The Mud Puddle!!

Yup a mud puddle attacked me on my ride yesterday. I was Just Riding Along and bam the mud puddle sucked in my front wheel all the way to the hub and threw me over the bars. I had to fight with the mud puddle a bit to get my bike back from him but eventually I got it back and was able to continue along on my ride/hike.

Life is good right now, I'm back to working in a shop, kind of, I'm working in the build shop for one of the biggest bike shops in North America - Bow Cycle. So now on my time off from the drilling rig I am spending my time building bikes 8 hours a day. I finally got to pick up my very first by my self CAR!! a nice little Subaru Outback 2.5XT.

So now I have a way to get out of the city and explore some trails.

Yesterday I took my new car out to Bragg Creek and tried out some of the trails north of the parking lot. They were pretty good, I started out on a trail called Telephone which was all just double track up the side of the mountain. Looking at the map I saw that there is was a trail called Long distance that should make for a good loop off of telephone so that is what I planed on doing. I got to long distance and aparently they did not put up signs saying that this was a very incompleat trail. There was a little bit of a hike a bike, the whole time I was thinking that this better be worth it when I get to the finished part of the trail, a little more walking and I was thinking - they better have finished a bit more of this trail.

I did eventually make it to where work had been done on the trail and it was worth it, one spot on the trail ran along a little opening that looked out across the mountains to the west and it was hard to stay on the trail and not just stare out at the scenery. Close to the end of Long distance I made my way over to a trail called braggin rights. Now this trail made my day. A rolling downhill with some hard corners and lots of litttle hips and small rock and root hits. I can't wait to do this trail a few more times when it is a little dryer, I can see with knowing the trail I could get some really good flow and some really good speed along it.

Since the mud puddle got me at the start of the trail this is what I ended up looking like by the end of the day.

Its time for some more adventures exploring Alberta trails, which I can say are pretty good, the downs are epic but the climbs are as well.

April and May were busy Months

April and May were busy months in so many ways, there was racing, traveling, working, building, buying.

First lets start with racing...well kind of. back in April I traveled back to Ontario and attempted to race the famous Paris to Ancaster race. I went with the new bike and hopes that my fitness wasn't too bad. The bike was great but the fitness was not there at all. About half way though the race there was just a little hill up an over pass I tried to stand and peddle over it and my legs just said no you can't do that. From that point on the race just became a nice little ride in the mud. Yes as usual P2A was a mudfest.

My new bike on it's first real ride after P2A mudfest

The second half of my racing for the season goes out to Edmonton for an Alberta Cup race. All I can say is that there is a huge difference between the Alberta XC race scene and the Ontario XC race scene.

The start of the MENS SPORT catigory, yup all ages!

I was very disappointed that I didn't get to finish because of two reasons, first I had a pretty bad cold and second my shock became stuck down again for the second time this season. Oh ya one other factor that probably didn't help the cold situation, I am really out of shape for biking I guess working on a drilling rig is not overly great for bike conditioning.

As far as regular riding goes I had some good rides with some good friends when I was back in Ontario including the best of friends, My Rudy dog. Then when I came back to Alberta I discovered what Alberta riding is all about....Massive climbs great views followed by some fast buff singletrack decents.
These were taken from some pretty high points after a 4 km climb in the Bragg creek area wich is only about 45min drive from the house. I can't

wait to get back again and explore some new trails, but for now I will get some road riding in so I can acctually make it up the mountain.

Now for the last part of my last two months is the building...and buying...I spent the first couple of days off last month locked away in my garage, there was a lot of noise, a lot of dust and fumes that wofted out of there over those three days but in the end I ended up with this!!!!

My own persoal shop!! and the start of JRA Stories Bike Service Shop. There has already been a few nice little projects done with the workbench including a shock rebuild and an XTR crank install, not to mention regular service and cleaning of all the bikes.

 And if you didn't notice the stable got a little fuller last month as well, with the addition of Jolene's new Kona Dew Plus - The Bownesion a great little bike for her to commute to work with on the beautiful trails here in Calgary. Yup that is a RMB flatline in there as well, my new DH rig, I got out on it once so far and other then taking a good crash on it the first time out I love it, I can't wait for all the shuttle runs and park runs it will take me on this summer.

That covers pretty much my last two months of riding, now the challenge will be to keep this up to date as much as possible with more adventures pictures of all sorts.

