It's crap here ;-)

My mate Kiyoka is back in town now but with Crankworx last week and college I haven't had a chance to see her until Friday. Here she is with the Burrard Bridge in the background (and yes, it is a lot bigger in real life!)










After wandering around for a bit I felt the need for a muffin.... unfortunately everywhere was sold out.....luckily we stumbled across "True Confections", a desert restaurant mmmmm pie!
I had Strawberry and Rhubarb mmmmm Rhubarb........








Saturday started late with a ride on Fromme with John and 'is bird then I rushed home to get ready for the fireworks...... Vancouver has the biggest offshore firework display in the world
and a load of us were going to watch. The fireworks go from a couple of huge barges in English Bay so THOUSANDS of people can watch from the beaches on either side. We got there at 6pm and just about squeezed a spot right in front of the barges, there were THOUSANDS of people

click here to see the crowd

the show wasnt until 10 so we had to wait a while. Fortunately we were entertained by the sunset (on sunset beach)

(click the pic for a better view)


















ooooooooooooooo













aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah













Leanne and Aachal


It was a great display and a great night, I'd deffinately like to go again









Sunday dawned a little earlier with John, Michelle and I going to Squamish for a cross-country ride - there's some beautiful scenery there
















John and Michelle














Once we got back to Van, I picked up Kiyo and we went for a curry (mmmmm curry) and then Michelle told us we HAD to go to The International Ice Cream Factory - 218 flavours!











The crazy thing was that it was in an industrial area, miles from the city and there were HUNDREDS of people there - at 11pm!

Good icecream though - I had one, Stawberry and Rhubard and one dragon fruit mmmmm






to round off the weekend, John, Michelle, Rich, Trung and I headed up to Whistler for a day of play. Bear count was up to four today - I even saw one before we left Vancouver - I think it was waiting to pull out onto the highway!?

Whistler was amazing as ever(y week) but Trung went down hard and need a ride down in the medic's truck - he's ok - just a bit bruised and battered

Michelle rocked! She was on fire today - nice one!


And here I am almost 3am hanging onto the threads of the weekend!!
Time for bed

Happy Birthday Me

Crankworx craziness!

For those who dont know what it is, Crankworx is a huuuuuuge 9 day mountain bike festival at Whistler with every type of event from the hoppy hoppy trials riding to the craaaaaaazy big jumps and tricks of the slopestyle.

Some where in the middle is the Garbanzo Enduro Downhill race which I did. It goes right from the top of the bike park to the village - 1300ft vertical of awesome riding!

They call it "Enduro" cos a normal downhill race is 3-5 mins - this one took the best in the world just over 15 mins and the likes of me 19min 14secs which was enough to finish 19th in my category (of 40 odd riders).





Rich did a bit better with 18:56 in 16th place - and on his birthday too! (he's just a week older than me)

Happy Birthday mate



John had a mechanical so finished a way down but still managed to launch of the final drop with the best style we saw. Sweet.




The night before the race was the Slopestyle. The eyes of the world watching 23 riders perform some crazy stuff for the crowds and cameras

This is a french guy - he was pretty crazy - I think this was the best photo I got as it was hard to get close enough to the riders










This is the view from the other side...

Click the pictures to get a better view












Here's a nutter doing a 360 off the final (20ft) drop













And a tailwhip..... sick















Kyle Strait was many people's favourite. He was getting huuuge air and charging the whole course - damn fine show of riding












This is the English lad doing a tailwhip backflip

(Lance McDermot)












As you can see, there was some pretty big stuff on the course













Kyle Strait on the step up














Thomas Vandeham getting soooo whipped up with massive air













Lance













and last but by no means least, Darren Berecloth repeating his 360 off the roadgap - this is one of the most commited moves I've ever seen on TV so I was pretty happy to see it "live" - in fact he did it twice. Mann, crazy.


Unfortuanely I didnt get a photo of the crazy Spaniard who backflipped the other road gap - now that really is crazy! Me thinks I'll stick behind the camera for this kinda stuff!

Hot stuff! - Squamish and Whistler in 38+deg

The club ride on Saturday was at Squamish - it's the place with the massive cliff - half way to Whistler. It sounded like a great idea, even though it was going to be the hottest day in 50 years....


John, Michelle, Rich and I decided it was a great excuse to stay up at Whistler but in this heat we all agreed it would be unbearable to wear armour and full face helmets so we'd do the cross-country thing.

Here's Rich a bit later on....he always seemed to be in front, despite being on his 45 pound Shore all weekend - rather him than me!!

Unfortunately on the first climb we missed a turning so ended up doing the full 2.5hour granny ring climb to the top up the fire road - seriously hot

The trails are excellent though so well worth the effort (and dehydration). We had a little extra excitement on the way down - as I rolled out onto one of the fire roads, I came face to face with a bear! Fortunately(?) it was a baby bear so it
just ran up the nearest tree and sat there staring at me!

Of course the one problem with this is that where baby bear is, mummy and daddy bear are sure to be close by - and they can be very protective of baby! So we left, quickly!

Here's an odd angle of John - he's from Brighton y'know!







After the ride, we headed straight to Alice Lake for a sublime swim. OMG that was good!












After lying in the sun for a bit, we shot off up the road to Whistler to find our hotel.

We certainly lucked out there! Swimming pool, hot tubs, lovely rooms and a view of the mountains. Sweet!








