Just under 3 weeks

Well, I've made the decision. This is the year, and it all begins in just under 3 weeks. Boy I'd better get busy. Started tonight, 1 good hour. Stay tuned....

First ride outdoors of the new year

I rode to work the other day (and home for that matter). It was around -22 degrees out with a bit of a wind (so it felt closer to -30) I finally got the chance to try out my new tires on my commuter bike (some schwalbe cyclocross tires), and I can say that I was impressed, enough grip for riding in the snow, but also smooth enough for riding on the road and not losing too much speed.

As far as the ride itself was, the balaclava I had on (a Ninjaclava from Outdoor Research) was restricting airflow a little too much for my liking, so I had to uncover my mouth. Not too big a deal, I just covered as much as I could and I was warm enough. My fingers did get a bit cold, and so did my toes, but aside from that, it felt nice to get out on the road again. It reminded me of how much more fun it is to ride outside than indoors on a trainer watching old episodes of Top Gear (brittish car show).

On a more family related not, we went to Birds Hill park with the family to feed the birds and walk around a bit. Here's a couple pictures from the day. Abby really was enjoying the birds being so close.

My Bike is Famous (not really)

Well, we were over at the Barfuss's'ss the other night just hanging out watching some T.V. when a program on discovery channel came on called "How they do it" about how things are made/done etc. They had a piece on bikes, and the manufacturer that seems to have sponsored the segment was none other than Marin (the maker of 2 of my bikes). There were a few riders going up a hill in San Francisco (I think) and 2 of them were riding my exact bike (the one pictured in the title bar of this blog, 10 points to whoever can guess what is wrong with that picture). I was quite surprised as I've only seen one other owner who posted one in an online forum.

I was also introduced to a funny show called "Big Bang Theory". Very funny. Must watch again.

Officially too long

Well, I guess it has been far too long since I've updated my blog, so I thought I at least put something up. Might as well start with a picture, everyone loves pictures....

Is there a better subject to post a picture of? I know a few people that could argue no (at least a couple of grandparents can be counted on to side with me there). Abby certainly does like to wear her dad's cycling caps, her favorite seems to be the Lampre team cap (pink & blue) of the current world champion's team (that may or may not have anything to do with it, maybe she just likes pink).

I guess one reason there hasn't been much activity going on in this blog is because I have generally been posting about cycling. Surprisingly, that seems to take a back seat during the long winter months of Winnipeg. I was riding (outdoors) into the beginning of December, but then it started to get really cold, and aside from a few warm days here and there, it has been a very very cold winter. Often too cold to even go skiing.

I have however been riding a bit indoors ( and I really do mean a bit) in an effort to stop my legs from turning to mush over the winter. However, there are few things more mind numbingly boring than riding a trainer indoors. Videos and music help, but after 45min to an hour, I just have to get off. I guess it could be worse though, it could be a treadmill.... uggg...

On the brighter side, things are winding down at school and I will be finishing up this semester, finally being able to graduate and move on. It seems to have been going on forever, but has really only been a few years. It will be nice to have one less thing to worry about, and more time to do things I enjoy.

Suicidal Squirrel

Well, there I am on my ride to work this morning (Saturday), it was a nice cool morning, the sun was shining, lots of colorful leaves on the trees, and I'm cruising along nicely as there was a south wind.


As I'm coming around the corner to cross the bike/pedestrian bridge from Kingston Row to Jubilee (the one at BDI as pictured above), I spot him. Sitting on the curb near a garbage bin. Our eyes locked as I continued to approach him, I knew what he was thinking: "I can't make it another Winnipeg winter, so cold... so windy.... so..... cold.... I'm ending it now!" As I continued to approach, he got ready to jump, so I hit the brakes hoping to throw off his timing.

Time seemed to slow as I gazed down to watch this poor destitute squirrel attempt to take his own life by jumping into the slightly bladed spokes whirring in circles. It appears as though my efforts to throw off his timing have worked, he jumped late, I felt him hit my rear tire.

As I turned in time to watch him scurry away into the bushes, perhaps he hesitated as he realized it wasn't worth it. Sure, Winnipeg is cold and windy in the winter, but the summers are great for a squirrel. He looked "well fed" and I'm sure he's gorged himself on a few delicious treats from the nearby BDI Ice Cream Stand. What started as a delighted child's frozen treat after their soccer game, became the "crème d'asphalt", a delicassy for squirrels. Then again, these treats my have been what thwarted his attempted suicide this morning, his lack of agility due to the excess cream intake may have slowed him just enough to be off the mark. Hopefully this squirrel can find it in himself to tough out one more winter, because trust me the summers (and oh so creamy BDI soft serve ice cream) are worth it.

