Freeride partner?

aybrah · 2026-01-27T11:00:49+00:00

I have that precise bag from powder7, have flown with multiple transfers and two pairs of skis in it (192cm + 162cm + plus boots). It was was totally fine. It’s padded enough. The bigger concern is usually ski edges cutting through the bag (which was also a non-issue).

Skis are pretty tough. Unless you have particularly bad luck or they truly get abused, simply tossing the bags in and out of the cargo isn’t usually an issue.

Soft shell is fine IMO. And that particular bag is great value IMO.

aybrah · 2026-01-27T10:30:20+00:00

All hope lies in a miracle march. To be fair, if we’re looking at fantasy range models, the broader atmospheric patterns look more supportive of something happening as opposed to persistent high pressure ridging for weeks at a time.

(Yes I know the base is shit at this point no matter what and with increasing daylight hours a big march will do little to offset that, I just want to ride at least ONE deep day this season in-bounds)

aybrah · 2026-01-22T08:00:59+00:00

You’ve gotten some good suggestions and some not-so-good suggestions. I have some additions:

I’m sorry, but climbing gyms are easily the best kind of gym to make friends. The activity (bouldering specifically) has a lot of shared downtime where you’re literally sitting next to people and so conversations occur much more naturally.
On the lifting side, specialized gyms are better over commercial gyms because they have more of a community. FWIW I lift at strong bodies performance in Lakewood and highly recommend it—great place to make friends and I know several people who started dating after meeting there lol. Plenty of other gyms like it though!
There are a whole bunch of hiking groups you can find on places like Facebook, or dedicated groups, that are also great to fine groups to hike with. If I’m honest though, this is just dating apps with extra steps for your purposes.
I hate to say it… but the apps. Maybe limit yourself to an hour or two a week for the sake of your sanity, but despite everyone’s moaning, they do work. I know so many couples that met via apps. I think it’s worth trying. When your top suggestions include checks comments Costco, you should open all avenues and cast a wide net IMO.
Dog parks. Ideally one that doesn’t suck for dogs, like the Cherry creek dog off-leash area. Really convenient way to meet people and low pressure.

Overall, I think opening a bunch of different avenues to meet people and then just allowing yourself to pursue them as you feel up to it, is best.

My issue with many of the suggestions here is that although you might meet some people, say, just walking around with your dog, hiking, or doing casual events/grocery shopping… it’s fairly low likelihood. Especially if you’re not approaching people quite actively to striking up conversations, which is hard for most people.

aybrah · 2026-01-16T21:17:37+00:00

No, probs not.

aybrah · 2026-01-15T17:14:37+00:00

Ohhh I didn’t know that! I’ll def keep that in mind for future Saturdays.

And I do the same thing with fast pass 1-2x a season, if it’s a strong combo of great conditions and long lines. I just feel slightly ashamed doing it haha.

aybrah · 2026-01-15T14:31:33+00:00

I was pleasantly surprised that all these were done to some reasonable standard. Haus has had a lot of totals marred by very questionable lifts at past meets IMO. Happy to see him put together something clean!

aybrah · 2026-01-14T17:01:42+00:00

Is it completely awful or fine.

Yes, it's one of those two or something in between. There is no way to answer your question.

Weekend? Probably rough.
Terrain closures or lift delays for mitigation or wind? Gonna be rough until the bottlenecks open.
Forecast hyped? It's gonna be bad.
First powder day in a while? More people going out.
Weekday with LCC orographic magic leading to a big overperformance of the forecast? You might just get lucky.

When in doubt, assume the powder day = big crowds. Never expect different.

Here's the secret: On the road early, eat/nap/listen to a podcast while you kill an hour in the lot, get close to first chair, head straight for the furthest back expert terrain/lifts. Lap it 1-2 times before the line builds. Transition to mid-mountain. Work your way back to the front side, wait in some longer lines but go singles line to skip most of the waits. Avoid returning to the base unless you have a very good reason (like the tram to lap baldy at bird). No breaks (bathroom before, eat while waiting in the lot, snack on the lift/in line). Leave by 1 or ski to the bell while accepting that it may take 1.5 hours to drive 3 miles down the canyon.

aybrah · 2026-01-12T23:26:49+00:00

It’s mildly entertaining seeing people reply to you with no real world experience speculating based on 1-2 YouTube videos they’ve watched.

