Ben Fisher

Congratulations to Ed, Tina and Sister Holly on their new addition to the family - Ben

Born 23rd May, 9lb 4.5oz

:-D

Another great day on The Shore

I'm sure I wasn't the only English person to get a takeaway from my local curry house on Saturday night. But I wonder how many sat on the beach watching the sunset while they waited for it?










Went for some CBC laps on Sunday in preparation for the Ripper next weekend. I was apprehensive about riding my big bike - especially on the skinnies cos I've developed a bit of a habit of falling of it lately - but I seem to have put that behind me now and rode without incident.

Unfortunately the same cant be said for Derek - after two weeks riding in Peru with no mechanicals, one lap back home on The Shore saw him mangle his mech when landing a drop - it was completely torn apart but fortunately it only took out 2 spokes


Derek did an amazing job of riding the rest of the trails with no chain - riding some bits I thought were uphill! But it seemed it was time to call it a day so off to the pub we went ;-)



I'll be back on CBC with Rich and Jon in the week....

Sunshine Coast Club Ride

Today was the clubride to The Sunshine Coast - a stretch of mainland that's much quicker to get to by ferry. The trails are quite mellow by Shore standards but they're loamy and soooooo much fun :-) 50+ people turned up

Jon Getting his skinny on







Almost Rich....













Jon was on it today













as was Rich












lunch before our final lap of the day. I was riding pretty well - I got everything I tried including the swival-teeter and a couple super-skinnies - I did leave the bigger drops to Rich and Jon - With my recent crash history I'm spooked by anything bigger than me! - but I'm not worried, there's no shortage of drops to play on in these parts ;-)






but all too soon it was over. A great day with sweet trails and good company.

Unfortunately we did have one real low point when Michele had a BIG crash on not-such-a-good run out from a great jump - she's pretty beaten up and has some great tire tracks across her legs (which were actually made by the impact of her leg armour) heal soon Miss Michele!

I'm off to CBC tomorrow with Derek (fresh back from Peru) for some practice before the CBC Ripper next week - I'm going to take the big bike which should be interesting - I havent managed to ride it properly this year so far - I keep falling off it! With such a good day today on my fantastic Brodie, I'm hoping I can transfer some skills onto the beast :-S

Graduation

Last night was graduation and the Convocation Ceremony somewhere in deepest Surrey (BC - not the home counties!)











big place, lots of people














sting quartet playing in the lobby


























just about the only other grad that I know, Nicole












My favourite teacher, Antonis Parras has just retired and was getting a special award for 26 years of teaching. I initially thought he was crazy but it turns out he's actually a great guy. It was good to see him honoured









a loooooooong queue to go in













bagpipes?........ Whatever!!!!













Lots of hands to shake on stage













Oh, and did I mention I got a "Distinction"?
3.75 GPA :-)




In a couple weeks, I'll get the photo's from the ceremony so stay tuned!

Licensed to... err, drive

A nervous and careful me headed off the other day to take my British Columbia driving test.


While I've been a student I've been allowed to use my UK license but now school is over I had to do the test - a few weeks back I got 95% on the theory test so I was all set for my road test....









....and I passed! Yay!. (breathes out). Fancy eh? :-)

Its finally open for the summer!!

All summer people flock to it and all winter people talk about it. Spring is here, the weather has warmed up and it's time to get your season pass cos it opened on May 19th!!









You thought I was talking about Whistler Bike Park didnt you? Well you'd be WRONG - I'm talking about the other thing that opened on the 19th - Kits Pool ;-)

It's literally a 5 min walk from my door so it's a bit like the hotel pool - I bought a 3 month pass for 50 quid so now I'm all set.

On my first dip I quit after 8 lengths as I didnt want to wake up and regret it the next day - think you'd have done better? I have to admit it is a salt water pool so the floatation should be better but it is quite long as pools go. In fact, it's really rather long. In fact it's the longest pool in Canada at 137 metres!!!! (thats 445ft Pa) or 5.5 times your average pool - so I guess that means I did the equivilent of 44 lengths or over a kilometre :-) I feel better now.

It's quite a treat to swim in - imagine swimming 5.5 lengths before you bump into the wall - in fact its so long I find it hard to swim in a straight line - if I'm not above a black line I weave left and right so much you'd think I'd been at the Sherry! It's quite odd in the middle of the pool too - you can look in any direction and you cant see the sides!

I went for my second session today, and did a dozen lengths - 11 here is over a mile so I think I'll concentrate on doing it non stop from here on in.

Anyway, if you have the means, I highly recommend an enormously gigantic outdoor pool on a sunny day - followed by a walk on the beach - ahh, this is the life :-)

Eagle - The Return

After living for 17 months in Canada I finally got to go back to Eagle Ridge...or is that Eagle Mountain? .....I'm not sure what the name is but I was sure I wanted to go back there since having to roll gently down it nursing some fresh injuries back in '05 with Mr Smoke

As Johnny likes to say it's "more 'core than The Shore". What he means is (I think) its like The Shore used to be many moons ago, before the high use, errosion and subsequent armouring of the trails. Sweet! :-) (the old style trails that is, not the other stuff)



Rich made the mistake of mentioning he was going there so immediately found himself with two extras with funny accents - Jon and I.