Crankworx started Saturday with the Canadian National Downhill Champs so it was pretty busy at the bikepark - click on this pic and check out the drop off the top of the big screen TV - that'll be the focus of thousands of people next weekend for the crazy Slopestyle comp








After the epic Saturday ride, we took it easy on Sunday, and headed off to do Thrill me, Kill me, just up the road from the vlliage. It's a really interesting cross-country loop that goes up and down along the mountain side.

Here's Michelle getting close to the edge - checkout the drop over the side to the highway far below!

Michelle is John's other half, Canadian born and bred and a great bike handler (of course).


There were quite a few slabs to ride, here's Michelle one of the bigger ones

















John and John(again)













And......... John on another slab






After a quick stop at the river to cool off, we hit the road back to Vancouver.

Thanks to John for arranging everything and for driving!

Happy Birthday Sara!

It's my old mate Sara's birthday today.

Happy Birthday ol' girl!!

Superman seatgrab!!!

I was in the bikeshop earlier and as usual, said hi to the guys I recognised (I know the faces but can't remember their names) and as usual they all said hi back, then I realised I didnt actually "know" one of them........


was it a bird?
(asian friends please ask me and I'll explain)









......no







was it a plane?







......no



..........it was SUPERMAN!

well, Tom Welling anyway - the guy that plays Clark in the TV series Smallville. He seemed like a nice enough guy - very tall. He was in the process of 'grabbing' a new bike - not just the seat.

I guess I shouldn't really be that surprised cos Smallville is filmed here. Even the Kent's farm is here!!




nice guy as he was, I think I'd prefer to bump into......





Lois Lane aka Erica Durance

ah well, better keep my eyes peeled ;-)

The Circus is in town!

They've been here for a couple months but this is their last week so I thought I'd better go before I missed it.







they dont allow photography so on the downside, none of these photo's are mine.... but on the upside.... none of them are mine!! hahaha ;-)

Obviously I liked the juggler - crazy mann - I think they did it with mirrors - no-one can juggle like that!....can they?













Varekai is one of the touring shows of CDS - it's supposed to be a story but it's pretty vague - it goes something like: girl meets boy, lots of stuff happens requiring many people to fly through the air and dangle from bits of rope.... girl gets boy, lots more people fly through the air, the end.














It is an AMAZING show though, if you have the means, I highly recommend it

















There are cute girls....
















A bendy balancy girl














Some really cool costumes - although maybe you wouldnt walk down the street dressed like that....

















a bloke who can do amazing things with a net......!?


















And a couple of English lads (twins) that fly all over the bigtop on bits of elastic - very impressive (the women didnt seem to mind if they were flying or not)














did I mention the cute girls?











and a guy with them springy stilty things...


unfortunately I couldnt find a photo of the three little boys that have their own act. They must be all of 6 years old and amazing performers - arguably the stars of the show

There were also some clowns (though not quite your stereotypical clowns but clowns none the less) but I could find photos of them either.

So, if you have the chance, GO SEE. You will not regret it.

Whistler again? ....yawn....... oh alright then!

My third time in the Bike Park (aside from once in fully jet-lagged coma a couple years back) and I love it more and more every time.

First things first, the bear count was low today, only saw one, but I did see a couple of deer, a grouse (wrong mountain?) and some micey things!

After a quick lap, I met Rich and John from the club and ripped half a dozen runs of the mountain. We did Frieght Train in various sections and then once all the way - it's kinda like A-line but the jumps are a little more technical - I love this bit (imaginatively names "Containers") - makes you feel like a freeride god!

We also did all the trails on the top half - ...... so much fun its AWFUL! :-)

We also did some classic lower half trails..... Schleyer is deff a favourite of mine and Clown Shoes... one of the trickiest and also infamous for having the biggest drop on a Whistler trail... As NSMB.com put it: "The Clown Shoes drop is not for newbies. If you crawl off it you can probably have your rear wheel hit the ground about 10 vertical feet lower than where it started from but any speed can easily make it 15"


Here's MnM a couple years back dropping it - I'm told the landing is in bad shape now.... which makes me even more stupid for riding off the end of it!! Ah well, the moment of silence on the way down was worth it!!















After 5-6 hours riding we called it a day and headed off to Squamish for a bite to eat. The pub was a good, had its own brewery out back and not a bad view either.....



This is "The Chief", its a thousand foot high lump of rock and pretty impressive


Dr Megan joined us for a while and then we all went on our way home.........





I love Whistler :-)

What the hell is "Theatre Sports" ???

Just a quick update. On Friday night I went downtown with some friends to watch "Theatre Sports" - yeah - that's what I thought! Well it turned out to be a comedy club - silumar to the one in London but a lot smaller. It wasnt bad although I think some of the North American humour was lost on me....


Oh, and on the way in, I was walking through the crowds and I thought -

oh, there's my friend.....
.....err, what's her name?
..... wow she looks fantastic....
What IS her name?

And then it hit me - she used to come round my place once a week - inside the TV!

She did smile at me, I think she's used to being looked at ;-)



..and then we went for a cheesecake. Yes, that's right. In Vancouver there are TWO restaurants that do nothing but cheesecake. Mad eh?!!

Happy Birthday Sis!

It's my big sister Jane's birthday today. Happy Birthday Sis - I'm sorry I can't be there in person.

Here she is in action on the slopes last year