repair

I somehow managed a tear in my snowboarding pants the last time I was out riding. Since technical gear is expensive, and I don't want / can't afford to replace these pants any time soon repairing them became the only viable option. I ventured to the local jo-jo fab to search out some way to repair the rip-stop nylon kind of material they seem to be made out of. I found this inexpensive patch kit. I'm a little wary that these seem to work like band-aids and require no extra gluing or ironing. We'll see

using the patch was pretty self explanatory and I'm pretty bored so I documented the process ....

1) Cleaned the area
much like patching a bicycle tube I cleaned the tear and scuffed it a little
2) Cut three little strips of patch material
Upon reflection I should have cut four strips because the tear went through the pant and the interior powder cuff. That way I could treat them as two different tears and sandwich each with strips.
3) Rolled out bubbles and compressed
4) Tested... hasn't happened yet




**update, this patches survived the season and being washed, pretty awesome and much cheaper than a new pair of pants

kicks update

the shoes leave a little to be imagined. Overall very nice to have the convenience of spds at any moment, but even after breaking them in they still feel like buckets on my feet.

Stybar took the championship again! If you check my twitter I predicated that. No top ten for the US mens as I had dreamed but maybe next year. jpow and page still raced well, even if I couldnt see them on the TV replay. How could the Europeans be so much better? I understand that their talent greatly benefits from the fact that the sport is professional in most of Europe, but nonetheless its not like they hide what kind of courses they use for racing or what kind of plans they use for training, or secretly train on the dark side of the moon. I mean they're not racing against Dolph Lundgren! If asymmetrical information and sheer fitness are not the culprits then what is? US racers report that European cross is a much rougher style of racing, fighting for lines, rubbing elbows and taking every cut throat advantage possible. European riders also run much more often and even unclip one foot going into a turn more often then Americans do..maybe this is enough of a difference...and then maybe we're just dandies