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.

Racecar bed needs a new garage

Moving is a pain in the butt, always will be. I just happened to have gone through this process, probably slower than necessary but feel the need to tell someone now that it’s completely done.

Continuing…Riding has been on and off this week so far, with moving on my table, I have been more occupied with lifting and driving in my spare time as opposed to riding. I do plan on having a pretty big weekend and if all goes well, I may even opt to do a little cyclocross race on the 5th. Not going to lie though, I am ready to start training for next year.

This is going to stray from last year’s formula a bunch though, staying in Toronto can be a pain in the butt when you are racing against some people who are going to Girona for three months, but to a certain degree I’m sure it’s going to toughen me up. After my season this year I have way more of an idea on how to better prepare myself for this upcoming season. It’s going to be a good time this year, I’m looking forward to going on freezing group rides and watching a bunch of movies on the rollers after long days of work.

I plan on making flexibility a bit of a higher priority this year, looking forward to seeing results…maybe I should buy a Wii so it can tell me how to do yoga.

New job is going really well so far, can’t say enough good things about the people involved with this company. Looking forward to the year ahead and building my new race bike. Can’t wait to post pictures when it’s all finished, Starting off with this and will be changing a part or two…

I'm told that more pictures need to be used here so I'm on the case. Next time.

Breaking bad habits.

First and foremost, I would like to thank those of you who have been getting on my case about doing this again. It feels good. I'm sorry.

As you may have noticed, a lot can happen in 4 months. New home, new career, new bikes and new friends to name a few.

To give you all a brief synopsis, the season end was a little bittersweet for me. I hadn't reached most of my goals and I was really, really tired but I have to say that in the fun department, this season exceeded my expectations in every which way possible. And for that I want to do it all over again.

Big news to note is that the logos I sport over there on the side have changed. I now am working full time for Norco Products and am really enjoying it so far. I've already gotten on a few of the bikes and have nothing but good things to say about them and the organization behind them. Lots of good people there and looking forward to moving in this direction.

That being said, I never moved away from the Trek Store because I didn't enjoy riding their bikes or didn't enjoy working there. Barry Near and everyone at the Trek Store are essentially the reason that this sport has grown on me and developed from a hobby into a career and passion. I can't thank Barry and everyone at both Trek Store's enough for everything that they have done over the past 9 years and wish them nothing but success down the road.

In case you were wondering, even though I haven't really been racing, I have been riding. My new office is a lovely 22km away from my current residence and I have been riding to and from work everyday, which has been awesome actually. I've decided it's the perfect distance that doesn't require me to put tons and tons of "focus" on recovery and still keeps me thin and fit for this time of year. I guess you can consider my training for next season started. I haven't started riding in doors yet and don't intend on it until absolutely necessary. When you work for a distributor it's not terribly difficult to come up with the parts to make a beater mtb for the winter months a la Eric and Peter.

That being said, Im in the process of moving and my new place has a pretty swell area for my rollers, so we will see once I get that sorted out.

Went to joyride on Friday after riding in and will be going tomorrow as well so this week should be another good week.

I will be updating this more often now but will have to do things bit by bit because I'm too tired to recap 4 months of events in one sitting so stay tuned!

Tasty Lunch

Baby spinach

2 Hardboiled Eggs

Hefty amount of Alfalfa Sprouts

2 Raw Beets (Thanks a lot Adam, now I'm hooked)

Strawberries

Flax seed oil

Canmore Race Report

Done and done. First pro National Championships out of the way. The day was wild pretty much right from the get go based on the sheer volume of waffles that Adam and I consumed (Not to worry, gluten free so no ‘poofy-ness’). With that out of the way it was off to the Nordic Center. Rick Batty and Zach had gone a bit early to set up the tents so it was all business with we arrived, or in other words it was pure chaise lounge time. We had spend a bunch of time all getting our bikes ready the day before and I had decided to change tires to something a bit slicker than my Karma’s. The course was still really bumpy though and flats were a definite concern so I decided to go with Continental Race Kings. They are a fast rolling tire but have big volume so they still soak up lots of impact and on the super bumpy stuff were a huge bonus. Those of you who raced Buckwallow would appreciate them a bunch, they would be perfect for that course assuming its not a mud fest like a few years ago.

