Great rides and Lunch rides

Well it's that time of year again. Later than usual due to my new Cyclocross bike early season purchase but it came. Mountainbike season!!! Again I have been looking at new toys and new frames and salivating over what's out there. Again I dug my bike out and wow!! I love it when you grab a bike you have not ridden in a while and it's like New bike Day all over again. Of course there is still a part of me that wants upgrades that require dollars that I already spent on other things.

Anyways went out for my season opener ride on Sunday at the Hydrocut  with Paul and Mike and his crew and had a blast, a segment of Adams run was reworked and between that and riding with guys above my technical calibur I rode some things I have previously shied away from. In hindsight not sure what the big deal was. Unfortunately late in the ride I trash talked Mike and the cycling Karma got me back with a brown tube. Lesson learned... Anyway a snipit is above.

I have had 2 lunch hour MTB rides since and both have been great. Today I stopped and snapped a couple pix. Enjoy the light reading portion of the post.

The Beast

Looking Half Dead Pre-Ride (Too much white too??)

Trails 2K from house

Trailside lake/pond

Trillium season

The race I Almost Didn't Finish

The night before the race I had all the usual excitement of a pre race. I even stopped at The Epic Ride in Orangeville and picked up a new Chain, lube, a tool, and a cycling computer. That night once we reached the cottage I tore the bike down and did some fixing. I lubed up the new chain in the morning and was headed 30 mins south to the race. We were a little behind on time so I was stressing a little but all would be well. I finished off my registration and picked up my race package. From there I dropped off my 6 pack for the 6 pack throwdown of the Solo Singlespeed group (A fun side race which includes beer and conversations after the race). Back at camp I got in my gear gave the bike one lst go over and headed down to the start line.

At this point everything was normal. This is what a race start feels like. go Go Go, wait for a bit then go. Nothing out of the ordinary except for the large beads of sweat building all over me while standing still. Then the race started and off we went. A cloud of clay dust immediately lifted from the course and our eyes and lungs were filled quickly. I passed by My wife and kids smiled and waved and then put my game face on and rode.

The first four laps were awesome even with some course congestion on the first two. It was a fun course but most of the trails had just recently been cut and we had been in drout mode for well over 2 weeks. The trails needed some wet and a pack down. It ended up being very washboardy and dusty with loose corners and a decent amount of technical challenges. All in all fun with only a couple real climbs and the rest was just short ups and downs. 1'st half of the course was a gradual climb and second had more decent. You always finished off each lap with more energy than you had 1/2 way.

All in all writing this I am beginning to wonder what went wrong?? About 4 hours into the day I let the heat get to me. Even with sponge baths and watermelon at the Solo transition area i was overheating. I was drinking lots and even dumping more water over myself in solo pits. When the heat got to me it got into my head. I unfortunately was also studying results at the transition each lap and finding myslef further back than I wanted to be in the results. If I had been paying more attention I had had a slower first lap than many and was actually fighting back well.

I met up with another rider who had caught me in the solo pits after I had a fairly long rest period. I thought he was a slower rider but he ended up being the eventual 3rd place rider in the race. I rode with him for most of our 8th lap and picked up on some of his tricks for riding this course. Late in the lap i decided to pass and loose him. I hammered out most of the rest of the lap and when getting my sponge bath and looking back there he was. A crucial mistake had been made. I used more energy than necessary. I should have waited a few laps to try to pass. A lap or two later I met another rider in the sponge transition and assumed he was in position 1 or 2 and I was being lapped. This tore me down a little further. I went to camp and ran into another Singlespeeder who had just dropped out due to heat exhaustion. I had heard just before that my family was coming back in a couple hours and that they were making signs.

I think the only thing that kept me in the race battling the heat and my mental demons was the idea of those signs. When they arrived I had a surge of energy and finished stronger than I had been. All in all those two guys I let pass between lap 8 and 11 were 3rd and 4th place. I was happy to come in 5th in the singlespeed solo category as I had thought I was riding around 8th or 9th all day. It is amazing how much of a race is mental.

Looking back I would have been really pissed at myself if I had quit and I am glad I pushed forward. I thank my Family for their support.

More photos over on my tumblr here...

The Endurance Fuelling Mind F#@K!!