Back from a Long Break

Well it's been a long time since I have made a post for this so here we go.

It's been a long winter with not a lot of biking, but a lot of working. It is hard to get out on the bike when you live in a camp and work 12 hours a day for 20 days at a time. However when I was on days off I did manage to get out for at least a ride around town and a few days at the gym. With this new schedual I am looking at racing at least once a month when there is a race on my days off.

This year is going to be my first year that I am going to "train" for a triathlon, not those boring road ones though I am going to be doing the Xterra Tri's in Alberta. I've started swimming a few days on my time off wich is going well I think I will be able to finish the swim come late summer. The running is coming along well right now, Since the snow is gone now I should be able to start getting out on the trails on both the bike and running. I can't wait to get out and learn some new trails in a new place. I have built up quite a list of places I want to check out on my days off.

Now for the exciting news MY NEW BIKE!!!! and some new gadgets.

 

 It's a 2011 Rocky Mountain Element 70 RSL with a few small things swapped out to make it a little more what I want. Still to come is the 2 ring XT black crank, and switching to the stans ztr alpine rims.

I only had one ride on it so far on the road only for about a half hour so I don't have a great feel for how the bike is quite yet but the little bit of riding that I got on one last year and from this first ride I am going to like it quite a bit. I am a little nervous about this right now as well as it is the day before The P2A race and I have only had one ride on this bike so far. I just hope that I have everything all dialed in the way I usually do on my bikes. 

Well look for an update after the P2A race on Sunday it looks like it will be a soggy one.

The Mountains are Further Away then you would Think

So I have been in Alberta for a little under 3 weeks so far and I have already got a job, quite a job, had to turn down a job opportunity because I got lucky and found a place on a drilling rig with the help of my girlfriend and her cousin. I can't thank them enough for finding me a place on a rig. So this past week was a week of riding buses to and from Leduc and having Jamie take me all over the place to do some testing and courses so I could actually have a spot on his rig. We were origionaly supose to head up to Fort St John on the 20th but that was pushed back a week so I decided to come back down to Calgary so I could ride a few more days.

Yesterday was great, I spent some time looking on Google maps and some other bike web sites trying to figure out where to ride so I wouldn't get too lost trying to make my way from Calgary to Cochrane and back. Even with spending a lot of time looking at maps and writing directions down I was still very happy that I have a smart phone with Google maps on it. The plan was to ride out to Cochrane which included a few hills, one in town and one right in Cochrane. Then to head back into Calgary and climb over Canada Olympic Park (COP) switchbacks.

The ride started out OK, following the Bow river trail then the first of the climbs in a park I thought I was looking for a bike path not a road leading to the park so I spent some time riding around in circles there looking for a path. At the top of the hill is where I started to take wrong directions since some of the roads in Calgary are very poorly marked. I really don't know where they put street signs for some of the major roads. I ended up over in the west side of Calgary looking at the Rec center that my friend Alex works at so I figured that I was in the wrong spot, I finally decided where I needed to go and soon enough I was back onto a nice long open road headed west outside of town.

This was my view for most of this section of the ride, except that I couldn't really see much seeing as I don't have any riding glasses out here and I was riding into a 30km/h head wind. It was an amazing site non the less. I saw tons of riders headed the other direction along this road it was nice to see that many people out riding on such a nice day.

Then I was headed north on 22 hwy which is a pretty busy road but it was OK there was a nice big shoulder on the side of the road with a rumble strip between me and the traffic which made me feel safe, plus there seemed to be lots of people who do the route that I was doing. Coming into Cochrane I made my way up the hill, Kind of like riding up the escarpment in Collingwood. I decided to follow a few other riders who took the highway instead of the road that goes around, I think next time I will take the road not the highway, it was a little busy for me. And that busy road continued all the way into Calgary, I really don't understand how there is a ton of people who like to ride along the side of a 4 lane highway for that long but apparently people do, I even saw some people riding along the highway on the other side. Next time it will definitely be taking a little different route.

Now this is where I got really lost, I think I made about 2 or 3 different little loops along trails and roads just to make my way to COP I could see it for a long time I was just trying to make it there. Eventually I made it and grinded my way to the top.

After that I found my way back to some familiar roads and found my way back down to the Bow River trail wich from there I can find my way around town fairly easily.

All in all it was a good ride, 3:45 of riding time a little over 4 hours in total and a little over 100K.

