North Shore Virgin

You may remember Jason from my trip to the US of A back in April - well, we finally got out on bikes together yesterday for his first ever ride on the The North Shore. Mohahahahahah!
I wasnt at all sure of Jason's ability but I thought CBC would be ok so long as we took it slow and eyeballed all the obstacles before trying to ride them.................and then it rained!

Well, it wasnt actually raining cos you dont ride CBC in the rain, but the trail was still wet.
Here he is chasing himself across the millenium log




















Fortunately, Jason turned out to be a good technical rider so he was able to ride just about anything I threw at him - the only trouble was - as with anyone faced with this kind of trail for the first time, he wasnt a believer! The CBC trail has hundreds of gnarly bits that dont look ridable on first glance... but they are - you just have to BELIEVE!















After a while, he got it and was doing really well.




















We emerged from CBC with Jason having ridden 99.9% of it - well done mate!
Unfortunately, because we were playing on each bit as we came down, it took a couple hours and so he was real tired - and we still have 2/3 of the mountain to ride! We made it down the rest in another hour, both in one piece!




















On the lower mountain, I rode two bits that had been bugging me - a techy drop off a huge bolder and a downhill ladder drop - sweet! :-) so all in all it was a stella ride!

Thanks Jase, let me know when you wanna go again!

Goodbye girls :-(

A sad couple of days. Two of my best friends have gone home :-(
















Yesterday Noo (above right) went back to Thailand to earn some money before going to do her Masters Degree in San Francisco so I may well never see her again. Good luck Noo.
















And today Kiyoka has gone back to Japan for the summer. Of course nothing is ever as simple as that with her - she'll be spending a few days in California on the way home - lucky cow! I'll miss her. She's always so full of energy.....
















When she's not lying on the beach.....
















or "studying" in the library.....
















or having lunch with her friends....
















or studying in the library (again)......















or just working hard on an assignment. I'll miss you Kiyo, but don't forgot it'll be my birthday a few days after you come back - I hear camcorders are real cheap in Japan ;-)

Playland!

Every time I'm come to Vancouver I've wondered if it really is a roller coaster I can see just off the highway by the bridge. Well, it is! Its at a small amusement park called Playland and it opened last weekend for the summer so off we went!

You can walk round the whole place in about ten minutes but they have managed to pack in quite a lot.
Here's the view from the first ride - a big swingy, wurly thing.





























and they had one of those straight up and down things too - the view from the top was fantastic - for the half second it lasted as you plumet back towards mother earth!





























The second most frightening thing actually turned out to be this 50yr old wooden roler coaster















It looked so quaint - and olde worlde wooden roller coaster, we had to try it out just for the historic value















Here's Noo and Terry enjoying the the calm before the storm - what made this so terrifying was the violence of it - I'd swear in a couple places it actually jumps off the tracks and lands back on them again - that together with the fact that if you dont hold on to the bar you'll get thrown out of the thing made it one of the best "thrills" in the roller coaster world.















I forgot what they called this one but it was obviously invented by someone who wanted to know what it would be like to be strapped to the end of a modern windmill mill blade - only three of our lot went on this cos you had to pay extra




















Brave soldiers....




















Noo and I thought the "skyride" looked more fun. Think, really big swing. Two people dangled on the end of a wire which they then winch right up (like 100ft up) so the wire is horizontal















Then one person (me) pulls a release lever and you just fall for a couple seconds before the wire goes tight and you swing all the way up to the other side, stall and back down















Let me tell you.... it was scary! Pulling that release thingy took a lot of doing dangling face down 100ft above the concrete! It was fun though :-)

The survivors




















All in all a brilliant day - I had to go home and lay down cos my body just wanted to STAY STILL! Surprizingly good for such a small park.

Happy Birthday!

On May 18th Kiyoka finally put the teegage years behind her, 20 at last!
















Trung got 20 of her closest friends together for dinner at a Japanese restaurant and even got her a cake - awwww!



































Actually it was an ice-cream cake.

She'll love me for putting these photo's up - but she's too far away to beat me senseless!! Ha!
















And look - who knew I could eat ice-cream with chop-sticks!

Back to school

Did I tell y'all about my grades? I think I did well:

A+ Business Mathematics
A+ Human Resource Management
A Business Management Essentials
A- Business fundamentals in Canada
B+ Business Law

Well I'm happy anyway.