Yup, It's almost race day. Saturday I have my first real workout for 2011 an 8 hour mountain bike race. All of my other rides and races this year have been either shared team pain or short races. This one is 8 hours of pain in heat and humidity. I have been here before but I am feeling the same thing I always do. A routine question keeps popping in my head: "What do I eat?!?". I am racing in the Solo Singlespeed category and although I am not truly vying for a podeum position I don't want to bonk either.

Last year in this race I did the Perpetuem and Heed thing and it worked ok but I ended up with late day gut rot as usual. The next race I added Endurolytes and even though it was fall and cooler weather I think they actually helped. This summer at the Summer Solstice 24 hour I cut out the Heed completely and had no gut rot. I did include endurolytes again though as well as some new foods.

Sometime this spring I was introduced to Powerbar Gel's. The first one I grabbed felt kinda weird and liquidy compared to the hammer ones I had had in the past. Examining the packaging I was pleased to see there were more caffeinated flavors and varying amounts of caffeine options per gel. May 1 I ran my first Marathon and decided to fuel with on course refreshments and these Gel's. It felt kinda bold as I had yet to eat one as i generally don't train with Gel's and powders. I had one 1/2 hour before the run, it was awesome (well as awesome as a gooey substance in tinfoil-esque packaging can be). It was much easier to ingest than any hammer gel I have ever had. On course I had 2 more during the run and found the same. I also found the energy did not die off quickly on me.

When packing for the 24 hour I decided on an interesting mix which worked well for a 5 man team approach to eating. 2 hours before lap one I had a Peanutbutter and Banana on whole wheat wrap(Race Taco?!?). 1/2 hour before the lap I had one Powerbar Gel which I was preaching to my teammates about and gave them each one to try, and Endurolytes. I then took water on the bike and stuffed a just in case gel in my jersey pocket. The lap felt great so upon finishing I had a Race Taco, a scoop of Perpetuem, and a can of Pepsi (I know that does not sound right). Before each lap Powerbar Gel and Endurolytes. On each lap Water. This became the routine until approx 3am when the pre-lap cocktail started to contain a little RedBull (eh well). Anyways during and after the race I felt awesome and my lap times were more consistent than they have ever been at one of these events.

So I am writing this and learning a bit at the same time. From what I have said before my body seems to like: Race Taco's, Powerbar Gel, Perpetuem, Endurolytes, and Water. It seems to dislike Heed for some reason.

Saturday I will likely try to pre-fuel with a solid meal and go with the powder/gel mix mentioned with a backup plan of Race Taco's in the cooler if I need something solid. As always apre-race I will be craving grease/salt/beer but what can ya do?!?

Thanks for listening to my notknowingness of it all... I'm out...

Important Message About Tonights City Council Meeting

Here is a message sent to me today regarding cycling in my city. If you know people in the region please urge them to attend. Thanks

"
Dear fellow cyclists,

Please consider attending the Kitchener City Council meeting tonight, Monday evening, June 13. Your presence could easily be the difference between success and failure regarding cycling development in the city for the foreseeable future.

The City of Kitchener's Cycling Advisory Committee will make a brief but important presentation to this meeting of City Council. The point of the presentation traces back to Council's last-minute decision to cut the cycling funds that had been called for in its new Cycling Master Plan (passed in August 2010). Of course, with neither staffing nor discretionary funding, the Cycling Master Plan is largely reduced to words on a page rather than an action plan for developing Kitchener into a cycling-friendly city.

When news of this slashed funding got out in February and March, many cyclists and non-cyclists alike contacted Council members to let them know of their unhappiness with the decision. The Cycling Advisory Committee also urged councilors to fix the situation at the earliest opportunity. As a result of these efforts, councilors have now approved in committee the hiring of a permanent half-time staff person to act as Cycling Coordinator for the city.

This is a crucial part of implementing the Cycling Master Plan. If it's nobody's job in particular to see that cycling development is maintained, it just won't happen. So getting the staff in place, while only part of the battle, is a very important part of the battle.

But the staffing decision has not yet been formally approved by Council, and recent events have proved that a last-minute change of heart or loss of commitment cannot be ruled out. With this in mind, I urge you to attend the meeting and bring your cycling helmet with you. The City of Kitchener Cycling Advisory Committee will be one of several delegations to speak, so arriving for 8 pm is probably safe. It should take little more than an hour of your time; but your support may have positive effects for local cycling that last for decades.

