health, and of course, ESPN The Mag, showed up in Jackson Hole to write about the contest (and take some powder turns, of course). That wouldn’t have happened a few years ago.

After three days home in New York, I am now in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the inaugural Quiksilver Natural Selection snowboard contest, an all-mountain freestyle contest hosted by pro snowboarder Travis Rice. These rider-inspired-and-run contests seem to be a blossoming trend in action sports, and mostly, I believe, out of necessity.

When the industry isn’t responding to trends quickly enough, established athletes ask their sponsors to get behind a forward-thinking contest or event. It’s a way for an enterprising athlete to push the sport in a way that is beneficial to all athletes. And because they are conceptualized by athletes, they tend to be extremely athlete-friendly, well liked and attended. This event is also surprisingly well attended by the mainstream media.