MS Tour Continued....

heh heh, well I got a bit distracted from finishing my post on the MS tour from a while ago,and I guess I've forgotten many of the details by now. So I'll just leave it at how it went,
shortly after lunch it started to pour buckets, I hadn't seen so much rain in a long time, then the hail hit. I was sitting in our car with Jess, watching the remaining riders finish up. Boy, was I glad I finished earlier, I had to put the wipers on full tilt to see them and we weren't even moving.

The evening went pretty well, I was feeling worse and worse though, and again, I didn't sleep well once we got to bed, then I woke up feeling terrible. I got ready to go meet a few guys for a warm up ride (it was ~4 degrees C), and to see how I was feeling for the day. I decided to go for it, but asked Jess to wait at the first rest stop for me in case I didn't feel like continuing. Well, soon after the ride started, so did the rain. I was powering up the hills, my legs felt great, but... my lungs just couldn't keep up. I had 2 options: 1 Ride slower (yeah right) or 2, pack it in.

I saw Jess, pulled off the road, put my bike on the rack, and drove home.

After speaking with other riders the next day, they said the weather just got worse, more rain, wind, and apparently the food at the end of the ride consisted of 3 chicken fingers and some other small snacks.

The ride itself was beautiful, I quite enjoyed it as it was the first time I actually encountered hills on a ride. We hope to go out there next year for some camping, hopefully the weather will be nicer.

here's a little graph showing the elevation changes of the first day.




Nothing spectacular, but I was wishing I had a couple more gears in that steep part. Oh, it's not the complete course, just where it started to go up, the whole ride was ~72km or so.

MS Bike Tour Update

I'd like to start off by thanking everyone for their generosity in donating $$ for the MS Society of Canada. The grand total for the event was $190,000 (not all from me). Good job everyone.

Now for the ride report:

Friday evening we drove out to Dauphin, we left the house at around 5:00 p.m. and we stopped in Headingly for dinner.... at 6:00! oh man, that was the shortest hour-long drive ever. The rest of the drive was fine, and we rolled into the hotel parking lot with 10 minutes to spare until the office closed for the night. So we unpacked the car and got settled. No sooner than my head hit the pillow, my nose started to run, and my sinuses quickly became congested, and I had trouble sleeping that night (although it was better than in stonewall a couple years ago when our noisy neighbors kept us up until 4:30a.m.). I was not looking forward to the morning.

7:30 Saturday Morning: Up, getting dressed, feeling terrible. I made my way over to the community center where the breakfast and sign-in was. I went to the table, handed in my envelope, and received my registration packet.... for "Randy Smith" huh? so I went back, and got the proper named envelope, then proceeded to attach my number onto my jersey and bike, but... no zip ties, so I had to go get some zip ties ugg.. I hope the whole weekend isn't going to be like this. Feeling a little better my expectations for the ride increased. I spotted a few guys from the shop, and we chatted as we waited for the event to start.

9:00 the ride begins after a short ceremony and "warm up" which consisted of bending over a couple of times and stretching our arms. Temperatures were somewhere around 5 or 6 degrees at the start of the day hence the tights and long-sleeved jersey. As things got rolling, we got a small group together and were riding at a decent speed (at least that's what I thought), we were slowly picking up the pace, and after one of my pulls (the rider in the front that breaks the wind for the other riders) at ~37km/h one of the guys in the group sneered as he said, "it's hard for me to warm up when you're sprinting". Huh? if my sprints are that slow, I really need to look at a different sport.

The ride was mainly flat for the first 30 minutes or so, then we got closer to the park, and started up the escarpment. My first day where there were some actual hills was going to be a learning experience for me, living in Manitoba, the biggest hill I had come across was the bridge over the floodway. Our group divided up pretty quickly, and there were 3 of us riding together through the hills. There were some tough ones where I ran out of gears, but I made it up them pretty well.

A couple of other riders joined up with us, one of which Jess used to work with at the hospital, but he has gone back to school to become a doctor. Nice fellow. Anyways, we held a good pace the rest of the way to the finish and our time was 2 hours 31 minutes for 72 km. All in all, I was pleased with my performance as I didn't have all the time I wanted to prepare for the ride (I hadn't ridden in over a month, and before that I wasn't exactly riding regularly either).

Well, I have to go to work now, so I'll continue this later. starting with lunch....