Thanks for your time,


Brent Ellis
Waterloo Cycling Club
and
Tim Kenyon
Chair
City of Kitchener Cycling Advisory Committee
Contact: cycling@kitchener.ca
"

A taste of why I love lunch hour

Lately I have been doing a lot of lunch running. It was just the way through winter and this wet spring. I was experiencing the "runners high" and it kept me coming back for more. The urge to get out and bike has been there but not as crazy as in years gone by. I have had great commute rides on the fixed gears and a few lunch rides too just the drive has not been quite the same. So I ran, and I ran, and I ran and experienced the fun in running. It has truly been great.

Yesterday Paul said to bring in the MTB today as it has been dry for two days. I was a little nervous about weak legs after the Marathon Sunday but what the hay I brought it in. The morning commute was awesome. High cadence + extreme oxygenation high. Then I made my way through the morning hungrier than usual.

Then came lunch time....



Yeah I think I just had a taste of the preverbial Herroine of MTB. I may not be running for a while (I likely will tho). Talk at ya later... I'm out.... Might just go riding again ;-) If original video does not work in your location try this one... (Thanks EMI for region censorship)

December 9 #bikeschool Q1 - extended

 Bam!! Darryl layed down the first question of the night last night. I immediately started thinking in 140 characters. I answered simply that I would point to a blogpost on the subject by either @bikerly @lovingthebike or @egggman (me) and tell them to join. This is what I do when people ask me right? Then I started reading other (Better) answers and it got me to thinking.

If Someone asked me what is #bikeschool in any forrum other than twitter how would I answer??

#bikeschool is the #secretevilplan that wasn't... Or was it? One night at the cottage watching a fuzzy at best tv screen after a movie ended it was twitter time. My wife was checking in on facebook friends and plans for the next day. I sat back with the iPad and read a tweet from a newly followed wild man @bikerly to @lovingthebike. The tweet went something like: "so how is the #secretevilplan coming". I jumped in with a snide remark about it cant be so secret let me in. From there @bikerly started taking about filling water bottles with vodka. Back at home a week or so later I poked the pair on their #secretevil plan in jest and we started chatting about fictional possibilities.

One day still in summer @bikerly decided to stop the whole idea of the #secretevilplan joke and make it into something. His idea... you guessed it #bikeschool a hashtag linked to blog entries about life lessons learned by bike. The idea grew in dm's and e-mails between the 3 of us and then on August 10 2010 it was on a 3 linked blog post under the theme #bikeschool. Many other bloggers joined in quickly and lots of #bikeschool tweets happened through August and into September. The idea was fun and had worked but it was slowing down.

Blog posts #1: Bikerly Blog , LovingTheBike , OldSinglespeed

@bikerly decided it was time to kick up the heat and we chatted some more #secretevilplanB took shape. Based on some interesting twitter chat sessions he had seen he pitched the idea to us. Sounded great. We could have a couple people get together every week at 9pm EST Thurdays. We sent out some tweets and had a team blog post again Tuesday October 19th making another #secretevilplan #unsecret again.

I don't know what the others expected but the first week was amazing. @bikerly hosted and it was fun. I could not believe the amount of people who showed up. I learned alot quickly about people and their cycling habits. More though I just had a fun hour on twitter with new friends. Week 2 @lovingthebike was in charge and it was great again.

Week 3 was my turn and I was a little nervous about running out of inspiration. I wrote out some questions and let a few things pop off the collar and it was again a fun session. From there it is history. We have had guests ask questions we keep meeting new great friends. It is really becoming a fun community get together. It has now stretched as far as England and Australia although it wreaks havoc on their schedule due to time shift.

Week after week fun times. Stay tuned next week as @bikerly takes over again! And as @lovingthebike says "enjoy your ride!"

#notsosecretevolplanD really needs to be a #tweetup group ride somewhere sometime with ridiculous amounts of fun included!!

I'm Famous?!?

Well maybe not truly famous but a friend let me know tonight that my standings are high on the Google scale today. Looky here...

My good old friend that I now spend time with at the cottage has led me to this new-found pseudo fame. Thanks bud -->

Anyway, not much more to say for now. I am sure I will be full of it later...

I'm out...

The challenge...

A very open ended challenge was sent hither last evening post sleepytime. A cohort of mine decided to put it out there...

We must each use our sketching technique to render an image on ourn blogs on Thursday. I assume the man the myth the #bikeschool legend will use a Sharpie for his sketch. I in turn chose The Gimp. My image is ready and waiting on my hard-drive for a Thursday posting. Return then to find my entry in this non-lucrative contest of contests.