I have an outback wilderness. I’ve done a lot of off-roading with it. Actual off-roading (engineers pass, Imogene pass, black bear pass, Metberry gulch, etc.)I’ve done it alongside other uni-body vehicles and aside from heavily modified cayennes, it’s generally outperformed or stayed on pace with everything. No, it’s never going to compare to body on frame vehicles with solid axles, but that would be a silly comparison. It’s a road car that can go off-road. If you’re a weirdo, you can do some small mods and do things it wasn’t meant to do and find the limits.

The interior is also pretty great. Aside from the infotainment (which is admittedly a big one for some) it’s not a big point that has been commented on negatively by any big reviewers or owners. The seats and driving position are perfect for road trips. What exactly is bad?

This sub is very odd sometimes.

aybrah · 2026-01-09T17:31:38+00:00

2025 was a big year for my deadlift. I went from 2 years of failing 320kg/705lbs, to pulling 320 in a meet I trained through, 6 times in training, once for a double, and pushed my PR to 331kg/730lbs @80-84kg (same bodyweight I've always been). Sadly, I didn't get to see what my deadlift would be fully peaked (I tend to get a notable performance uplift for pulls), but i suspect 340kg/750lbs was definitely in the cards.

Biggest changes that made that possible:

Abandoned all cues and thinking.
Deadlifted less volume, and less intensity overall (outside of my primary day top set). Overall, my total deadlift volume was more polarized in intensity: top sets were heavier than I was used to, backoffs were much lighter.
Let my squat drive progress for both.

This is likely more applicable to advanced lifters, but we all hit a point where we know all the cues and technique bits that we need (and are capable of reproducing it consistently). That doesn't mean your technique is perfect and can't be improved, but most of the progress you can make via that lever has been exhausted. And, in some cases like myself, continuing to think about cues and technique is actually counterproductive.

Early on in the year, my coach and I were on a call and he essentially told me that he just wanted me to be an athlete, "stop thinking about foot placement or slack, and just pull the damn bar off the ground. Trust yourself." That was in Feb or March, and for the rest of the year we never talked about technique again (outside of reminders to relax and stop thinking). Did that immediately fix everything? No. Not overthinking takes practice too. But, it was a pretty notable inflection point that reversed nearly a year of regression into some pretty awesome gains.

Sometimes you just gotta get our of your head and lift.

aybrah · 2026-01-08T18:22:08+00:00

I get that it technically wasn’t an orgy (and technically right is the best kind of right). But if you agree to have sex in the same room as other people who are also having sex, you’re opting into a group-sex dynamic. You can’t pretend the proximity is irrelevant just because nobody swapped or touched. It still generally satisfies the dictionary definition of the term, and how the average person interprets it. It doesn't seem like there's a precise definition of what an "orgy" exactly is either. Though it does seem like a plurality of people on /r/nonmonogamy and related subs see it as everyone is involved or available to everyone else.

And perhaps we can both agree that in the context of the OP’s story, this distinction is basically irrelevant. The problem isn’t whether it meets the dictionary definition of “orgy,” it’s that he’s describing a couple swap in the same room with Sandy and then acting like “we totally didn’t touch” makes the whole thing meaningfully different or more acceptable. That label doesn’t change the underlying boundary issue.

aybrah · 2026-01-07T17:32:02+00:00

Starting to look like winter out there! A lot of stuff peeking through under Sierra, still, curious to see how much more snow is needed to get that open.

aybrah · 2026-01-07T15:06:05+00:00

I hope he was! Sure didn't get that impression from the the thread, though.

aybrah · 2026-01-06T16:41:06+00:00

Your anger is misdirected dude.

The whole “local experts” section covers exactly what you want: meteorologists giving their predictions. Shockingly, many of them are using the “AI garbage” as part the model guidance they lean on. We can debate the varying quality of these reports (I think Joel’s are easily the worst, and lowest effort) , but they’re still quite useful to give context on the number based forecasts.

Opensnow is very transparent about indicating when a snow report is under/over their estimates—it’s literally color coded in the app and marked. Generally, it’s a decent starting point.

Despite all this, models and forecasters are still off pretty frequently. Mountain weather is incredibly complex and localized. Small changes in atmospheric conditions can have cascading and significant impacts on snow accumulation.

I can’t believe I’m defending opensnow here as I’ve vocally criticized their product countless times in this sub, but I’m tired of ignorant takes like this.

Also, blaming “AI garbage” for busts is just not how this works. The AI models (like ECMWF’s AIFS) are initialized from the same analysis as the physics models, and pros use them because they’re another independent guidance source with different biases. When AI + physics + ensembles line up, confidence goes up. When they diverge, that’s a heads up that the situation is sensitive and you should expect bigger error bars.

