This may have been the most fun weekend on mountain bikes since I got back into riding the fall of 2006. Actually, there is no doubt that it was the most fun. All because I got to go biking with fellow School of Mine'er Scott Sportsman. It may have been 10 years (10 years! OMG) since leaving Golden and the great friends and cycling but the memories have always been with me. sigh. memories. But now I have new memories, a better bike and stronger legs!I was nervous to ride with Scott. He races. He races long distances. He races long distances without gears. He races long distances without gears or suspension. I'm a wannabe trying my first race with no experience or knowledge other than getting on a bike and pedaling. Of course, I only ever remember Scott (just like all the guys I rode with at Mines) being supportive and encouraging whenever we cycled in Golden. Nevertheless, nervous. What if he was bored with our trails? What if I really am a shitty rider and just have pretenses to mad skillz? What if he had to tell me I'm not ready for the race? What if he doesn't make it though Canada Customs and Immigrations??? A friend lent his Brodie Sauce to Scott who aptly remembered shifting and full suspension on the first day's XCish North Shore ride. We started gently on the Figure 8 loops in Lynn Valley and discovered that the brakes on the Brodie were insufficient, so we rode back down to sea level for a quick adjustment at the bike shop and then back up to Lynn Valley to start the climb to Mt. Seymour. The plan was to ride Fishermans to Bridal Path, climb up Old Buck and then drop the saddles, put on the armor and descend Severed Dick. I only got a little turned around, not lost, just added a few kms of backtracking a couple of three times.... I had to call for a rest break once we hit Old Buck. Maybe if there were more wildflowers for Scott to stop and take pictures of I wouldn't have been so trashed before the second to last climb of the day. The fully suspended ride down Severed was very tasty. Almost as tasty as the burger and beers at the local brew pub after the 5 hour ride. mmmm beer. I may have a mind like a sieve sometimes, but am 99% certain (at 95% confidence) that Scott said he wouldn't have ridden that on his ss. Success! Blurry Scott on Severed. I couldn't get far enough ahead to get a good picture! Due to the blur you can't note the full spandex with armor....Not the typical North Shore style of riding clothes...Obviously a tourist!
Since I'm kind (and training for the BCBR) I decided to ride Squamish XC on Sunday rather than show Scott more of the North Shore free ride stuff. That and I'm a lousy downhill rider. There was no goal for Sunday but turns out the Test of Metal course has been marked and once we found the single track there was nothing to do but follow the blue arrows. Of course, I still got us turned around and added a few kms backtracking especially when we rode into the area with active logging. I wasn't keen to meet a skidder or haul truck... Sunday was delicious riding! Though Scott did make wistful comments about not having his Walt today. The downside of riding together was it was not possible to take pictures. I couldn't get in front of Scott (who was now riding a demo Enduro from the LBS as the Brodie hasn't been ridden since my friend got married and had a baby 3 years ago and needed more attention from a wrench), long enough to document his geared and suspended hours. So I settled for his back wheel and attempted to take one-handed pictures on a section of flat wide loamy trail. The best trail of the day was Roller Coaster. Every bit as good as the name implies; fast, wiggly, goodness.
4 hours and a few advils later we decided to go to the Howe Sound Brew Pub for, well, burgers and beer. mmmmm beer. Summer days are long up north and Scott says his knee doesn't give him grief when running so we did a quick jaunt to the top of the Chief after quitting the pub. It's 550 m vertical over 2.5 kms to the top of First Peak. Rolled back into Vancouver around 8 pm and nibbled on crepes and grilled veggies for dinner. There was probably also beer.I skipped work on Monday and Scott still had the Enduro and was booked on an evening flight. Plenty of time to ride Pipeline on Mt. Fromme. Platforms. Full face helmet. Full armor. Third easiest trail on the North Shore. Conditions were great, the trail was dry, the man mades were in good condition. I think it was a new pivot on the teeter-totter.... My only complaint was that full face helmets mask the smiles and muffle the woohooos. Scott's only complaint was I didn't feed him enough breakfast. We grabbed a quick bite at our much less tasty Chipotle's imitation and headed to the park to slackline; the perfect thing for those mellow in-between times with the added bonus of making Scott stationary long enough for some in-focus pictures. 