Ever so sneakily my competitor has chosen a fellow Sharpie fan as his judge. She however is beginning to tremble at the thought she may have to choose mine draw-ring as grand champignon (Thats right the big mushroom).

The purpose of this post is to call to order a team of zero or more nother judge types to further scrutinize the images. If you feel the urge to throw a vote of better image creativeness n' such then check our blogs's Thursday and toss a comment of "1 Vote" into comments for the blog of your choice.

I will create a Dunce-Cap Image for the Twavatar of the least winningest of winner to wear to #bikeschool....

I'm out...

Riding in the debris lane...

Photo Credit: Jim's Bike Blog

I "always" ride with caution when sharing the roads with motorized vehicles. My city has recently started to put in place "cycle lanes" a place you could continue to ride safely but be a tiny bit less cautious and take in a little more of what is going on around you. If you remember a couple weeks back I had a great day. Would the day have been as great without a bikelane flat? Probably not. Does this excuse the chunk of mesh metal that was in the cycle lane brushed off the "road"? Also probably not.

The last couple days I have had amazing lunch hour rides! Absolutely amazing for November in Ontario. 8 and 9 degrees Celsius and sunny. I did a 16km loop yesterday and completed the planned route from two weeks back with a cell phone in my pocket and route plan passed on to Paul (lesson learned). Today I took an alternate route to my regular commute and surprised my wife with a luch hour visit. The rides were things of lunch hour dreams. Good climbs great cadence(just kicked a cold), etc...

I rode both of these rides watching my surroundings but also with one eye on the lane. I was amazed by the amount of vehicle and other debris that was shoved into our space. I saw chunks of metal, rusted tailpipes, nails, bolts, indescribable sharpness, but the worst offender of all was an old style manhole cover where a cycle wheel can be swallowed whole that was lengthwise and was the whole width of the "cycle lane".

I don't really have a whole lot more to say on this subject. I was just shocked that while the road seems to be cleaned of debris regularily that our space alongside seems to be the lucky recipient of their trash.

I seemed to loose my frustration while writing this. Success!! 

Anyone else have thoughts/experiences on this matter?? I'm out... 

8 hours of Sweet Mellons and then Some Beer

All last week I am looking at the weather forecast, Rain Thursday/Friday but sunny and 17 on Saturday, Perfect! Friday I take a half day off work and we head to the cottage. Once at the cottage we get things ready and check the Saturday forecast RAIN/RAIN/RAIN. Of course I brought out my it's not going to rain all will be great comment but I did not believe myself.

Saturday morning I wake up and hear the pitter patter of my son playing in bed as well as the pitter patter of rain on the roof. Now I was getting a little down as I have never been very successful at riding let alone racing in the rain. When I was out walking the dog it was pouring and I decided that screw it, this is going to be a fun day. Went back inside packed up my race gear and packed myself full of Turkey and cheese wraps so we could hit the road.

My wife was driving and I was looking out into the rain that just kept getting harder and harder until what's that ahead Blue sky and Sunshine. As we get even closer we came by spots that had not seen any rain. Maybe we were all worried for nothing. Maybe not... As we pull into the parking lot this crazy mist started it was thick and seemed to slime everything up instantly. I mentioned to a couple people as I passed them that this was nothing compared to at the cottage 1/2 hour away. The reply "so it's going to get worse?".

Went up to the lodge to get my plates and swag for the race and ran into a online/race acquaintance Dave who offered me a spot to pit under his tent. I eagerly accepted. After getting my bike and gear in order I saw my family off as it was not going to be the kind of day to hang out along side the course and cheer me on with a 4 and 9 year old. Back up to the pit area I made some final adjustments to my bikes rear brakes to eliminate the squeal and got my stuff together. Dave then pointed out his car and said to dump my dry post race bag in there. I did this and came back. Shortly after this lady I have never seen before comes up to me and says, "hey, you just scared the s#!t out of me!!". Turns our Dave's wife was sleeping in his car when he sent me over, oops. He then introduced us. She was still kind enough to cheer me on through the race and even mix me some Perpetuem late in the day.

Well back to the task at hand. After meeting and shaking hands with a few guys I have only talked to online in the past we all made our way down to find a place in the starting coral of riders. I met Mike and Jim there and mike gave me my gloves his wife had accidentally packed up 2 weeks prior after the 6 hour race. They were doing this one tag team as mike had raced Crank the Shield a 3 day stage race the weekend prior and was racing The Squeezer on Sunday. Chatted to them and others in the crowd and realized that the Singlespeed Solo guys were all pretty much alligned in the coral. 1 minute to race was called overhead. We finished up with the smalltalk and get ready for the horn.

