Yeah, the tracks they leave look like they will make a nice surface to ride on but I've seen those guys keeping up with me at highway speeds when the trail runs parallel to the highway. Wouldn't want to get in the way of that.[/QUOTE]

I've been riding snowmobiles for years and participate on a snowmobile forum. It's funny to see people post about biking on the trails, it freaks them out. Also you have the XC skiers, the mushers, and the hike/snowshoers sharing the trails. I do all of the above but stay off sled trails for your same reasoning. Even though 95% of the riders just cruise it's the 5% that give snowmobiling a bad rap. The only good thing is you can hear em coming for miles, and get out of the way if you see a snow cross racer wannabe in a full kit. It has been the best riding year around here since 2003.

Well, I did the deed, bit the bullit or whatever you want to call it. It's just another payment coming to my house. Got it used,it seems to be pretty sound. I hope it'll get me to G-town.

I added some styling touches when I got home......

The window looks too angled to be the Element so I'm guessing it's the Xterra. That's my guess, the Xterra.

Nice color choice...
"red makes you faster" haha.

Ding! You win.....no prize.

I can't believe you let the kids bully you into that. Well, at least it has a First Aid kit and roof rails.

yaaaaaaa! He got the Xterra

I know my winter pics are starting to get old but I had to share this one. This year there was a new procedure for snow removal where the city was no longer allowed to dump the snow into the river. So all over the city we have snow dumps. The dump trucks drop off the snow and then they have this crazy snow blower thing that flings the snow way up high. This is a pic of one of those snow mountains. This is normally flat ground. For an idea of scale the power lines you see above are high-tension lines that are usually very high up. Apparently they had to be raised because of these snow mountains. The lower lines you see are the regular height for power lines.

You could get in some snowboarding.......

Are you serious? How were they able to get away with that so long...do you guys salt your roads out there?

Yes, the roads are salted here. It was a disgusting habit but the province and the city have been doing a really good job with cleaning up the waterways around here. There are parts around the island of Montreal that are now swimmable. As a kid nothing was safe around here but it's been improving slowly and steadily.

Dammit, who cares about people...I'm thinking more in terms of the impacts to the aquatic ecosystem.

The improvements are there all around. I was just using the swimming reference as a single indicator but it is by no means the only one.

There's been a big push over the years to go green with a lot of things. Herbicides and pesticides have effectively been banned. I've noticed that the level of salting has decreased and been partially replaced with fine gravel. I don't know if this last one is fact, it's just what I observed.

Just razzing ya...things aren't any better out this way. You should see what the oilsands area looks like! I was doing a bunch of work in a pristine forested area slated in 2004 and didn't get back up to that area until 2006...I felt sick when I saw what they had torn out. And I helped it happen too.

I once stumbled across a clear-cut forest and that broke my heart. It just looked so awful. It was somewhere north of Quebec City and I was participating in a rally as part of a service crew. Since rallies typically use forestry roads we end up wandering in forestry land. It just stunned me.

Imagine clear-cut forest combined with huge open pits, drainage ditching everywhere, and massive machinery all over the place.

We're also having issues with forestry activity around the Calgary area...there is potential for a lot of our trails to disappear in the next few years.

Hey cool truck there '66.

I've been sick for the last week or so and I'm just starting to feel halfway decent again. Here it is daylight savings and I've yet to ride after work. I've just pretty much felt like crap the last several days. However, I did get bored enough sitting around the house to take a picture of some jam in my kitchen.

photo jam?

I can relate. It's tough to reconcile that sometimes.

Lot of professional ecologists have that same vibe.

Feels like they're just doing an inventory of species that are about to get bulldozed.

Much of the "environmental" work we do just gets the authorizations for stuff to get paved over.

Verrry purdy; nice that it has the rounded-topped wheel wells. I'm so bummed that they felt they had to later do the ugly flat-topped GM treatment to them. Nice rig!


Used to be the standard around here too. Spokane is reforming to the point to where they only occasionally crap directly into the river and pump industrial waste into it. And people wonder why I live on the side of the mountain and don't lust for water frontage

Nice choice in vehicle there 66.

I was on the right hand side of the road today fo a little bit, long story, but i dont know how you guys do it. That stuff's whack.

nah, strawberry.

fyi, elfs morning turd is worth more than your car.



I like the xterra although I am going with the element this spring. its stupid looking I know, but I don't need another 4x4 and its seems like it will fit the bill nicely as far as a bike/stuff carrier