Re: a cross country skiing question

In article <1141049340.492009.31010@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
rodrig462@xxxxxxxxx wrote:


Ha! How many Americans live where there is a reliable (safe) cycling
environment! : )

Reliable, most. Safe, I don't know. In the Twin Cities, we have
rails-to-trails trails that are very safe for biking, and we have wide
(6 ft+) shoulders on the road. Our metro area is about 2.5 million, I
think. There have to be other good parts of the country.

Do we have even 10 million people living where there's enough natural
snow to XC ski, say, 50 days a year? Then take out the people who are
too old, too young, too fat, too injured, doing other sports, and so on,
and how many are left?


The only place I have noticed crosscountry skiiing is golf courses. It
generates a little winter revenue, I guess.

We have lots of city and county parks with groomed trails.

Norway seems to do alright with less than half that amount, 5M.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/no.html

Sweden would be a better example, 10M:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sw.html

Norway has half the amount of the 10 million I threw out there. But I'd
bet they have more than the number of people we have who aren't too old,
too young, too fat, too injured, doing other sports, and so on.

I used to think that foreign athletes were drawn to the U.S. because
the economy had enough fat in it to support athletes needing a reliable
income stream and training environment. I now see it as a global
phenomenon. The U.S.A. has had many athletes overseas for sometime,
especially track and hoops.

As far as Olympic men's hockey and basketball go, I am beginning to
think that the leagues paying the most do *not* necessarily have the
highest level of play.

They probably have the best athletes, but that doesn't always translate
well into a hastily assembled "team" that barely practices together.


--Harold Buck


"Hubris always wins in the end. The Greeks taught us that."

-Homer J. Simpson
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