Off we went into the trails, up up up the beginning climb. I had heard mixed reports on the course being a climbing course and being a technical course. The organizers always say it is a fast and flowing course. At this point I was thinking this climb is not that bad there must be another one ahead that is bad but up we went then back down a double-track section definitely designed to break up the group through a tunnel and... back up the opening climbs. Wow that was the shortest lap ever, well not really next time when we get to the top of the hill we go down a different route and into the course. I think I staged myself a little further back than I should have as I ended up in a tight group of riders through most of the first lap. Everything was slick especially exposed roots but as the organizers said everything was flowing well, but not fast yet.

fast came in the second lap I must have just got in a nice spot just in front of the masses. I realized quickly that Marc was on my tail and chatted with him a bit and kept pushing ahead of him on climbs. He was relentless though and kept catching me in the singletrack. I need to be a little more confident in wet singletrack but have found myself rubber side up too many times in the past in these conditions. Anyways I messed up on a rooty hill crest and got bumped by another rider and pushed off course. The other rider and Marc passed and dropped me quickly. I decided I was not going down that easy this early and gave chase. it took me the rest of the lap but I passed through the timing tent just behind him and caught up to him on the opening climb continuing the conversation from earlier to let him know I was there. I think this was a little of his own medicine.

Lap 3 I just decided I needed to lose him and kept pushing it around the course. I thought I had done this successfully until the end of lap 4 when I had just grabbed my yummy Watermelon slice at the timing tent and was getting back on course. I heard that Marc and Dave had just crossed head to head and were only seconds behind me. I had to lose them. I pushed through most of the lap harder than I had in the last couple laps. I was able to keep in front of them until almost the end of the lap when Dave pushed past me with power that just said you cant catch me. I realized that this was only lap 4 and I should probably slow my pace a bit so that I don't burn out before the end. Midway through the 5th lap Marc was able to squeak by me and start to create a gap.

I was really starting to love the watermelon at the pit's by the end of lap 5 and had found a great groove. I figured I was probably quite far back in the group with no podium chances so just decided to try to do better than the summer race and just kept my average pace as high as I could comfortably. I need to try not to discount myself like this in further races because I always end up closer than I thought I was.

Around lap 9 or 10 I was in a bit of a watermelon stupor when I heard someone off to the side of the course yell my name. A couple guys I thought were ahead of me were in street clothes discussing their day and I had to do a double-take. Not sure what happened to end their day early but it gave me a late day lift and I was off again. I was able to ride with limited pit-stops all day due to the temperature and was still feeling great except for being a little weaker on the opening climbs. On lap 10 Dave was successfully able to lap me and in lap 11 another Mike slipped past too.

At the end of lap 11 I saw my family cheering alongside and knew we were getting close to the end of the day. I grabbed a slice of watermelon from pits and set off. Hearing talk from the guys ahead that it was 5:05pm and cut-off time was 5:30pm for the start of another lap we had all decided this was our last lap. Time to just ride hard and enjoy without conserving energy for any more laps.

I kicked it into high gear and cranked through all of the fun spots in the course and rode climbs as hard as I had that morning. A ride behind commented "you look like you have another 8 hours left in you.". I let him know it was an optical illusion and away we went. The sun decided to peak through the clouds and a couple pine sections actually seemed to ride dry. One nasty section of peanut-butter trail still sucked the energy out of me but that is how it goes.

I came down the end of the track to my favorite section of super fast flowy singletrack and just cranked through it then one more time through the tunnel and out to my family. I hammered to the dismount sign and swiped in in 4th place. What a fun day and I was not completely wiped out. Later it would hit me that maybe if I pushed harder through the middle of my day I may have been able to make up the 20 minutes that Marc was able to put between us but 4th was something to be proud of anyway. Ended up with 12 laps that my cyclocomputer put at 132km ridden.

I grabbed the bike and the family and I went up and gathered my gear and load it in the van. On the way to the van my big toes started to hurt in the worst way. I screamed and my wife thought I had just lost my marbles. I had a quick shower which seemed to soothe the toes and then grabbed a Big Wheel Deluxe Amber and chatted it up with a few fellow riders.