This pic is Rich "sending it" off the biggest jump on Four Lost Souls - a fun trail for sure - non stop jumps from top to bottom












The original English guy (I'm "the other English guy")












Rich again













Amber - she'd just come back from the Sea Otter in Nor Cal and by the time I got round to writing this she'd just podiumed at the Canada Cup DH in Quebec, or maybe Quebec's this weekend? Well, you get the idea - she's pretty nifty on a bike - this was her first ride on her new Brodie
DH bike but it didnt seem to take her long to get the size of it






and where are the pics of me? I took my big bike out but unfortunately couldnt seem to ride it today. I lined up a small drop onto some roots but spotted a nice line off to the left - unfortunately I went so far left I missed the line and landed my front wheel behind a big rock which did an impressive job of stopping the bike before the back wheel had a chance to touch down with predictable consequences for me. I was pretty winded and bruised so sat out the rest (ie 95%) of the day. Its all ancient history now (aside from the broken shifter).

I have to thank Julie and Barry for letting us join them and of course Rich and Amber. Oh and I hope you all accept my apologies for my hopeless riding !!

I guess my return attack on Eagle will have to wait another 2 years!

North Shore Ripper #2 - SuperD

Rich, Jon, Michele and I were Team "Compliment Sandwich" for the 2nd Ripper. This one goes from the top of Seymour, down 2/3 of the way, climbs back up 1/3 and then finishes with 2/3 downhill - so i guess that means we climb 1/3 of a mountain :-( but descend 4/3 :-D

Click here for the full story on NSMB

Great fun for all the family - as long as they can ride black-diamond trails that is ;-)
We didnt win but winning wasnt the point.

Stay tuned for the next Ripper on June 2nd - the CBC/Corkscrew observed downhill - that means that as well as a 15min downhill, there are stunts that give you bonus marks along the way ;-)

Marvelous!

Spring on the West Coast

Spring is in the air - at last! It's been a pretty rainy April but now that May has rolled around it's starting to look like Summer at last so we've been getting a lot more riding in. Especially since I've finished school. Oh, and I finished with a GPA this semester of 4.06 putting my on the Presidents Honour Roll again and overall it was 3.75 so my Diploma is "with Distinction" - not bad for an old boy!




Did my first day on Cypress last month - in fact this photo was taken just minutes after my nephew was born - this is prob the gnarliest bit of "5th Horseman" - its a gnarly rock section with two big steps close together and all steep - Derek and I spent the best part of half an hour scoping the line - then Derek stuck it, and I went over the bars on the run-in! Ouch - its better now though.












This was the beach last month - no-one in sight when I was running












some major driftwood's view of the city














Derek again - last week he forgot his riding shorts so had to reconfigure his wardrobe for the ride!
...no, not a skirt - trousers under his armour

oh, and notice we were still riding on snow last week!














last sunday was a trail day on Seymour - I missed the first two due to injury so was glad to get onto this one to help maintain our world class trails - the pic is from Corkscrew - I went for a walk there during the massive BBQ lunch















Work is a bit scarse at the moment so i signed onto a temp agency - here's me before i went to the interview - its been about 2 years since I wore a suit!









* WARNING: Bike content may bore some readers senseless *

I've been loving my little bike lately but now the trails are getting dryer (and faster) I've been feeling like I need some stronger forks for The Shore. Thank the lord for ebay - top of the line forks for end of line clearout bargain bucks! I was a little worried that they might be heavier - lord knows I dont want to carry anymore weight up Fromme! - naturally I havent got any scales so I employed a little ingenuity, a bit of wood and a tape measure and - Bob's your dad! A scale! Turned out they weighed exactly the same!!















as Fonzie would say: "eeeyyyyy"

Say hello to my (almost) new Fox 36 Talas Forks















And after fitting them, I went out for a quick test ride down the beach :-)






It was a little busier tonight













Just a quick snap of my kool lil' bike :-)

(spot the Heron)











Everyone gathers to watch the sunset - its like that Meg Ryan/Nic Cage film - something about Angels where they all watch the sunrise












The beach - well kinda



We (The Compliment Sandwich Team AKA Jon, Rich, Michele and I) are off to the second Ripper tomorrow - the SuperD - we go down about 30mins, up 10mins, down 20mins. Wish us luck :-)

It could just have been my last snow day at Whistler :-(

The first day of May and we're STILL skiing hahaha - its so crap here ;-)

Kiyoka and I had a spare day so we went to grab a late slice of Blackcomb snow...


....obviously starting with coffee, this is Canada y'know.





As you can plainly see here, Asian people (lovely as they are) have strange hands - whenever you point a camera at them their fingers take on a life of their own...
















Obviously, with my razor sharp sense of humour, I was able to make a subtle yet hysterical jape of the whole hand/finger affliction ;-)

....and all while eating pizza - proving once and for all that men can indeed multi-task!













Some action pics...














The snow wasnt too bad - a little icy before lunch, a little slushy after, not anything to worry about










I certainly didn't master moguls on a snowboard today, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all












It was a fun day though. I managed to avoid falling on any of my recent injuries (of which I have a fair choice) and we even got a few decent pics









and when I say "we" got some decent pics, I think we both know who took this one, and who'll be slapping me when she sees this!

..... that neck's gonna hurt in the morning!



Ah well, bike park opens in 2 weeks!!!