I got called up about 4th row in the Elite Men’s category. There were 36 of us in total so that put me somewhere smack dab in the middle of things, if not slightly towards the back of the group. The start loop was short and stupid. We blasted off at mach 10 up the feed zone climb and hit some bumpy doubletrack for all of 30 seconds before we were spit out in a group onto the road. Round again, we went up the feed zone climb again and then back down in front of the nordic center building and then back up another open climb (that’s right, again) before we started the real climb into the singletrack. If that all sounds confusing, it’s because it was. As it was Nationals, the organizers wanted to give the spectators something cool to watch which I can totally understand, but it was boring doubletrack climbing and well we have to start mountain biking at some point. If my description makes it sound hard, that is also true. All that big ring climbing totally KO’d me for the first lap and it turned into one of those survivorman type races. Second lap I had recovered on the totally awesome descent and started catching people on the climb when I could go at my own pace. A lot of other people were gassed from that start pace too. The rest of the race went down with little excitement and I rode with Matt P to the end. Finished 25th or 26th in all. There were a few DNF’s that were inevitable either from exhaustion or the downhill eating parts of your bike.

Even though the start loop was silly, the rest of the course was actually super awesome. 200+ meters of climbing was probably a bit much per lap but it was super super fun to go down with the singletrack being super fun to ride. Look for next years Canmore course to blow this one out of the water though.

Post race was all about recovery nachos. Went out with Emily, Adam, Zach and Rick to the local establishment and ate too many jalepenos. Photo documentation will probably surface on the interweb somewhere.

Sunday’s race was wicked, as I wasn’t racing and could go down to set up and leave all the chaise lounging to Zach who was great to us the previous day and watch him completely destroy the expert men’s field. Putting a 100 foot gap on your field in 10 seconds isn’t easy to do. He ended up winning by something like 2:15 so watch for him to put tons of hurt on the pro field next year. Jon Barnes was having a great race until he unfortunately crashed out and ended up with a concussion. I can definitely sympathize there so I hope he is fully recovered asap.

Currently driving back home to Toronto and are sitting somewhere between Winnipeg and the Ontario border. When we haven’t been driving, Zach and I have been making slide shows of the trip on Imovie so we will each have up our own in a day or two.

Last but not least I want to throw big thanks out to everyone who was there this week. Zach especially but all the Trek Canada/World team were super fun to stay with and also Rick who volunteered his time to help out at the races and feed me during mine too.

Good luck in Europe everyone who is going/already there!

Canmore - National Championships

In the Canmore now, have been for a few days now. For a town that seems to ooze relaxed atmosphere I seem to be keeping myself pretty busy. First and foremost, it’s insanely beautiful here which just makes it so hard to rest and recover for this weekends race when ALL you want to do is ride ride ride.

First day we got here it was snowing. You heard me right, snowing. Blanketed mountain ranges and slush barreling down on the town provided the backdrop for believe it or not, one of the most enjoyable rides I have been on in a while. Zach and I set out when it was pouring rain and went exploring. Both of us have had stints of living out west so we relished the opportunity to ride similar terrain again. Stopped for a coffee break and finished up the ride with only about 2 hours in our legs but it was enough. Rain is rain and it was just nice to get the legs moving again.

Wednesday was course day. Did 3 laps in the morning with the rest of the Trek family. My first impression of the course was that it was so much climbing that I wasn’t going to be able to finish the race on Saturday. Sure enough though, after doing a few laps you get used to the pacing of the climbs and start to understand where to push and where to chill out and you get the hang of things. After cruising down and eating the biggest panini of all time I headed back up and killed another lap and a half but stopped there due to bear warnings and the fact that I was alone.

Today was a little bit more chill, bit of stretching, rode two laps and then came home to eat a monster taco salad. Delish. Some SMR and stretching to cap off the day and Im knackered. Assuming I recover well tonight I might do a race lap and one super easy lap to make sure I’m 100% on the course. Im feeling more and more confident on the course day by day so if I pace myself the race will be painful but should go well and I’m looking forward to it.



Emily riding my 29er. Tell me it's not faster.

Edmonton Canada Cup report

So Sunday came and went with some good company, some great weather and a course that was surprisingly fun to ride. We (Emily, Adam, Eric, Eden, Rick, Zach and I) were staying with Kirk Hamilton and his wife Serena, who were extremely welcoming and very gracious in letting us use their kitchen to eat and floor to sleep.