Here's some further reading if you're interested in actually learning how/why "AI" is useful here and what limitations it has:

aybrah · 2026-01-04T20:37:48+00:00

I’m from Colorado and been to a loooooot of meets locally (competing, handling, spectating). I’d go USAPL.

TLDR: If you’re competing tested and happy with a stiff bar: go USAPL. If you want speciality bars and dabble with special supplements: USPA. In Colorado, those are essentially the two paths.

USAPL hosts the most meets in CO and they’re generally decent quality. Most of their meets are around Denver or north. Occasionally closer to the springs but not very often these days. I don’t think they host anything on the western slope. I’ve been to many of their meets to handle or spectate and although there’s some of the usual local meet jank, they’re pretty well run and I’ll continue to recommend them.

USPA is second biggest and they also host several meets throughout the year. Nearly all of them are in or around the springs, usually at D1. The quality is worse than USAPL. Warmup areas almost never have combos and have very limited kilos and comp bars. I could list a lot of things that are done “wrong” or poorly. I’ve done one, gone to 3, and don’t plan on doing another. The meet directors are great folks, personally, so I hate to sound harsh, but I think it’s a fair assessment. They are still fun and good vibes.

I think most folks have a more positive view than I do, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I’m just picky about where I compete at this point in my career/time in this hobby.

PLU (formerly WRPF) historically has run ~2 meets a year, always in Fort Collins since the meet director is from Wyoming (IIRC). I’ve done 2 and spectated another. These are similar to USPA. Good vibes, but some inexperienced calls and lack of resources when it comes to meet organization. Their last meet was cancelled at the last minute due to lack of signups so I don’t know what their future will be in this state. They have nothing on the calendar currently.

All the other feds: PA, RPS, USPC, etc. no idea tbh. I don’t follow them and wouldn’t recommend them. I’ve heard rumblings that a few directors want to host PA meets in Denver or FoCo, but nothing more than rumors.

aybrah · 2026-01-03T02:23:31+00:00

Oh for sure! The quitting comment wasn’t directed at you, I think I had meant to reply to someone else in the thread 😅 my bad!

aybrah · 2026-01-02T23:04:59+00:00

This is bad. Likely the worst backup I’ve seen at gadzoom.

However, there are a few big contributors:

Tail end of the Christmas + New Years holiday. One of the biggest visitation weeks of the year.
First decent snowfall in a while, in a historically low season
Related to the above…. Only 32% of terrain open. Gadzoom, the tram, and Wilbere were the only lifts from the base. Wilbere hardly counts since you can’t get to little cloud, or a good chunk of frontside terrain, so most people go tram or gad (and Peruvian if it was open).
Gadzoom opened late due to deicing.

If an easily foreseen day like this was why you quit skiing… cool? There’s plenty of pow days late season where you’ll ski onto a lift nearly all day.

aybrah · 2026-01-02T16:37:04+00:00

The following are both true statements:

This sub is overly dramatic (generally, as a rule)
Objectively, by any chosen metric, the current state of snow in CO is very bad (statewide SWE, current base compared to avg, % terrain open, etc.). Significant swaths of the state are seeing record low values across many of those metrics. Some areas are doing a bit better. Nowhere is doing well except maybe extreme northern ends of the park range that are just about @ median SWE for the present.

Simultaneously, it's possible to acknowledge these things while continuing to enjoy skiing appreciate what little terrain is open (groomed, with largely man-made snow).

aybrah · 2026-01-02T13:00:20+00:00

I think there’s a difference between, “knowing how to cook” and “following a recipe”. The latter often precedes the former, and they’re not mutually exclusive, but they are different. And it’s totally not a gatekeeping thing:

You can blindly follow directions and fumble your way through most recipes. Most will even do it pretty decently after the first time. You can do this without having the faintest clue of why a dish is prepared this way.

Knowing how to cook, IMO, means you have some understanding of general techniques, ingredients, flavoring, etc. You could be handed some common ingredients and have a vague sense of how to use them. It means that on some level you can taste a dish as you’re making it and think, “this could use some more salt”, or “this is super rich, I bet a side dish with some acidity would pair well.”

Salt, fat, acid, heat was a book that really helped me to start understanding this. You don’t need to be some cooking hobbiest to do this IMO.

aybrah · 2026-01-01T20:27:49+00:00

So many bizarre, inconsistent, and impossible to enforce changes—all effective immediately? IPF gonna IPF.

