What is wrong with us? We should own this.

[Norsesmithy]

Buckets of fun either way, I'd bet.

[goalie]

Camp Ripley has a very nice Biathlon course.

It is a lot harder to shoot, especially the offhand portions, while breathing fast/heavy and a HR above 120.

[solidgun]

I CC skied in HS here in the Cities -- also tried to get into biathlon...it was the rifle that stopped everything. Even if I (my parents) could afford a $2k rifle at age 14 - I'd have had to keep it at home, go home first, get it, then goto practice seperate from the other members of my team. Not worth it, plus the MN State HS League doesn't support biathlon -- no sanctioned practices (no buses or travel expenses paid), no excused absences for competition.

There were two members of my HS team that went on to compete at Olympic trials while freshman in college. One went to school in Maine and could keep his rifle in his dorm -- the other went to school in Michigan where they PROVIDED her rifle (and storage) for her.

Yeah, I tried to do biathlon on my own back in HS days by CC ski at school and carrying a block of wood on a sling. I was fortunate enough to have a gun enthusiast family so custom rifle at that age wasn't too big of a deal, but back then, the biathlon equipment customized for me was around $3000 range and had to order it from a specialized importer through Canada from Europe. It proved to be impractical in the end, but the rifle was used for rimfire matches for my age group so it wasn't a total waste.