The only word for the weekend was amazing. The riding was wonderful. Probably 12 or so hours over 3 days of riding plus a hike. Scott provided some great tips on the race and some very appreciated confidence boosters about my fitness level/strength and chances of finishing the race. The conversations were fun-- nothing like a couple of Mines geeks talking 'bout the world-- though Scott's American accent often made me giggle. The time off the bikes was pretty damn great too, which turned out to be a relief as his flights out of Van got all kerfuffled and he was unable to get out of town until mid-day Tuesday.
Thanks for coming to visit Scott!! When and where is the next mtn bike get-together? I hear Moab is nice.
Just like every weekend this year, I was out riding by myself today.
Catch up and pass a guy whose bike is making more noise than the 12 year old VW diesel getta I drove in high school. He smiles and I'm willing to exchange a few pleasantries. It is a lovely day. Yes, I am having a really nice ride, thank you. But dude. I don't know who you are and we are not going anywhere together today. I am going to Whytecliff Park. Alone. At my own pace. My pace which is faster than you on the climbs and very slightly slower than you on the descents. You descend faster courtesy of what is known as 'little g', your heavier bike and the extra mass around your mid-section that probably weighs more than my bike. It's a narrow road to Whytecliff Park and when I have to pass you the second time on the next little roller around the blind corner with the public bus behind me it is not fun.
You can't know that my huge(huge) pet peeve is men passing me on the downhills but being unable to keep the pace on the next climb. But when you pass me for the third time on the third downhill section.. just next time, please, spit down next to your front fork. Not out to the side at 30 km/h.
It was motivating to hammer the next 20 kms just to get away from you.
Regardless of the numbskull on wheels incident, the training is going great with another 100 road kms today. K and I went to Fromme for some mtn biking yesterday. I decided we should go all the way to 7th Secret to scope out the trail conditions. Trail conditions suck. The top 1/3 is still snow covered. We boot skied with our bikes. It was good we had armor as the snow was rotten and it saved our calves when we post-holed. Bottom 2/3 was great. K has wicked skills and it's a treat to ride and get tips from her. It's good the BCBR isn't a technical ride or I'd never be able to hang with her!
Burnaby mountain was muddy. After 5 days of not cycling, it felt really good to be back on the bike and ended up with a 5 hour ride. Right on schedule for BCBR training schedule (except for the 5 days in the field). There's not a lot of flow on the BBY mtn trails, but it was still tasty enough to ride Nicole's Pole and Cardiac hill twice.
Sunday--- Sunny skies and warm. Only knee warmers and arm warmers. Longest ride of the year so far! 130 km. Tired and hungry and in love with the Orbea.
North Ontario is a subjective term. To Ontarians it means anything north of Toronto, which to the rest of Canada is below the 49th parallel and quite far south. North Ontario just means the northern part of the inhabitated bit of the province. If you look at a map of Ontario the exploration mining camp I'm at is geographic north-south middle of the province but quite close to the Quebec border which is an important influence on the regional cuisine. Every year, I'm spending less time in 'the field' so even a week of hauling core boxes and bagging samples is good fun. This is not the glamerous field work I like to brag about and neither is the location. The Canadian shield is heavily forested rolling hills covered in lakes, muskeg, swamps, beaver dams, mosquitos, black flies and black bears. Over 1.5 meters of snow has melted in the last week so neither the bugs or bears have gotten too active. The snow has melted, but it hasn't stopped falling. It has been COLD until today. Today I only wore one pair of gloves.