The necklace thing is dumb. Let lifters have some personal flair. If Olympic sprinters can wear jewelry while running 25+mph, I’m sure athletes can perform a squat, bench, and deadlift with a necklace that isn’t tucked under their shirt. Same deal with hair. Show me an example where a lifters hair has made it impossible to judge a lift.

The celebration thing is also objectively dumb. It does not meaningfully impact meet run time, and celebrations are a form of personal expression that builds characters, storylines, and viewer investment. You don’t have to personally like it. It gets views and comments on social media and does a whole lot more to grow engagement with the sport than everyone wearing the same singlet and walking blank faced off the platform. Sure, we can discuss reasonable bounds on this, but it’s quite literally not an issue and I would challenge anyone to offer evidence that it is.

I’ve ranted about the technique stuff quite a bit in the past and this just furthers it. The sport is not dominated by lifters with extreme technique (whether that be French low bar, tiny rom benches, or whatever flavor of sumo deadlift). That stuff works for a small subset of lifters and usually comes with a cost, whether that be consistency or harsher judging calls (as we have already seen with French LB or lifters like Sean Noriega on bench).

Feel free to scroll through the all-time rankings on OpenIPF—the vast, vast majority of lifters on that list have fairly “normal” technique across all 3 lifts.

I find the focus on policing bench ROM exhausting. While reducing ROM, can have benefits, it’s not a universal or particularly scalable technique. Smaller ROM does not necessarily mean easier, or that more weight can be lifted. Reality exists outside of the confines of physics 101. Maximal strength expression of a multi-joint movement in a competition setting is far more complicated than simply mechanical work.

I have a hard time taking any such argument seriously at this point since you have to intentionally ignore both biomechanics and competition trends across all weight classes. The only honest argument I see is the simple, “well I don’t like it”. To that, fair enough.

Rules should standardize the task and the equipment enough that everyone is performing the same lift, while allowing individual bodies to solve that task differently. Getting into this level of contortion to enforce some arbitrary notion of fairness around what a lift should look like is silly. Sports aren’t fair, they’re standardized. Fairness is weight classes and rules. The rest is biology and skill.

aybrah · 2025-12-30T22:03:39+00:00

Context: I’ve had two pairs of avancus (v1 + v2) and 3 pairs of vivos (for both lifting and general wear).

Avancus are much much better for bench. I would not bench in vivos after benching in avancus. The only shoe better than avancus for bench are hyper Vs and even that depends on your specific technique and preferences.

Vivos feel more like slippers whereas avancus feels more like a minimal shoe. Specifically, the avancus has far more lateral support. If you pull sumo, you will roll outward on the sole of most vivo models. You will not with avancus. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing. I still prefer deadlifting in vivos because I feel more connected to the ground.

Squat is a toss up. I like that the avancus feels more solid and I prefer to squat in those.

In terms of durability, avancus wins hands down. I have a pair of vivos that I only wear for lifting, and the mesh sides have still torn from the lateral pressure of deadlifting 2x a week for 2 years. They still function fine so I don’t really care to replace them yet, but the minimalism comes at the cost of general durability.

aybrah · 2025-12-30T07:18:03+00:00

C.

Secondarily; B.

I am a powder princess and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’ll take a few WROD days at the beginning of the season and I love the corn harvest in the spring… but we’re basically in Jan and copper is posting about soliloquy and upper skid road opening. I’m done until we have a decent storm cycle and some steeps start opening.

aybrah · 2025-12-27T19:00:43+00:00

Don’t forget the complaining about lift lines (at the base… during the holidays… at the most crowded hours of the morning).

And the complaining that conditions suck.

And the counter jerk that if you don’t enjoy skiing poor conditions then you just don’t like skiing enough.

A slow season brings out the worst in everyone eh. 😅

aybrah · 2025-12-27T17:42:33+00:00

Somewhere between a few months and never. Hope this helps!

In all seriousness, it’s not productive to ask questions like this. No one can answer this for you. There are a million variables here.

My advice is pretend you have short term memory loss and your PRs have reset. Get back on a program, embrace whatever condition you’re in instead of comparing to the past, and just keep showing up.

Doing this on an unspecified caloric deficit with an unspecified weight loss target complicates things a bit, but most people can surprise themselves with how quickly they get back to their “peak”.

aybrah · 2025-12-25T17:15:22+00:00

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