Sep 27, 2008

beans and barley 'cross and bk memorial 'cross



the rest of the pics are here.....
some great 'cross action was had this weekend, on perfectly speedy and tough courses, with sun-a-shin'! hats of to terrascape and bicisport/synergy for a couple of great events.

we are blessed in calgary to have such a solid 'cross thing going. wee haaa!

Sep 23, 2008

midweek cyclocross is in full effect!

the fine folks at midweek mayhem have brought another solid series of tueday night cyclocross races to us here in calgary and - judging by the turnout tonite and last week - there certainly is an appetite for it! i counted close to 40 people on the line tonite and quite a few new faces i hadnt seen before. here are a couple images...


Sep 21, 2008















what a great day of riding! nadia, morgan, andreas, and myself headed out on saturday for a slow-bike-ride to the crossroads market for some fresh local produce and locally made bread. it was an incredibly beautiful day and we did our best to soak up as much of it as we could. we stopped on stephen avenue for some street meat (from the hurtin'-est hotdog cart i think i've seen), stopped at some old building ruins to check them out, of course we stopped at the market and our last stop was at bernard callebaut for some incredible soft serve, white chocolate ice cream - OMG! - de-lish! after the ice cream it was time to make the run back home for dinner - which included bbq beef tenderloin, foil-packed veggies from the market and corn-on-the-cob grilled on the bbq - OMG! - de-lish! after dinner we finished off the day with a quick shot of absinthe and headed to the movie-in-the-park with the kids to check out "wall-e" under the stars. good times!

autumn arrives tomorrow and cyclocross season with it. i have decided to give 'cross racing a go again this fall and will have some reports in the next few weeks. till then, happy trails!

Sep 19, 2008

yahoo's purple bikes

townies+gps+flickr = a pretty cool project. check it here...

http://startwearingpurple.yahoo.com/?purplepedals#/pedals

Sep 17, 2008

reducing my impact - increasing my fun!




from the very first time i saw an xtracycle i have been intrigued by its simple design and happy vibe. i have been doing my best to use a bicycle to do my shopping and running various errands throughout the summer but have been stymied a few times by loads that were too big for my zip-tied-milk-crate or too cumbersome for my backpack. after extensive searching to try and purchase one (none are apparently in western canada) i stumbled across an unlikely source - singletrack cycle in calgary. in fact, it was pretty much the only thing stu had left after selling off his entire inventory and shutting his doors for good last month. it probably goes without saying that i got a wicked deal on it - and to top it off - i purchased one of his professional park repair stands for next to nothing! ya! (i have been waiting to get my grubs on one of these for the better part of 20yrs!) i intend to break in the new(ish) cargo machine on saturday when we will be attending the movie in the park (see post below)and hopefully if the weather stays good we'll use it to go to the farmers market and load up on local eats on sunday. fun! fun!

Sep 16, 2008

HOLY FU*$&IN SHIT!!!



Bicycle Film Festival TOKYO '08 PART 1 from Eli Tokyo Jitensha-Jin on Vimeo.


are you in calgary saturday nite? any plans? see you there? i'll be there with the boy and we are going to ride bikes over - sounds like a great nite of activities and film. come out and celebrate the fall equinox in one of calgary's coolest little parks.

Sep 15, 2008



the new season is just around the corner - and this guy is stoked to get back out there and watch some of the rowdy-est action available in calgary. i attended a couple matches last season and both times was impressed with the turnout of fans and the insane flat-track action. check out their site and plan on attending a match - good times are guaranteed!

Sep 14, 2008

1st annual ramsay bowl bike polo tourney

my photos can be found here and my videos can be found here .

the tournament seemed to be a great success with some incredible action, many broken bike parts, and a super fun time. there was even a live band banging out some super cool rhythms and beats while we played. our team lost our first game bad (5-0) against the super-good grass game guys. our second game started much better as we quickly established a 2-0 lead and were feeling pretty good about making it past the team we were playing - when - agast! - trevor's bike broke - and suddenly it was three on two. then - agast! - tommy's mallet broke in two, making it 3 on me. tommy quickly grabbed another mallet (trev still on the sidelines trying to get his bike working) and just as quickly - agast! - he broke that one too! while all this is happening our lead is slipping away and we ended up losing 5-4. the loss was a little disappointing for me (uber-competitive guy) but super good times were had by our team nonetheless. all the losses have done is stoke the polo fire in my gut and i cant wait to get out and play again.



