Winter Playground

I walk down the steps out the back of my apartment and make a right. I stare at this spot every day as I walk to and from the subway and now it's time to explore.

My footsteps lead down a steep path, and if I didn't look back, it would be hard to tell I just came off of a main street.

See that pile of wood? I don't. I see log-overs and ramps.  I feel air under my wheels.

That's not a pile of unused bricks and stone. It's the foundations of my stunts.

This steep slope begs for a line going down its face.  I see hours of work to pay for seconds of exhilaration, and the price seems just right.

To cap it off, there is a skinny that just hasn't been cut yet.  This could be the start or end of a sweet little run.

You might see some footsteps in the snow, but I see a winter playground.

I think I'll start building on Saturday.

Mark Webber's My Boy

Turns out Mark Webber raced the Japan GP at Suzuka where he qualified in pole and came second with a broken shoulder from a mountain biking accident. This is after he spent the 2009 season away after breaking his arm mountain biking.  Guess I just found my new favorite F1 racer.

My favorite driver

Info and picture from Autosport via Autoblog

And this is why

Picture from Life

Joyride 150 - First Trip

So I got to go to Joyride in Markham for the first time last Tuesday (I know, I suck at updating.)  Man was it ever fun! so many areas set up for you to learn and improve skills.  I don't think I've ever sweat as much within 30 minutes of being somewhere.  I had my buddy Jon take a video of me doing a lap of the pumptrack, you know, in case anybody doesn't believe I went:

A sweet photo and wicked video to make Monday tolerable

Both of these are Lewis Nolan riding.  Also both are from Pinkbike

Photo by clicked


Video by Lewis Nolan

Sweet French Biking Video

Anne-Caroline Chausson (World Champion BMX rider) ripping it up in the Spanish Pyrenees.

Moustache Gracias



I love watching videos of girls who are better riders than I am.

Photo and Video by Romain Decomble of GuilhemMachenaud.com
Link from Pinkbike

As We Know It

Last Saturday, Toronto had what we like to refer to as "amazing weather:" 5 degrees Celsius and sunny.  With such fantastic prospects greeting me, I absolutely could not say no to a big group ride in the Don Valley.  This actually happened to be one of the bigger groups I've ridden with in the last couple of months.  I guess everyone was trying to get one last good one in before the weather turned to shit this week (cold, rain, and flurries predicted until Friday).  Anyway, here's a couple pictures:

 

Unfortunately, I also decided to take a corner on a sweet new section of trail too slow and went right into a log, followed by a tree.  Now my wheel doesn't quite roll straight:

It looks like there may not be good enough weather to ride for at least a week, but hopefully I'll have a chance to hit Joyride 150 for the first time this week.  It's a sweet indoor bike park in Markham.  Time to improve some of my bike handling skills!

Danny MacAskill Way Bck Home

As the Toronto weather segues into winter, my cycling time has become more limited. As usual, there is an inverse relationship with how often I can hit the trails and how many bike videos I watch in any given week.  So, I warn you now that there will probably be an influx of random bike videos posted here as the cold takes hold.

I digress; here is Danny MacAskill's fantastic new video from Red Bull via Bike Radar

Life Goals

I took this picture when I was cleaning up my apartment a week or so ago.  I'd say it pretty much sums up how I'd like to live my life:

I wish I knew how to use photoshop, because I feel like this could be fun with some effects...

First Snow Ride

I really need to get more timely and consistent about updating this...

Anyway, last Sunday we had the first snowfall in Toronto, which lasted about 30 minutes and melted upon contact.  Regardless, I took a ride in the Don Valley with that lovely temperature with my buddies Jake and Wayne and here are the pictorial results:

Just call me Mr. Blurrycam

It was great to stop and session cool spots instead of just riding at warp speed through the trails.   Jake and Wayne are awesome riders and going with them definitely pushed me to try things that I probably wouldn't by myself.  What a fantastic ride!