I had so much fun. I don't know if I can remember a better day on the bike. Even though it rained through most of the day and it was all of about 13 degrees Celsius. Of course just before we leave this is what we were greeted with. Silver lining.
I am inspired to find another event before the end of the season but am not sure if it will be do-able. I am hoping that WOW decided to run winter WOW in the end because that has always been a favorite but things look grim on that angle.
I could probably just keep rambling but I should cut myself off. I'm out...

6 Hours of Fast Flowing Trails....

Could not have asked for a better day. 21 degrees Celsius sunny and clear. I think it was almost exactly the same kind of day as last year. Got there just after Mike. Morning was a little cooler when we showed up and unpacked. We gave ourselves just over an hour to prepare on-site and a little time to chat.

Mike figured out that after a wheel truing the previous night that a spoke had been overtightened and snapped. We also found a bit of a wobble in my rear wheel. All the while the kids frolicked around in the transition zone asking Mommy if they could stay instead of going shopping.

We had a brief meeting to establish rules/safety/etc... Then 15 minutes to gather our things and head down the dam to the starting line. It was very informal down there we all chatted and no-one crowded the start line except for one of the youth teams that was just raring to go. I checked out a sweet singlespeed from True North Cycles that was also prepping to go. A few more words the 5-4-3-2-1 horn blows...

As usual we establish position up an open hill to spread out the field and then into the singletrack that we would occupy for the next 6 hours except for in the transition zone. I took a different approach this year and decided to get up front early and see if I could hold it instead of working through the field like last year. Not sure if this was the best plan now looking back. I found myself in a group of 3 with two tag teams. I was following as they were regulars here (I thought). The leader took a wrong turn the two of us followed. We rode a ways before realizing that we had already done this section of trails. We found our way back to the trails and I continued to chat with the guy from True North Cycles for most of the lap. We worked through the field and caught up to Mike late in the 1st lap. We went through the timing tent with Mike in first place and me in Second after 1 lap.

At the beginning of Lap 2 I decided I needed to put some distance between Mike and I. I passed him early and worked to try to lose him. He just kept catching up in downhills and I would get away from him on climbs and strait aways. Eventually I realised that it was no longer Mike's click click click rear hub that I was hearing but instead it was the hub of Hugh Black on this beauty of a bike that he had built. We chatted for a couple seconds and I offered him the pass but he was happy with my pace at that moment. The lap was finished in this fashion.

Lap 3 I rode with Hugh's tag team partner again (Unfortunately his name escapes me right now) and we talked about all of the trail systems that were around and the merits of singlespeed. It was nice to take the edge off the race and just ride for a while. I would love to be able to get a custom bike built by these guys one day but don't think it is in the cards anytime soon. Lap 4 Hugh had more gas in the tank than I did and passed me midway through the lap. I did not see them again which I think tells me they were unable to lap me.

The rest of the day was great just riding at my pace and passing here and there when necessary. I was able to make minimal pit-stops and got some great cheering from the sidelines later in the race from my wife and kids. All the while Mike's wife kept pleading for me to slow down. I was trying to push hard and lap Mike so that I knew he was not right behind me but this was not to be. instead every time I heard a loud clicking hub in the woods it was time to increase my speed again an hope it was not him. By the last couple laps I think I must have lost it as the clicking came and went but no riders ever appeared.

My "last lap" was great, I have this odd method of seeing landmarks that I have ridden by all day and mentally crossing them off as the last time I need to complete that today. I did that all the way around the course and when I got back through the timing tent I still had 3 minutes left to start another lap. I was actually surprised at how energetic I was doing a Victory lap before the post race BBQ and Beer. It was kinda odd riding by my landmarks again though.

After the race I walked down and jumped into the lake. Wow did that feel amazing, why did I not do that last year? Then after a quick clean off and clothing change went up and grabbed a Trailhead beer (Thanks Krista). The BBQ was amazing right after the race, big burgers, potato salad, and caesar salad followed by a Birthday cake for the kids. Wellington Brewery provided some Trailhead Lager also but I did not partake as Krista had brought a great mixer pack for Mike and I.

All in all it was a wonderful day with amazing conditions for a ride. 114.55km's later and a first place win did not hurt either!! One lap shy of the first place tag team also.

That's all Ive got for now... I'm out...

A great afternoon...

An afternoon in review...

Was it a #bikeschool lesson?? Well for me no but it definitely has some #bikeschool type lessons involved for those thinking of starting a family etc...

