Working in Victoria

I spent a few days recently working on a move for the government in Victoria. There offices weren't too special..... except for the view - the (cough cough) historic Empress Hotel on the left, and the Provincial Parliment building straight across the harbour - if they made it into apartments they'd sell for millions








and at night, they turn the pretty lights on - awww!

June is Bike Month

It rains in Vancouver. It rains a lot.... No really, it rains A LOT. England doesnt have rain, it has drizzle. Meanwhile, I'm beginning to understand why the rainforest thrives here. But it's Summer right? It's June? It's guaranteed good weather - why else would they make June Bike Month? Well, you're part right, it's June. But after that false start to "summer" with us all being baked within an inch of our lives in Whistler 2 weeks ago, the weather has turned distinctly miserable. June showers.



Of course, we are used to the rain here so it doesnt stop us getting out on our bikes and into the mountains (does it Jon?) and so last saturday's downpour was no match for our Squamish Club ride.

We actually had a great ride :-)
There were ups, downs and more ups but it was great to get up into them there hills (mountains)










After the final hour-ish climb we topped out above the clouds - well, some of them anyway

Riding here's not without its risks of course - it's not only mozi's that bite here - a couple weeks back they found a Grizzly Bear wandering around not far from Squamish - a long way from home and this week a biker in Whistler was chased for ages down by a Cougar - (Mountain Lion). But I think one of the more obvious risks on this ride (aside from Pneumonia) was that of taking a wrong turn into an impromtu base-jump!


I can easily imagine a biker taking the right fork at the top of this trail and heading over the edge thinking he was entering a steep section - I suppose the sudden shift from looking down at tree roots to tree tops will keep most people safe.

The descent was good - as usual - there were some pretty crazy corners - really steep, rocky and tight and a few lovely log rides but all fun, all the time - despite the rain.






And here's moody photographic masterpiece that I like to call Granite in the Mist - to get this shot of The Chief I used a very careful set up consisting of a camera phone, a tinted, rain soaked window of a moving vehicle and a last second lunge of my left arm in the rough direction of outside the van ;-)








And in last minute shock news, here's evidence of me wearing blue in public at the graduation ceromony last month :-)

These are the official photos - available to order for my fans ;-)

Ripper on NSMB

Check out the write up on NSMB and here's a better photo of me - you can see the skeleton gloves in this one....

Hot n dusty in the bike park :-)

Regular reader might remember that the Whistler Bike Park opened a couple weeks back.

We thought it wise to chill out for a couple weeks to let the trails dry out - opening day was a mud fest - well maybe we left it too long cos on Sunday the trails were baked hard and as dusty as a thing that's really dusty!

The sun was shining, the clouds were hiding so it was a scorcher



The Crankworx Festival looks like it will be pretty crazy this year - the course is pretty much finished and there are an awful lot of biiiiig jumps! Thankfully, I'll be sticking with the downhill race and well away from the slopestyle









The milestone event for us was the opening of Dirt Merchant - possibly my favourite trail in the world - endless jumps but mostly very do-able and loads of fun











As usual at Whistler - everyone is there - you see the same people again and again but somehow there always seem to be new hot bike chicks every time we go - ahh, Whistler :-)









...and not forgetting the wildlife. The count today was 2 deer and 5 bears - kinda of cheating a bit as I saw these four (eyes left) together - mummy with 3 little baby bears - real life teddy bears about the size of cats. The pic is a bit blurred but there are 2 on left of mum and 1 on the right - and they were quite content to wander around about 40ft from a bunch of noisy bikers - cool



Stay tuned for more Whistler adventures soon....

CBC Ripper

Saturday saw '07's 3rd North Shore Ripper. This time it was much shorter with a 12 ish minute downhill (down CBC and Corkscrew) which included a sprinkling of time bonuses for riding the gnarly/skinny/tricky line.

At long last, I managed to come up with a costume (Michele's idea - my sewing) and I have to say I was pretty pleased with it :-)

"The Grim Ripper"




I even managed to have a 2 piece sythe so I could strap it to my back for the race (thanks to Jon for helping me get geared up)

















Speak of the devil......
Jon did the race in spite of "absolutely hating CBC" and afterwards he didnt moan about it once - of course that was slightly outweighed by him moaning about it for a month beforehand!!!








This photo was taken by Danielle - Meghan's friend - i love the way you can't be sure if I'm real or just a ghost! :-)

Stay tuned for more pics as i get them and a full report on NSMB.com