Last Saturday at Duffins Creek (Pickering)

A few of the Don Valley gentlemen and I took a ride out in Pickering last Saturday.  Here is the photographic evidence.  The first hill and all subsequent ones were quite the Downhills of Death:

As the fall winds down and winter grips southern Ontario, I hope I can find it in me to take a few more rides. 

2010 U-Cup Season Re-cap

Well, the final cranks have been pedaled in the 2010 U-Cup race series, and I must say, my first season on the U of T mountain bike team was unreal fun!  Everyone I met was extremely supportive of their fellow racers and I was happy to have a chance to interact with people from different schools.  Despite missing 2 races due to other obligations and unfortunate alarm-clock-related distractions, I thought I had a pretty good taste of the race series. 

The two race courses and time trial course that I did have a chance to do showcased an awesome variety of terrain.  They helped many people reveal their strengths as bikers in an atmosphere that wasn't too competitive to stifle the fun.  I thought the U of T team all did a fantastic job in the races.  However, I'd also like to congratulate Guelph and Queens on being co-champions for the season.  The full individual results are available here and I will post the team results when I they go up.

Personally, I obviously have a lot of room for improvement next year, which I hope to gain by training more over winter, riding harder next summer, and not missing any race buses next season.  I feel that I now have a decent benchmark set for my future amateur racing, and I intend to reach a point where I can regularly find myself in the front of race packs.  I also saw some incredible talent on the U of T team this year that I hope will turn into a more top-10 biased season for 2011.

With that, I leave you with a couple photos from the last race, from Brian Liu:

Team photo.  Maybe I'll photoshop myself in later

U of T's Theo Theobessiou tearing it up at Ganaraska.  2nd overall in men's B, congrats Theo!

The Battery is Dead (Long Live the Battery)

About 2 minutes into the Tuesday night ride yesterday, my 2-month-old Magicshine's battery decided to die after about 20 minutes of total use.  This also happened on the last ride I did, when I borrowed someone else's second battery.  This time, there was no spare battery to be found, so I turned for home with a dour mood and dark thoughts.

However, before you all cancel your Magicshine orders: upon reaching home, I emailed Geoman about the battery.  This morning I already had a response from them in my inbox, and they're sending a new one!

Verdict: F for battery life, A+ for service.  Thanks to Geoman for rectifying the situation so quickly and Tim Charles for lending me a spare battery until the new one arrives.

How to remove a bottom bracket, realize it's pooched, and replace it with a new one

So, when I brought my camera to Bike Sauce a couple weeks ago, I fully intended to write a tutorial on how to overhaul a bottom bracket.  However, I realized that it was pointless to overhaul this one, because I would just be postponing the inevitable.  So, I leave you with the revised tutorial:

Fixed Gear Mountain Biking part 2

My friend Swoo and I decided to hit the fall bike show which turned out to be a crowded mass of people practically shoving each other for a chance at the best deals. I managed to pick up a pair of cycling shoes to replace my over-sized old ones for $50. Then I managed to get the hell out.

Since the day was so beautiful, we decided to make up for that horrible episode with a trail ride in the Don Valley. I have to say, riding with Swoo is totally different from riding with the Don Rats. Firstly, his fixed gear free-style bike provides some...limitations to the ride speed. The upshot of that is that we spent more time enjoying some of the features in the valley that I usually skip in a mad attempt to catch my riders. We also had time to take some pictures:

The second difference is Swoo rides with a video camera and loves to make edits of his rides.  Thus, we came out with a souvenir:

Don Valley Trails from swoo on Vimeo.

Except for a stupid mechanical where the horseshoe spring on my brakes somehow caught the rotor and made my front brake unusable and one flat, this was a perfect ride.  Not too fast, beautiful day in the beautiful Don that reminds me why I love fall on the east coast.

Thanks for the edit, Swoo!

Yeah, Life's Good

I've never had a chance to ride trails in the autumn before:

It's too bad so much of our ride ended up looking more like this

Thanks to Harrison Dahme for the photos.

