Friday, August 24, 2007

Whistler Wildlife Wonder

Rich, Jon and I took a day off the other day for a little mid-week bike park sesh

As always, we had a great day in the park, I think I've finally got my head round it at last - for some reason I've haven't been "on it" in the park so far this year ...until today! :-)


It kind of felt like a wildlife tour though - we saw more bears than you can shake a stick at! I made it 9 or 12, I lost count. We also saw a couple of deer - this one didnt seem worried by all the bikers tearing past 4ft away








There was also a chipmunk - but I didnt get a picture of that



My favourite though was the WOLF!
Well, I think it was a wolf, it was too big to be a coyote - it took a look at me and then just wandered off






more bike photos next time, I promise ;-)

Monday, August 20, 2007

Fame! I wanna live forever...... (cue dancing (or should that be prancing?))



A little birdie told me my picture made it into Singletrack Magazine.




I think it's issue 36 (left) look for me in the Grim Reaper Costume (I havent seen it yet)



That little birdie just sent me a link to a scan of the pages: click here

Thanks Jon :-D

Freak Weather in Vancouver


Funny thing happened on our way through downtown yesterday - it snowed!!!







....but why is the guy wearing shorts?




because it was only snowing for about 100ft of one street. Ah, Hollywood.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to.....

...but there was no need. I had a fantastic weekend thanks to all my friends :-D

First up was Whistler. Ahh, the bike park. Because I wanted my little bike for tomorrow's Squamish ride, I brought both bikes to Whistler which gave me the opportunity I've been itching for to try out my little bike in the bike park. To make a long story short, it rocked. I was a little weary of smashing it to bits but it seems to have survived unscathed and it was sooooo much fun. I dont think it will be the last time it seems the bike park......

Whilst doing a few laps we (and by that I mean Rich and Derek) tried some new lines - Shale Master (above) is right on the side of a cliff at the top - I was shaking too much to ride it :-(
han

and Angry Goat - a big roll in. Rich and Derek are older than me, I think I'll get these two when I'm their age - so that's 7 days for Rich and another 4 for Derek!!



































a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away we did another trail...

It got a little serious in a dozen or so places, this was one of the first - 15ft of huge roots, all going in the wrong direction and followed immdiately by a 90 deg left turn - exciting stuff!













and we did it :-D. here's Derek


















Here he is again further down - please dont adjust your set - the green corners on the photo are where I've rotated it to compensate for my poor photography
















Rich rolling in to a steep root-covered S-bend


















...and again jumping over the remains of some woodwork


















before we knew it a couple hours had passed and it was almost over. It was a great trail though. Maybe some bits are only ridable on you're best day but in between the crazy bits there were some lovely trails and some beautiful scenery









the final pitch was suitably crazy - it even had a rope down the side - Rich and Derek didnt need it!!










After a hard day at Whistler we took up Dr Meg's invite to crash at her place and have a bit of a bbq- she's such a good host. It was a bit crazy as there were a dozen climbers partying with Meg's room mate. It was fun though - all dirtbags together ;-)


there was also an excursion for ice-cream in the wee hours....
















Sunday dawned bright and early (about 10) so we headed off for what Derek described as "the best breakfast in the world, ever" - how could we refuse?

And as Meg is the perfect host she had of course arranged for the annual Squamish parade to go by just as we sat down ;-) I didnt have my camera but there were lots of cops riding up and down pretending to be Eric Estrada followed by lots and lots of trucks - the usual carnival parade stuff although here that includes enormous earth movers and logging trucks



after the excitement of the parade we had a leisurely ride in Squamish - Peanuts Wild Ride I think it was followed by a trail I cant pronounce

here's Rich deciding that last night was a little heavy to be jumping big gaps today, and opting to ride round - Derek is clearly effected to - he's still in the "wow- look how high the jump is" pose - his reactions may have been effected




ahh pretty. Michele on a bridge.

After our ride we all went to the lake for a swim - its sooo good to swim in a crystal clear lake after a sweaty day on the bike - although it can be dangerous - as Jon found out when he hurt his foot walking along a floating log that Derek 'found'. I think I want to go back to this lake. It was so good to swim - Kits Pool has been shut for a couple weeks due to a strike :-(





Most headed off early evening but Rich and I stayed at Meg's again which gave her a chance to bake me some cookies - they were kind of half birthday - half thank you for helping her move house. mmmmmm cookies..... VERY nice, thanks Meg :-)








On Monday - my actual birthday and a public holiday in BC, we decided to go riding at Burke Mountain - another worlds best breakfast saw that plan modified to a lap of Fromme - but we all love Fromme so it wasnt a hardship :-) We were in for a surprise though......


as we pulled up this fella was wandering down the street! After getting as close as I dared to warn the owners of the garden he'd just walked in, we parked and got our gear on only to have the bear come our way... for some reason we all stayed pretty close to the van for the next ten mins!!








he was much more interested in the contents of the dustbins than in us - although it did worry me that he was looking at me and licking his lips when I took this picture from right across the street - 20ft from him!! This is the biggest bear I've seen 'wild' - he was almost as big as the grizzlys they have up the top at Grouse!

After lots of bear watching we made a break for it and headed up






As usual, Fromme was brilliant. We had a good ride on Upper Oil Can - we all cleaned the skinnies, Lower Oil Can, and Diggers - although I couldnt seem to ride the Diggers' skinnies today.

This is Jon on his first ever ride of this thing on Upper Oil






Obviously as it was my birthday I got to choose the restaurant (which is never Indian cos Michele can't eat it) so Indian it was! My thanks to Michele for playing along :-)

Everyone knows Indian restaurant's dont carry much in the way of deserts - so we HAD to go to "True Confections" for desert. It ONLY does deserts and wow - how good are they!!!!

This is Kathleen just about to scoff an enooooormous piece of Devil Cake(?)








...and of course, there was birthday cake - well actually, birthday pie - strawberry and rhubarb pie to be precise and wow was that good pie! - mmmmmmm pie

















a perfect end to a perfect weekend. Thank you people, I had the best birthday ever :-D I can hardly wait for next year ;-)

Weather report


Yes, through late July Vancouver once again proved you need a umbrella to live here (I have two) and to help newcomers they even have an umbrella vending machine at the airport!















Fortunately the weather did turn back to summer in time for the fireworks (see previous blog) - this is sunset before one of the midweek shows - look at the swarm of boats gathered to watch










of course, the rain doesnt stop us riding, but it does make some of the wood work more exciting - this is my attempt to rip off a Saint (bike component) ad - Rich is about 30ft up in the trees......





.....ok, so he's only 8ft up - but you still dont want to fall off! ;-)

Couple more Crankworx pics

this is Rich after our first practice run - yes, just one run! Derek wanted to know "who vomited on you?"


















Meghan 'sendin' one for the girls off the big GLC drop at the end of her race run - she landed in line with/just to the left of the post in the foreground - huuuge air










just after my race run - only the helmet is supposed to be brown.... and the bike is actually green - honest!


















as Meghan put it "Martin describes how much air he got in his race run"















all pics courtesy of Dr Meghan :-)