Sep 12, 2008

interesting, timely, and somewhat related articles from adbusters and FFWD that are worth a quick read.

seems that bicycles, bicycle riders and their related communities are starting to penetrate into the realm of the very mainstream - especially with the glode and mail, the ny times, the cbc, etc posting bicycle related stories on almost a weekly basis.

are we are witnessing the next renaissance of the bicycle?
ready for the 'tourney!
after having my look polo bike banged around a little too much for my liking on wednesday night i decided to try using a machine that would be a little more durable - c'est voila! - the 29er is now rockin the polo setup...




...some details - barrel adjustable, 2-sp rear derailleur with a standard mtb triple setup up front, rear hydro brake, thumbshifter for the front derailleur and disc to protect the front wheel. also here is a shot of our team t-shirt for the 'tourney.

its gonna be a good time!

Sep 8, 2008

expocycle report part 2

all the pictures can be found here


the first day of the show is traditionally pretty busy and this year was no exception. overall, the impression i am getting from the convention is that the bike industry is doing pretty well these days - especially when factoring in what high gas prices have done for bicycle sales! i was able to sneek away from my booth a few time during the day and snapped these pics of stuff that caught my eye...

easily the most beautiful machine spotted so far has been the naked city bike that shimano was showing with the alfine grouppo. shimano had sam whittingham custom design this bike around the group and the result is an incredible work of functional art. chek the pictures posted and be sure to notice the details - unbelievable!

Sep 6, 2008

btac report part 1

the best dessert i have ever had was found at holders on mcgill - vanilla creme brulee accompanied by unibroue's ephemerre apple beer. i posted about this place last febuary and it was just as i reported then. good food, not too expensive, nice presentation. yuummmm.


my favroite btac passtime is to stroll around the neighbourhoods beside the st.laurent strip - also referred to as the plateau. feels like home. the picture is looking at mount royal from from s.laurent and st.jacques. if ou look close you can see the familiar cross up on top of the mountain.

Sep 4, 2008

BTAC

canada's annual bicycle trade show starts on sunday and i am here in montreal getting ready to savour the flavour. we build our (thule) booth tomorrow, get drunk in the evening, get up, have a sales meeting, get drunk, get up, pitch product, get drunk, get up, pitch product, get drunk, get up, pitch product, tear down the booth, get drunk, get up, get on a plane, go home.

in between the getting up and getting drunk i will try and post some goodies for you bike geeks out there. i cannot promise that i will show you the same stuff you will read about in the bike mags - what i can promise is that i will try not to get so drunk that i forget about this post.

Sep 3, 2008

ninja cycling




one of my most favorite types of rides is the night ride - without lights. on this particular day i had set out in the late afternoon to attend an important meeting with jim and jess at the 'ship and a little dinner before polo with the grass-game boys. it was a very nice day in southern alberta, feeling quite a lot like a mid-summers day and i didnt plan on the light going away so quickly after polo - so there i was, on my way home, in the dark, with not a reflective bit on me. upon realizing i was too vulnerable on the roads i quickly made my way to the bow river pathway and started heading west. riding without lights is a little unnerving at first as it takes a little while for the night vision to kick in - but once it has - riding through the night air sans batteries is really fun and hyper-real.

you need to ride "light" as its hard to see all the little surface imperfections and you need to "hear forward" to try and be ready for those you may meet (i almost hit a couple jogging, they didnt have lights either). other than that, just relax, embrace your inner ninja and enjoy the quiet evening, the whirrr of your machine, the very real feeling of flying that only comes from riding at night.

Sep 2, 2008

gig in the park 2008 - pics are here.

what a good time! i have heard nadia talk about this party for about a year now and it did not disappoint. it was really nice to have (what felt like) the entire area to ourselves and the weather played nice although it was looking really threatening the first day we got there. thankfully the rains stayed away and the weekend was perfect. making our time even more perfect was the "covered wagon" - which was sheila's (nadia sister) name for the trailer that sheila and kelly pulled out there for all of us to sleep in. this thing was great - circa 1977. i am glad we had it as the mornings were very chilly while we were all cozy inside. the gig itself was great too with 5 guys up on the custom-flatbed-trailer-cum-stage belting out tunes into the night while the rest of us got on with the most important part of camping - getting hammered by the fire! good times! what else did we do? - - - oh ya, built a sweat lodge on the beach, burned more driftwood than is explainable, potluck dinners, frisbee, consuming that cube of pilsner, eating beef and pork tenderloin, bison burgers too - yum! we'll be back for the next one, scheduled for the september long weekend in 2010 - see you there too!