Bike Sauce Fall Alleycat

Next Friday, October 22, Bike Sauce is putting on a fall alleycat race!  If you happen to be in Toronto, come out and play.

Race recap: 2010 U-Cup race #3: Hardwood ski and bike

Hardwood ski and bikes offered the most awesome trails of the race series this year. Plenty of log-overs, steep and root-strewn descents, and gnarly short climbs kept the race interesting lap after lap. There was even a wicked little technical rock scrub patch (you know, smaller than a garden) that kept us on our toes during the race. The first hill was a fairly steep bastard of a climb that leveled out just in time for you to hit an even steeper section. It definitely separated the gentlemen from the ruffians (and I fear that I was in the latter category.) I actually managed to stay pretty near the front of the main pack for the rest of the first lap, though the second round of that climb drove me somewhat further back. The course definitely suited the avid mountain bikers over the hard-core roadies who smoked everyone in the second race. I ended up 15th again, though I was only 2 minutes off a top-10 finish this time. Hopefully, I'll find that extra bit of push to get a top-10 finish before the end of the season.

Alec W of the U of T team making that section look suitably gnarly

That was supposed to be bullhorns in my right hand

I can't wait to have the U of T jersey

Ahem...I may have put my foot down here about .5 seconds after this

May I just point out that race-tight bibshorts are quite fetching...

Thank you to Brian and Louis from the team for the pictures!

Danny MacAskill's coming out with a new video!

The trials legend will be back again soon.

Here is the teaser from Redbull:


Found the link on Pinkbike

Race Recap: 2010 Boler Mountain U-Cup race

So, two weeks have passed since the second race of the U-Cup series at Boler Mountain.  Unfortunately, I didn't write about it when it was all fresh in my mind, so here's the skinny:
The course was fast, they say that it's the favorite of the roadies on the team.  Lots of ups and downs, and practically no technical features on the trail (I think there might have been one mini log-over).  Of course, despite that, I still managed to crash: while leaning for a bermed turn, I rode over a small stick which slipped right out from under my wheel and I went right down.  Luckily, nothing was damaged on my body, and the bike came out of it with a bent brake lever and a slightly bent bar.  I jumped back on my bike and managed to hold on to 15th place for the race.  It was a ton of fun, and a late start to the biking season.  I'm sure that next year, I'll be much more on form and I'll kill it.

Here are some pictures from the race:

Mugging for the camera

I wish my race face was more interesting than the "fish-out-of-water" look I sport at the moment, but alas, it's the only one I have.

Thank you to Mike Levesque for the pictures

Pizza Tool

Parktools is now making a pizza tool:

Thanks to Matt Levy from Pinkbike

Damn those blue-handled bastards for making a tool I both covet and mock simultaneously.
More information on the Park Tool website

Walterworks

I recently came across the Waltworks blog, written by Walt Wehner. He's a genius with a welding torch and a machine shop, creating all kinds of insane custom bikes and parts. Those include this '36er(!) that he's working on:

He's also put a serious ding on my grand master plan to one day own a Soulcraft custom frame.  I mean, 1200 for a hardtail mountain or a road frame versus 1700? Shit.

Thanks to Swoo at Constant Revolution for the link!

Mountain Magic - Shimano Di2

The coolest electronic gizmo for a mountain bike since the Cannondale Simon electronic suspension:

The Fairwheel Bikes Di2 mountain bike. The Di2 package has been reprogrammed for sequential shifting, so the rider only pushes up or down on the control and the next highest or lowest ratio will be automatically selected. It even skips doubled ratios.

Mountain bikes and electronics definitely go together

 Not only that, but the system has been put on a Titus titanium frame with a Cannondale Lefty fork and Enve tubular rims weighing in at about 16lbs (claimed).  Of course, it does cost about 12 grand without the sweet shifting system. But I'll ignore that in my dreams.

How I wish I could go to Interbike...

From Bike Radar