Wednsday anyone who follows me on twitter knows that there was a contest being held for Jonas Brother tickets and my daughter really wanted to go. My wife and I tweeted like crazy to try to win these as we had not planned ahead on this one...

Our weekend plans were to close the Summer off as we had spent most of the summer. Head north to the cottage, Swim, canoe, maybe I may sneak in a ride here or there on my old Singlespeed Nishiki. Plus there are a few summer ending celebrations going on up there in the evenings...

Thursday came and we did not win the Twitter contest, all stays the same right? I am at work and get a tweet from a dear friend that she has been offered 2 free tickets to the 2pm Friday concert for my wife and daughter. We snapped at them still planning to head north early Saturday after the show... Well I think that is a good backgrounder -- lets get on with the story...

Friday I worked from home as someone had to watch my son and the little guy my wife watches on the side. This was easily worked out at work as it was a last day before the long weekend and things would be quiet. Got quite a few tasks crossed off and 3:30 came quite quickly. The extra little man was picked up early and my work day was done...

My wife and Daughter had been in or on route to Toronto since 9:45am and were not expected back until later in the evening. The boys needed something to keep them occupied, and what would a guy like me think of...... Hrm... A bike.

Little guy was happy to hop in the back and head to a park an then dinner. We had a blast at the park dinner then another park. He was running out of gas and there were signs of rain. I put up the roof of the trailer and we headed for home.... Well that was the plan, ran into a friend that had seen me messing around on a longboard at my daughters school pick-up last year and told me of his extensive skateboard collection. Perfect time to check out a couple toys. He grabbed 2 sweet toys and his wife went and grabbed another that was in mint condition but recently converted into a bench for the front hall of the house.

I took an old Tony Hawk board for a little ride around his court and pulled a couple tricks that I had not even tried in years. Then the little guy decided to try it and held my hands as I dragged him around the circle. He had a blast so I took a pic of him on the fun toy.

I was amazed at how much effort it took to climb some of the hills around here on the fixie with the trailor attached. I had taken the trailor out on a variety of different bikes in the past and never had any issues. I did not have to step off at any time but had to fight it a couple times yesterday.

the little guy and I had an amazing afternoon-evening and he is still a little whipped today. Weather conditions and just an overall crazy schedule yesterday kept us home from the cottage but I don't think anyone here would change a thing. Cant wait for our next impromptu father son/father son/or family adventure!!

What to ride this am.....

I decided on the singlespeed 29er over the fixie because this is one of the beautiful sites along the way from home to my office. I see the office over the pond.

Not much more to say right now...

Beer, Bacon, and egggman - #bikeschool

Summer holidays are many things. They are amazing and anti-stressing. They are a time to enjoy the things life has to offer. Family, Friends, a getaway to the cottage or camping etc. They can be an excuse to break from the normal. Unfortunately they can also be an excuse to eat/drink heartily and ignore your training regime.

For me that meant a juggling of my usual diet of 2 parts vegi and one part meat to a rough 3 part meat 2 parts beer. Also my usual run/ride schedule was decreased to only a few rides and running back and forth from beach to cottage for supplies etc. I added in canoeing and swimming to make me feel better. Generous portions of steak, ribs, and sausages nightly were a wonderful treat. I am definitely not complaining about this but trying to learn to train better through the holidays.Returning home from this leaves me feeling a little soft and slow. Actually I seem to come back faster in short sprints but slower over the long haul. A little of the additional weight probably also being due to muscle healing but the cardio relaxation seems to be a hinderence overall. I'm sure the daily Muskoka beers on the beach, by the bbq, and in the evening by the fire did not help. I did however truly enjoy the Hefe-Weissbier and the Dark-Ale.

Anyways back to the real world yesterday I rode the fixie and ran feeling a little sluggish. Today I felt great back on the 29er in the morning and on lunch but got a little winded a couple times and did not have the same speed as usual on climbs. A great lunch hour ride with the usual mix of single/double track and 3 climbs up the back of a 4X course for climbing training and decending back down the course for fun.

Another #bikeschool lesson came through me deciding to reward myself for making all the climbs fairly strong after holidays with a relaxing totter ride. I may have learnt this lesson before but a rigid singlespeed 29er works just fine on a 4X course and even a teeter-totter. Maybe the park kids may look at us a little funny but it works. Enjoy your bike whatever it may be in the way you want to use it. Only caveat to this being if you dont have a strong bike dont break it doing something it cant handle.