We arrived at around noon on Sunday so that the Trek Canada team could do a small loop with some super enthusiastic kids before our race went off. Looked like everyone was having a good time. Zach and Rick had gotten there a few hours earlier and set up the tent so when we arrived after watching an explosive and disappointing tour stage we were all a bit shocked at how awesome it looked. Having the trailer, with all the tents side by side looks super great and definitely drew a crowd throughout the day.

It had rained the day before but overnight it had dried up so much that we all decided that running a bit of a faster tire would be the best idea so I went with Bontrager XR0’s front and rear which was perfect. There was one small muddy uphill that had I run something more aggressive I might have been able to ride it but I didn’t see a single person ride it anyhow so I still feel I made the right decision. My race performance however was a bit lackluster. Because of my recent Euro trip I had spent a decent amount of time in the gym but 100% of it off of my bike so as soon as the race took off up the first hill it felt like my lungs were going to get heaved up onto the ground. In the grand scheme of things, this is how it is supposed to feel anyhow so I kept on chugging away into the single track and got caught up in a bit of a train that had formed. Even though I felt like I was pushing hard, my legs weren’t burning like they normally do during a race and actually felt too good considering how hard I was breathing. This was annoying because we were going...well, really slow and I wanted to speed up but could not whatsoever. By the time my third lap was coming to an end I was starting feel really bad and couldn’t recover from the very anaerobically demanding course. Unfortunately, so much that it put an end to my race. I felt pretty bleh after the race and just kind of depressed that I had to pull the plug. On the bright side though, my legs did feel okay and with all the great riding I have the opportunity to do this week I am one hundred percent confident I can make it up this upcoming weekend at Nationals in Canmore.

After the race, everyone on the team helped Zach and I take everything down and get everything loaded back up into the trailer. All the bikes got washed and stored until everything was all purrdy just like when we came. Needless to say, I’m actually really excited to show off all our awesome bikes, the balling trailer and tents at next weeks event. Zach and I stayed and swept the course for markers and tape and helped Kirk anyway we could as thanks for letting us stay with him and for putting on such a great event. Team Trek Canada however, did have an exceptional day with everyone putting in a super solid effort with 2 podiums and everyone putting in a top 10. No crashes and no mechanicals, mostly in part to Zach who made sure that all of their bikes, (mine too!) worked better than they ever have. Would like to thank Rick Batty as well for the feed. That family has feed zone techniques on lock.

In the car right now bout 40km away from Canmore and have hijacked Emily’s Ipod so we can blast Lady Gaga and make Adam feel uncomfortable, even though I'm sure he’s just as into it as we are. Stoked to have a full week of riding here to get my body up to speed with what it should be doing. Ill keep everyone posted as much as possible along the way!

Truck stop stories. Zach eating caramel corn. Popcorn covered in caramel molded into the shape of a cob. Delicious.

Alive and well....

Almost there...

Out about on my bike today with the rest of the gang. Zach, Adam, Emily and Kirk (who was very generous in letting us stay here) went to the course today to check it out. 5 minutes in, it was easy to see why I was really enjoying myself, it's the EXACT same as the don valley trail system, just...well..different in it's own westernly ways. Did one lap with Adam, Emily and Kirk then went for a tasty coffee just up the street (this is a definite perk of having a venue in the middle of the city). Zach and I were still ironing out our legs from our long drive so we hit the trail for two more laps and went a bit harder and draining our bottles super fast. It was hot today and the punchy steep few climbs are making me very happy that I added bar ends before I came out here.

Adam trying to sneak attack pictures of people.

Going to take a whole bunch of pictures tomorrow to give you guys and gals back east a taste of this west coast Don feel.

The entire prairies summed up in one photo

Training wise I think this race could go very well considering my recent time off the bike. Heartrate was a little high today but that was expected, all in all. Going to be a great warm up for Nats.



"Did you get all the beer?" - Adam Morka

Eat your salad, no dessert.

Jeez, I guess I dropped the ball a bit after my last post. Time to make up for it. Things are in motion to get myself, Zach Tatem and the whole team trailer to the Edmonton Canada Cup and then Nationals in Canmore Alberta.

We are somewhere just outside of Thunder Bay right now with one full day of driving behind us. The whole day was pretty painless and we and the trailer are all still in one piece.