A Little Change of Senery

I have been here in Calgary for a little over a week now, I arrived here on Thursday morning last week and I have managed to do quite a bit since then. I started working at a ski shop, met some of friends of a friend, went climbing, and got out for a good little bike ride when my bike finally showed up four days after I did, even though it was shipped out 8 hours after I left.

Monday morning I had a call that my bike had arrived so I headed down to the bus station unpacked the bike and go tour around the city properly. After I put my bike together I headed along the Bow River North and saw some really nice little parks and little places by the river that were really nice.

After getting home and getting some lunch I headed out for a bit longer ride, since I didn't really know where to go I decided to tour around the city some more, jumped on the Bow river trail again and headed south. Again tons of great little parks and such along the river. Tons of people were srolling around the city center when I passed by. and there were lots of people any time I came by a place people could park and get onto the trails.

When you get to the south end of the city you can see the mountains it is great, I tried to get some pictures but you can't really see then from the camera on my phone.

Twice during my ride I came around a corner to there being deer on the trail. I came around one corner and there was just a little Doe standing on the side of the trail then she ran along the trail in the woods for a bit before she could get deeper in the forest. I came around another corner and there were two small Doe standing on the side of a small hill right beside the trail. I was a little worried about them running me over since I just watched the video of the guy in South Africa the day before.

All in all it was a good day of riding. I got in about 60km, I never left the city, never saw a car right beside me, lots of people though, saw mountains, deer, a flock of seaguls fighting a flock of mergansers. Rode though a provincial park, and only lost my way about half a dozen times (there is a ton of trails though fish creek provincial park).

Its been a week

So it's been a week since my last ride and I am starting to go a little crazy here in Calgary, I can see some mountains, I have been looking at some road routes around the city but I can't do any of it.

My bike shipped out 8 hours after I left Pembroke I didn't figure that it would take an extra 4 days to get here seeing as it should just get packed on a bus and follow me. I like the good old days when you could just pay to take something like that with you on the bus and be responsible to move it from bus to bus on your own. Now I sit here just waiting for my bike to show up.

I would really like for it to show up before Tuesday seeing as I would like to use it to get to my new work. Plus if timing works out I could make it up to one of the weekly cyclocross races here in the city.

Well here's hoping that I get a call from greyhound today so I can enjoy some good Calgary fall weather.

Giving up one ride for another

So the past week and a half have been pretty crazy. In the spring I had decided that I would work through the summer so I could do one more season of MTB racing in Ontario. Then come the fall time I would head west for a pretty big change in my life. I am heading out there to maybe work in the oil fields maybe work for another bike shop, maybe go back to outdoor adventure stuff we will find out what happens from here.

So last week was filled with a few lasts, it was my last ride at one of my favorite trails, Buckwallow. And a last ride at simco forest behind the board of ED buildings. As well as a last little outing with my friends which may have involved gettin.g dressed up and piling into a limo, it was legen...wait for it....dary. also my last days of pretty much running my own shop, I will miss rahat a little too.

So first Buckwallow, it was a great day for riding, I was still a little tired from the 8 hour the weekend before but I was out riding with Si and his slayer so no need to go fast. It was one of my best days at buck, I had so many good lines that I usually don't hit, I rode pretty much everything. The highlight of the day was I finally cleaned all of bear bluff in one shot, I can clear many parts of it but I had never had a compleat run start to finish before. Plus it was an awsome visit with a good friend.

Then I came to Saturday after a busy week of cleaning, packing, loading, and working, I decided even though I really didn't have time I would go for one last rip out in Midhurst with the boys from work. That was a great ride, pretty fast since I think I have every root and rock on that trail memorized and I could ride it blindfolded. However that was when I realized that it would be my last ride in Barrie for a while as well it would be the last ride on the Element since I am trying to sell it. So there is some mixed emotions regarding leaving Barrie we really are blessed with some great trails weither they are 10 min from work or an hour drive in any direction.

So now I have traded my bike for a big old bus with a dog on it to travel across the country to try something new out in cowtown.

All my friends will be missed, I really did have some really good friends around Barrie both biking and non biking friends. I am also a little sad that I left a wonderful girl behind that I just met at the begining of the summer but we will make this work, I miss you Jolene. Well I will be ariving in Calgary tomorrow morning then the job hunt begins if anybody knows some good shops to work at just let me know.