word up

Two beauties to start you off with.

Lots to catch up on here.

I’ll; try to touch on all the important things that have happened recently and keep it short and sweet because lets be honest, you don’t want to read about every training ride I’ve done since the last time Ive written anything.

One exciting thing that I should touch on is Paris-Ancaster. This was my first race of the season and something that I hadn’t really been doing any specific training for. That being said, I love this race to bits. It’s epic, fast and amazing training for the upcoming season. I think its safe to say that everyone who competed in this years installment of the race can agree with me, especially on the epicness part.

I started off about mid way through the first wave, probably in about 100th position. I knew it was important to get a decent place in the group before you funnel into the first doubletrack along the river, and had the best of intentions to pin it as soon as my feet were clipped in. I guess it panned out? I funneled into the doubletrack in probably the exact same position that I started in and just sort of shrugged it off and kept on plugging. From then on was when my race really got going and it was an attempt to keep picking people off one by one until the end of the race. By midway, the crazy winds and snow squalls were starting to phase me a bit but the Belgium-ness of the race gave me a bit of a second wind and I caught and passed a bunch of people on the second half. Great day overall, love that race and am definitely looking forward to doing it again next year.

I’ve been having some highs and lows with rides recently, and last Friday was for sure one of the highs. I got out with about 15 other people of all skill levels to partake in an annual ride that was started a long time ago by a pretty sweet dude who isn’t with us anymore. We took over the trails and stayed out for about 2-3 hours in beautiful weather albeit a bit windy. Sunday’s ride was pretty uneventful and only lasted 2 hours instead of 4 like I had planned.

These things happen so I won’t sweat it too early in the season. It wont be long till I'm racing and getting my butt handed to me but its all fun and games anyhow. Once the season gets rolling, we will see some drastic improvements and all will be right again. Until then, I’ll be the dude who looks like he is trying harder than everyone to go fast…its because I am.

Candy makes your problems go away.

I’m pretty sure I’ve been given a complex by a co-worker. There is a good chance that come race season I will be hovering in and around the 90lb mark. Lean is good, right? My tactic isn’t going to be just going cold turkey but to slowly ween myself off the stuff and develop the ability to extract vitamins entirely from the sun. It all makes me excited for those hilly courses but something tells me that it may impact my ability to hold myself up with my own strength. Send me an e-mail if you want on the program. *side effects include almost certain death*

Trying out some new products right now….decided to jump on the Ergon bandwagon for my training bike. Using the Leichtbau something or others, the ones that look like real grips, also in baller white. I have toyed with the idea of trying to go with the flanged ones that are all the rage but my hands don’t really like them for some reason. The ones I’m using however are pretty awesome. They have a really good lock on system and are pretty comfy to hold. Only thing that I have to get used to right now is the volume of the grip itself, it’s huge. Only about 80k on them as of now so once that number is a bit higher I will have a bit more of a conclusive answer.

Since last week I have become a huge fan of Greek Yogurt and also adding quinoa to things I normally wouldn’t have before. As far as quinoa goes, I was never very experimental with it, only really adding it to salads and the odd baked good. As I mentioned, I have been a little more careful with what I am eating, and since quinoa is just awesome for making you full…Boom….I start putting it in my eggs, cereal, pancakes, granola (I like breakfast foods at all times of day), sandwiches, and more. Another good rule of thumb is that if it’s going in a pan at any point, you can probably add quinoa to it.

Did some DIY repair to my booties (had to really think for a second before phrasing that) this morning before work with some needle and thread stitching, some epoxy cement and some good old fashioned staples. Looks L-E-G-I-T.

The plan for Monday is to get two hours of riding in before work…going to be arriving at Joyride for 6am. Watch me zoom around on breakfast television.

Going Viral.

Hopefully this post isn’t so late that Tristan thinks that I have let him down. Apologies if that’s the case.

I took the weekend off of blogging so that I could do two things….1. Get a consistent amount of exercise done and 2. Sort out my internet connection with my provider who shall remain nameless. To give everyone a bit of a recap of my escapades leading up to today, Friday was spent on the internet…not something that concerns any of you at all but my blog is going to take a serious upwards turn in quality once I can stop doing this during my lunch hour or in that scary corner of my house where I can steal a weak signal from someone down the street. I did manage to get some strength training done in the morning but decided to take the day off my bike because I didn’t want to be blown away by the 80 km/h winds on my way to work.

We have a sweet little set up here at Norco for working out. It definitely has everything I need as a cyclist and sure beats paying 300 dollars a year or more at extreme fitness. A lot of the things I have been doing up until now have been very plank/pushup oriented with some minor leg work thrown in there. I have also discovered the art of the skip rope, which is super legit. Helps you with co-ordination a lot and also makes you think you’re Rocky, which I’m super okay with.

The steed. It's working out really well. Fits like a glove.

I spent last week with a combo of strength, rollers, regular trainer, riding outside and snowboarding. Saturdays outside ride was good but I started way too late so the length of ride I was looking for was a bit lacking but my ride back home was incredible. I love this city. Despite all the crappy brown snow…it’s still a pretty good place to train and live.

Here are some pictures that should sum up a general week for you.

Beautiful ride home in the sunset!

Cruising along the Davenport bike lane.

My desk at work!

The faux babe I created on my bulletin board...Silly calendar + wolf shirt = awesome babe.

I Graciously Accept

3 big events this week.

1. I have been added to Tristan's blog roll.

2. Tristan has been added to my blog roll.

3. It's going to be 10 degrees in Toronto on friday.


This is huge.