Paul was kind enough to take a couple snaps of me on the teeter-totter with his blackberry. He could convince himself to ride it though but will get it next time.

That's it for now... I'm out...

#bikeschool

A little while ago I caught onto what started as a joke between @Bikerly and @LovingTheBike on twitter. They were talking about #secretevilplan, I was curious and threw in some fun anecdotes. From there it turned into jokes about water bottle concoctions etc... Then we joked a little less and started to think about where we could go with a #secretevilplan event even though we are geographically diverse. I was not successful in coming up with a plan but @bikerly came up with a great one. And we move forward.

Was called up by a close riding friend Chris who I had not ridden with in years and another old friend's younger brother was to come along. We tossed the idea of meeting at a new location for two to three of us as I was not sure if Ryan had ridden there before. I knew my buddy Mike had ridden there before and we had only ever raced together and regularly near missed group rides together. An unlikely group of riders all different speeds and styles showed up at the lot.

All of us excited about a ride we got through the "hey how goes it's" etc quickly and got on the bikes. Ryan apparently knew the trails best so he led. I decided to jump in second and we were off. Went through a couple nice tight pine switchbacks and then into a dark spot. Not sure if it was Ryan's yell "mud" that spooked me or just a slippery puddle, I dropped the bike but successfully ran along side somehow. Mike and Chris passed and I rejoined the back of the train. I slid in front of Chris on a loose rocky climb only because I needed to keep the momentum on the singlespeed. We rode through a few more pine switchbacks and stopped for water and a little chat. All was well and we started up in the same order as we stopped. At this point Ryan moved forward followed closely by Mike, Myself and Chris. After a few more tight twists and turns and a little gravel climbing I realized Chris had lost a little pace on us. I took a left and yelled out left for him to follow. Two more climbs and I realized that where there had been four there were now three.

I decided now would be a good time to stop and wait for Chris as this was a group ride with friends and not a race. I also called to the guys ahead but they were on their way down a loose rocky downhill and did not hear me. I watched as they rode off into the distance. Waiting a little longer I turned back expecting a bail or mechanical had occurred. Not only did I not find Chris but another group of riders had not seen him either. I was in a set of 50km of trails that I did not know from Adam, and to that matter I did not remember the way out as I had followed a tire in and not paid attention to which turns were made.

I rode for approximately 15km before finding the carpark. I yelled names every so often and asked other groups if they had seen my group or a stray. There was writing in dust on my van saying Chris had been there 10 mins ago but went back in. The chase was on I sprinted through "all the original singletrack" without the mud bail this time. Realized I was lost again and wound through a real nice technical section of climbs (that likely are mapped as downhills) found the carpark alot quicker this time though after about a 5km loop. Got to the carpark and Mike and Ryan were there, we started talking and Chris showed up. They all started putting their bikes away and we chatted for a while. I said to Mike that I was still feeling great and had heard from Ryan about a nice loop I had missed. He apparently did not realize I was serious and got changed.

The others left and I turned back in, Mike yelled out that he wanted another loop but was already comfortable so he left. I had an amazing 10km loop with no worries about finding the others and packed it up and went home.

How does this story relate to twitter and #secretevilplan? How does this relate to @bikerly or @lovingthebike? These two guys were nowhere near this ride. I did not even chat about this ride with them before or after. I may have tweeted about loosing friends in the trail but that's about it. What did I learn while riding this set of trails? Did I learn about a great new set of trails? of course I did but this is not my point. Did I learn that riding alone is more fun than in groups? Heck no!! Really I may have learned a little about riding but this is not really why I am writing this story.

I am writing this because @Bikerly came up with a great idea for #bikeschool, things learned while riding. Not necessarily things learned about riding. I learned on this ride in particular that I there needs to be a better way of communicating amongst a group when group riding, maybe it should be radio's maybe it should be cellphones? Maybe everyone should stay still when they realize they have been separated and then slowly retrace their steps. Probably does not matter what the method is but communication of a plan before the ride is key. Or maybe communication with friends is the real key.

If you have stories of things you have learned about life through cycling tweet about it using #bikeschool or maybe some more #bikeschool bloging. Now I guess we will have to think up another #secretevilplan.

Be Sure to also checkout these cycle blogs regarding #bikeschool

http://lovingthebike.com/
http://bikerly.wordpress.com/