After a weekend in my sickbed, school was back in today. It wasn't much fun being ill but I only had two classes so not too bad. Business Statistics seems quite interesting - making sense of irrelevant facts and figures is right up my street - sad eh! Two people from my last math class have already asked for me email address once they heard my grade! Fools!

And French, oh la la! (?) French was quite fun but I suspect it'll get a lot harder very quickly! I'll be sitting with my friend Aachal so we'll go through the pain together! I think we'll survive this week but our first test is Monday!! Eeeek! C'est la vie!

Kiyoka persuaded (well, insisted) I buy some medicine so I did and I have to admit I do feel a bit better........ Thanks Kiyo.

First ride.....

Ehhh! Not bad, not bad at all....
















I need to make a few (gear-related) adjustments but let me tell you, this bike is sweeeeeeeet!
I just took it for a quick lap of my local trail - Mt Seymour - you may have heard of it - and I'm quite pleased :-) I realise now I'm on a big bike how unfit I am - the Foreplay was hiding the fact that I can't pedal for toffee! This was my first time down CBC this year - they've done quite a bit of work on it and it flows real nice - massive fun on the Shocker.... this thing eats rocks like nobody's and gave me the confidence to take some crazy lines - its real stiff too - across the gnarliest off-camber roots on the planet it held tight and straight. Sweeeeeeeeet!

40 minutes of steep, sweet, gnarly, rocky, rooty singletrack - It's not too bad living here :-)

"New paint, new rubber"

At long last my new frame arrived.....















She's lovely.....some nice details too like the maxle rear axle and the decent cable routing (I hadn't finished the bike when I took the pics)

Ok, so that's three (Cove) bikes, I admit I cant actually ride three at once......maybe two!?















The family














Time for a little riding me thinks........ :-]

Tour guide for the day in North Vancouver

My dear friend Christy wanted me to take us all on a tour of North Vancouver - so on Tuesday, off we went (and for the first time we used all six seats in the truck- a good thing we're close!)

We started with the Cypress lookout. You can see a looooooooong way from here
















When not taking photos, Kiyoka was picking dandelions
















going clockwise, Philip from Poland, Christy from Hong Kong, Asa and Ema from Japan
















she made me a ring.....
















Deep Cove - these bears have appeared all over Vancouver and will be auctioned for charity later in the year















Our final stop was Mt Seymour - I took the group on a little stroll in the forest - ending in a walk down one of the bike trails which I think surprised them a little!

Kiyoka being her usual freindly self....















There seems to be something in Asia girls' DNA which compells them to constantly take pictures...



















I think everyone had as good a time as me, it was fun, but I dont think I'll be opening for business as a guide any time soon! LOL!

Was it windy in Stanley Park?

Hell yes! Unfortunately the slight breeze in North Vancouver that I thought "might be rather pleasant" turned out to be a raging tornado at Stanley Park! - but we went anyway!

Since I've been here I've wanted to do the tourist thing and cycle round Stanley Park - just on the edge of downtown Vancouver. On Monday I finally did it and of course took my poor long suffering friend with me. I should have know it was a bad sign when I saw the birds flying backwards......

This is across the street from where Kiyoka is living now.....















We stopped for a quick photo op of the yacht club
















and my phone rang....couldnt hear a thing in the wind so had to shelter behind the sculpture thingy. Kiyoka thought it (I) was pretty funny
















After battling our way along the front for about half a mile, we got to Stanley Park where tourists walk, bike, roller blade or take the horse drawn bus round the sea-wall path. Kiyoka had to make friends with Jack and Dan















The far side on the Park was a little more sheltered - no surf on this side anyway. And a nice view of Lions Gate bridge with Cypress Mountain in the background
















After the exhausting couple of miles we were forced to stop for sustenance. Only the heathiest food of course - ice cream and chips!




















Being a park they have loads of stuff to do. There's loads of space to enjoy the park, a large(ish) rain forest, cafes, a small zoo and a big aquarium - think - sea-world. We didnt go in there today but settled for a play on the swings. Kiyoka enjoyed it so much.....





















...her head exploded!!





















Despite the wind, it was a really good afternoon and we will certainly go back when the weather is a bit calmer!
















Saw my first racoon today
















Kiyoka chasing a peacock to try and get in a photo it
















Stanley Park - another great thing about Vancouver