ADVENTURE SPORTS BY WINA STURGEON 10/09/07
GET ON YOUR BIKES AND RIDE!Bike season isn't over yet. There's a great race even beginners can do on Saturday, Oct. 13.
It's for Lance Armstrong's Live Strong Foundation, hosted by Utah Valley State College.
The four-race crit allows you to take your pick: beginners can do a mile loop for 20 minutes, intermediates can do the loop for 45 minutes, and the advanced riders---well, they will ride their butts off. Each cat will start at different times. First race begins at 3:00 p.m.
Entry fee is $10. All participants get a tee-shirt, with great prizes for the winners. Pre-register at uvucycling.com, or just show up at the UVSC Parking Lot G in time to register.
FREE TRAM RIDES AT THE 'BIRD
Grab a can of food and head for Snowbird, it's the annual Customer Appreciation Days free tram ride event.
Everyone bringing a can of food gets the scenic tram ride for free. It's always cool to see families, with everyone holding his or her can of food to exchange for a ride up the mountain. Get off at the top, throw snowballs for a while, then catch the next tram back down.
The food all goes to the Utah Food Bank, or you can choose to donate two bucks instead of a can of food. Money donations will go to the Wasatch Adaptive Sports Program.
The tram will run from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 13-14 and 20-21. There will also be live music on the Plaza. The Bungy Trampoline, Ziprider and kiddie rides will also be open, with tickets on sale at the ticket window.
NEW SKI RESORT IN THE SUBURBS?
The snow industry is buzzing about a declaration by Kennecott Copper that the company plans to build a new ski resort in the mountains near Salt Lake City. They supposedly say the terrain will be similar to Deer Valley.
They could be serious. They could also be trying to pull one over on the city planners, which is far more likely.
Kennicott uses its depleted mining areas to build massive housing developments. But the huge mining company also owns a great deal of open space land in the Oquirrh mountains that surround west Salt Lake.
Development and growth have exploded to the west and south of suburban Salt Lake, so much so that residents of those areas are demanding limits.But what better way to do an end run around the citizens demanding more open space than by promising to build a ritzy resort, and predicting new jobs and lots of tourist dollars?
The reason it could just be a scam to get zoning variances and building permits? Lack of cold and lack of snow. Most of all, lack of altitude. Just the base of Snowbird, for example, is nearly a quarter mile higher than the base area being suggested for the alleged resort. Anyone who knows the area knows that the Oquirrhs are not mountains, they are hills---the last ones to get snow, and the first place it melts.
USOC APOLOGIZES---205 TIMES
Marion Jones' guilty plea to using steroids has caused some writer's cramp at the United States Olympic Committee.
The USOC has sent letters to 205 national Olympic Committees and governing bodies of track and field, as well as to the 'people of Australia,' where Jones won five medals in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The letters were all hand signed by USOC president Peter Ueberroth, and said, in part, that the U. S. team that comes to the 2008 Beijing Olympics will all be 'clean.'
WORLD CHAMP SKELLY PILOT OUT AGAIN
Noelle Pikus-Pace is out for the season again. But this time, it's a good thing. Pikus-Pace, you may remember, is the skeleton pilot who was the world champion before being hit by a runaway bobsled that broke her leg just before last year's Torino Olympics. She couldn't come back in time to compete, but after her leg healed, she jumped back in and regained her world champion title for 2007.
Now Pikus-Pace is six months pregnant. Her baby girl will be born in January, and Noelle won't be lying on her stomach, riding a tiny sled 70 mph down an icy track, until afterwards.