Bromance rekindled

The first day back on the bike in a week, yep it felt strange and my body questioned me more than once. I questioned it also as I debated on my momentum being slowed by the wind or if my legs where really that cooked. I was lucky and it was the wind and after 40ish minutes the legs started to come around, the tightness loosened and the pace increased. I also renewed my romance with Chuck, as we road into the sunset of what would be called cottage country.

A quick stop for this.

After a bit of debate I've decided to leave the bmx in the basement for tonight. A test ride around the yard reminded me that I'm not 12 anymore and that I would probably crash horrifically over and over again on it. I'm just starting to feel good and recovered, I feel that poling at death with a mallet would not be a wise decision so there are a couple options for tonight. The cross bike is craving some abuse, the SS is always a go to or last resort is the TLC given Anthem that will be coming home from the shop this afternoon. Either way watching the antics of the twins will be entertaining enough for the masses. Training continues, let the fun begin.

Warming up for Worlds

I know that summer unfortunately is coming to a close when the World Cup championship are here. No I'm not talking about the ones that Mr Watson is at, I'm talking about the real ones, the Wednesday night one. It's the last night for the season this Wednesday and that means something special must be ridden to run done all the up and coming kids. There is no age categories, there is no mercy rule for a 6 year old. We will be racing amongst them so to equal the playing field I've opted to ride something of equal or lesser value for the last night.

That's right, I'm rockin the bmx for tomorrow night. I was nice and took off all the pegs, partly for the kids, they work well at taking out a f spokes, partly for me, the inability to lean the bike more than a few degrees could lead me to death if they were on. Also swapped out the flat pedals for something I'm a little more comfortable with. I'm still concerned that the ridged fork is going to hurt me a little over the 8 km course. Of course I will do my very best RAD impression, I'm interested to see what the twins bring this year.

Tonight will be an easy ride to easy back into the training thing. One full week of the bike seems to have made the body feel better minus the sore body parts from last weekend, hopefully it leads to a great September.

The 24 hours of Killarney

That's almost the perfect description of the weekend as Jacob, Liz, Shannon, the 2 dogs and myself headed north for a non bike weekend. It was far from a sit on the dirt in some campground surrounded by many other car campers, not this group. Arrival time to the launch on Bell lake was 3pm, yes a bit later than we all would have liked but it is what it is. Multiple portages finally got us on to David Lake where we would be staying the night, if we could find an empty campsite. As we paddled every liquidy inch of the lake we finally ended up at the farthest site on the lake. We should have just went to the end and worked are way back. Set up and food was started quickly and by 7pm we were ready to chill and eat. Campfire stories began with attempts of making Loon's a gang type attacking bird. It was pretty unsuccessful.

Like usual camping leads to early mornings, for some of us, normal wake up for others. Yet another great meal, fueling for the day would be essential. Another hour paddle fully loaded in the return direction but this time it was a portage, drop and leave. On to the hike of the day up to the top of Silver Peak. A good pace, especially for two weak frail cyclists who tried to keep up with the women. The climb is always worth the view and as we broke through the tree line the wind increased. After the exertion it felt great. Some more food and photo shoot at the top to say we were there was done. No AWI Racing flag left on the top, not this time.

The decent down is almost harder as you look at the sharp point rocks, of course Jacob and I were looking at what lines we would take through it if we had our bikes. An hourish later we were back in the canoe and heading towards the final portage back to Bell Lake. 780 meters feels more like 2340 feet. The winds increased and our hope for a tail wind on the last lake were of course shut down as we battled through the results of that hurricane on the east coast. We slide up on the shore just before 3 pm. According to 24 hour racing rules we could have gone back out for our last lap of the lake, we had time but are lead was solid and we strapped the canoes to the cars and headed south in search of food and beer.

The beer was good, the food was questionable. A great weekend away from 24 hour racing of bikes, the next block of training and racing is about to start. 4 tired people, 2 exhausted dogs. Yep a great weekend.

Fun in a special way

What happens when you have to much energy stored up because of you lack of riding? Dangerous idea start and the time to do it follows. A visit to The Bike Stop mid afternoon turned into an evening of entertainment at the team president decided to step up and double dog challenge all other race team directors to show their commitment. Not on a race course, not even on a bike, nope Tristan Spurr has risked all to entertain us with thrills and laughter. Ladies and gentleman welcome to the greatest show on earth or at least the Oro Medonte area until the tractor pulls this fall.

There is not much I can say that the pictures below can't describe better. There were video's taken, the editing is currently taking pace by others.










Some may say this is childish and dangerous, you're right but it's also fun and sometimes you need to mix that back into your life in this crazy world.

I just realized that this is the first 24 hour I won't be at in 6-7 years. Strange, good luck to those that are playing this weekend.

a mini vacation

A the lack of riding continues the time was easily filled in with other to do's. Cleaning and tuning bikes has seemed to be at the top of the list. A close second is weekend prep, normally I'd be planning for a long ride at the 24 hour instead its for a short camping trip with a long hike mixed in. AWI racing takes on Silver Peak in Killarney this weekend where some of us will show off our upper body strength and some won't during the couple hours of paddling and portages. Life on the bike will return when we return..