Before I continue with this however, let’s backtrack. I arrived home from Europe on the 30th at around 7:30 pm and was supremely excited to get back to everything I was missing ie. Laura, regulated nutrition, bicycles and my own bed. I had been experiencing some discomfort in my right knee and had attributed it to the running and weight training that I had been doing combined with not enough stretching. Fair enough, I had that coming. When I woke up the plan was to head to Durham for hours and hours to got a good long ride in that would leave me gassed and at least get some of my riding legs back before we headed out for this trip. I had been trying to stretch as much as possible for the last bit since my knee started hurting and again once I got home but apparently it wasn’t enough, I lasted about 2 hours before I had to call it a day and head home. After more stretching and a good sleep I felt better and headed out on my road bike for a bit in the morning before heading to The Trek Store to get some work in. Again, lasted about an hour before heading home. Uh oh. At the very least, I managed to get in some good efforts right? After some worrying and intense amounts of stretching I did manage to curb the problem and now my knee is just glorious. Went for another mtb ride on Saturday with Row-bear after work and managed to get a stick caught in my something, which stopped something from rotating, which in turn ripped off my derailleur. Wonderful, half an hour of riding that day with 45 minutes to an hour of walking ahead of me to gt back to the store. Fiddlesticks. That is until thanks to Rowbear’s wonderful piece of Bontrager apparel, we McGiver’d a tow rope and I was pulled to safety. Highly recommended for those interested in electric bikes. Why spend thousands of dollars when there are fit co-workers for free?



Sundays ride was great. Headed out with Mr. Carleton on the road bikes for 4.5 hours after the first crash filled stage of the Tour. Great stuff boys, keep it up. Oh right, forgot to mention it was 40+ degrees outside with humidity. 7 bottles and zero pee breaks. Even tried to ‘givr’ once or twice on the return and wasn’t sad with my numbers.

Monday was good. Good in the sense that I did something that I should have done many weeks ago. Clean my bike top to bottom. It’s wonderful. All the protective nasty tape is gone, all my parts look new, new cables and even made some cockpit changes for these two western races. It’s even cleaner than Matt P’s bike! (who is having a great season on his Gary Fisher Superfly and has provided the reader with some good info on why you should get one too!).



Yesterday! (almost caught up) Loaded up the trailer bright and early with Barry Near and ZT, who’s name has been phonetically changed to (ZA-CHE TAH-TEM) by telemarketers recently. We headed out around 11 and ended up in White River by around 11, each taking marathon pulls through intense fog in the driver seat. Our accommodations there couldn’t have been better. We were referred by a motel with no vacancy to a small grouping of ‘cabins’ down the road about a km and it was a real treat considering we were fully prepared to sleep in the car. A whole separated cabin with 3 beds, full kitchen, living room, wireless high speed, TV and a very nice lady at the front desk. It was also $55.00 for the night. why can’t they all be like that. A friend pointed out that I should probably write down the name of the place in case we need an extreme northern party adventure cabin. Consider it done Kasia.



After a good family breakfast were off again on the road now and are shooting to get past Winnipeg tonight. We are going to stop mid day and do some form of riding. I have my rollers so worst case scenario rest stop intervals. Have been trying to fit in as many push ups/sit ups as possible during our limited stops and seeing how many I can get up to each day of travel. Yesterday was 180 push ups, 40 sit ups. Did some good jumping squats as well. Should easily beat that today, plus the ride. Aiming for Thursday night arrival in Edmonton or maybe Friday morning latest. Any Trek Canada team members who might read this, your bikes will remain in pristine condition *taps nose*.

Have been without internet for about 5 days now. Not good. Have a small chance at a train station to update now but due to time constraints will have to tell you some stories later on tomorrow. Have some good info about travelling and nutrition!

Lazer AND Tower?!

As per my title, I'm watching American Glradiators. My breakfast is digesting, its 9:45am and this is the only thing in English that's on TV. It's OK though, it's getting my all psyched up to go to running in the way that only rednecks with perms can.

The view from my hostel room is beautiful. I have been to Stockholm before and remember enjoying it. When we arrived and were on our way to check in, we passed the neighbourhood I was staying in last time so i'll be sure to go check that out.
(Photo taken on photo booth on my mac and doesn't do it justice)


Starting to get the hang of this crossfit thing and I really am starting to enjoy it. Once you start doing workouts like this one, it makes a big difference. Gotta say though, I can not wait to get back on my bike again. All I want to do is go for a 4 hour ride.