A pox

Finally had to do an indoor ride for longer than an hour last night...same again tonight. Watched 127 hours...good stuff, always tell people where you are going. This sucks though, because I was really enjoying getting by on all these outdoor activities. Soon enough. Can't wait for above zero temps this Sunday.

What are you even talking about?

Had a good few days of fun this past weekend. Managed to get up to the cottage with a few friends and just so happened to get some of the most ideal winter weather imaginable during our whole stay. Friday was spent doing work and driving but Saturday found us throwing down a big classic ski around the lake and getting a little bit burnt. In the après midi, we decided it was a good idea to get the shovels out so we could get the pond cleared off so we could refine our hack skating skills. 2 hour xc ski, an hour of pure shoveling and another hour of skating was sufficient exercise to warrant eating some tasty lasagna and beet salad for dinner.

Sunday I ventured off exploring on the skis myself and spend a good amount of time in the woods rather than on the lake.

It was much windier that day and I am just starting to enjoy skinny skis and didn't want to risk having a bad experience with them plowing into the wind.

Might have some better shots on the way. Waiting for them to get uploaded.

Into work early this morning so I can spin but training room is locked so it will be rollers tonight. Might try to finish watching my copy of Black Swan. Intense so far. Cursing that I started it so late last night and had to force myself to bed.

Told you I would.

Hope everyone has been keeping busy over the past week. It's always hard to stay motivated to get on the bike or do things that keep you fit during these gloomy months. When it comes down to it, unless your eating/exercising regime is truly poor, chances are you wont have to work too hard to keep fit(ish). What you may lose out on however is the chance to drastically improve on last years performance.

Myself for instance...Last year, even though I spent hours and hours riding my bike in the sun over three months, I didn't come close to doing enough intensity and therefore even though my endurance was there, my speed was straight up pitiful. This year, I have a slightly different approach of ramping up a lot closer to the spring months that should either help things or just make me even slower. We will see, I am still learning too you know.

EIther way, my plan thus far is to have fun. I am having fun strangely enough trying to slam down as many pushups as humanely possible in an attempt to just make myself more legit as a person overall. I think its working. Also, snow rides are awesome fyi. Just saying. Here are some photos...



This is a video at King City where we tried to ride in some SICK POW BRO. With rider weight it was more than hub deep at parts and good and tiring to ride through...it is also true that I am wearing a hoodie under my jacket. Sorry if I offend any roadies.

Holy Costanza wallet.

Good day at Joyride today with a bunch of people from the northern region of Horseshoe/Barrie region. Few hours spend chasing each other around the XC loop and playing around on the skinny sections of the bike park to brush up on how to actually ride a bike. Feels good to get bike work done multiple days in a row and it will feel good to continue this trend.

Tomorrow won't be too exciting though. Have a ton of errands to run in the car but will be able to get a spin in during lunch and probably again once I get home so all is not lost.

You know how I said I was going to take pictures? Yah...that doesn't work very well when you leave your camera in your bag so I'll get to that eventually.

In other good news, saw Mike G. at the bike park today and he brought to my attention that he now lives IN Toronto. Like the legit city part. Always to good to have one extra person to ride with during the winter. Makes life happier. Much talk at lunch/supper with Tammy, Jer, Tristan and Watson about paleo diet vs cold fx daily supplement. Wondering which has better immune booting capacity...ie. which one will make you get less colds and flu's with. Result was inconclusive as food arrived and it was never spoken of again. Pete?

Other than that, hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

Food: Dinner tonight is a big ass bowl of veggies. That is all.

Big Red

To get one thing straight. I do not have the Internet at home. I know it sounds prehistoric and ridiculous but to be honest I almost like it. 5 days a week I sit at a desk and work on a computer so it;s kind of liberating to come home and not feel the need to go on Facebook or youtube because I can't. That being said, it seems like kind of a waste to have this expensive laptop if I can't really use it. As a result, our house will be getting linked to the online world of social networking within the next few weeks so I will have to just deal with urges and make sure that when I get home I make time to ride and not catch up on episodes of Californication instead. It also means that I will start updating my blog on a regular basis. Crazy I know.

Just got back from Joyride tonight and managed to find a weak connection in a really weird corner of the living room so I will keep this brief. Was my first time bringing an XC bike to Joyride and it was WAY more awesome than I thought it would be. Spent a lot of time goofing around in pumptrack and skinny lines and then did about 30 laps of the XC loop there to get a bit of a workout. Gotta love that place for what it has to offer. Mr Mark Summers and the whole crew there deserve a big high five for what they have managed to accomplish.

Will be building up my new CX bike in the next couple of days. I will be picking up my new frame/fork on Monday and have the parts kit waiting to be transfered over. Quite excited for that. I'm surprised that I am finding time to ride honestly, I really thought that when I took a full time job, I would be toasted after work and just lounge around and get fat. Not really the case. Aside from a bad case of the flu which kept me off my bike for a good week or so, I have managed to ride a decent amount. Especially now that I have probably the most ballin' winter/training bike of all time thanks to the wonderful people at Norco. One thing that I haven't really been doing is taking pictures. I have been pretty good about keeping my twitter account pretty stocked with "flair" but my blog is a whole other matter. Pictures seem to be the lifeblood of these things and no one wants to read your blog if you 1. don't update it and 2. dont post pretty pictures and videos all the time. It's a work in progress but I am working on it nonetheless.

There have been talks of going back to Joyride tomorrow with some of the crew from up north so I may take them up on that (perfect photo opp). If not, big fun outdoor winter ride. It's really, really crappy and wet out right now so no trail riding for the time being, only epic mtb park system rides...which despite sounding terrible are actually really fun.