There are 4 of these rows of core sheds and foundations are being poured for another 2 rows. Plus all the historic drill core archieved on the core library (aka graveyard). Lots of rock. Lots of $$ to drill and explore for metals. I am always amazed at how little metal costs when you look at the expense of finding a deposit, developing the prospect, defining the ore body, designing the mine, protecting the bugs and bunnies and fish and water and air, operating the mine, getting the concentrate to the smelter, smelting and then sending the metal to some manufacturing plant to make some dumbass disposable electronic device. If it can't be grown it's got to be mined and we don't (yet) pay the true price of for any goods. 
I either need a raise so I can buy new rain pants or just need to duck tape these so they last one more field season.
I'm getting back to Vancouver tomorrow and straight onto the road bike and then eating a HUGE leafy green salad with spinach and drinking some beer! I bet my bikes have been lonely this week.
Bring on the castigation. The goal of the blog is to hold myself accountable for BCBR training and I didn't get on any of my four bikes this weekend. No excuse but laziness and maybe a little sloth.
April has been unusually cold. It snowed (again!!!) on Friday. There was still snow on the streets Saturday morning and the high was only 5 degrees C. A friend made an unexpected weekend stop in Vancouver after working in Whistler for the week so we did 'city things' and sat in a cozy pub having pints and conversation. There was no snow Sunday and we exceeded the forecast high of 5 degrees to an impressive 6 degrees. I'm tired of wearing neoprene booties, two layers of gloves, full length tights with knee warmers underneath. Call me a fair-weather rider.
Consolation was found in crepes with strawberries, bananas, bittersweet chocolate sauce and whip cream.
I sometimes feel embarassed or a little guilty about how easy my life is right now. Work is very slow and there is a lot of time for riding.Saturday was the warmest day of the year so far. K really wanted to have one last ski for the year and we went to the Elfin Lakes hut. It's about a 24 km round trip in Garabaldi Provencial Park. There can be good skiing, but temps were at or just above freezing all night and you could almost see puddles in the skin track. We didn't even bother to yo-yo any slopes. The trail is very popular with snowshoes and novice skiers as you can get to the hut without crossing any real avalanche terrain and there are bright orange trail markers every 5 -10 meters for the low visibility days. The high traffic load has beat down the last 4-5 kms into a luge track. Kind of fun.View back to Howe Sound
Mt. Garabaldi (it's a volcano. Part of the same chain as Baker and Rainer and Meager)
We got back to the car and joined another friend for a short XC ride on some of the lower Squamish trails. The BCBR training guide said Saturday should have been 3-5 hour road ride. We only rode for about 2 hours, but I have admit that my legs were 'a bit fatigued' and I wasn't too sad to have a short ride. Anyway, the shorter ride meant a shorter time to beer!Howe Sound Brew Pub in Squamish has their spring Rasberry Wheat beer on tap for the season.
Sunday dawned nicer than expected. I was lying in bed trying to decide whether to ride road or dirt. It's like trying to decide between having the chocolate croissant or the cinnamon bun. Tortuous decision. Sent my buddy M a text asking if he was headed to Seymour for some mountain biking. He had ridden on Saturday and his wife won't let him ride both days on the weekend until he finishes building their kayaks. M gave me some suggestions on which trails to ride that are within my skill level. But, it was sunny out and I have a new road bike.... so I put in a quick 75 km ride (quick relatively speaking as I couldn't hang onto the back wheel of the guy on the Cervelo near Point Grey) and then changed clothes, changed bikes and attempted to exchange the mountain bike spds for platform pedals. Since I would be riding alone and on new-to-me trails it seemed prudent to have platforms. But I couldn't get the right foot pedal off. Why isn't there a rent-a-man service?? The ride on Seymour was very nice. Went up Old Bucks, a wide non-technical climb. Traversed along the Baden Powell trail to the top of Severed Dick where the downhill starts. On went the leg and arm armor, down went the saddle and I set the pedal tension very very low. It was a fun trail, pretty old school riding with just a few man-mades for trail protection. There are a series of 6-7 bigger drops on the bottom 1/3 of the trail that I walked though I'm sure most north shore folks not only ride the drops, but huck them.In all, it was the best of all possible worlds this weekend! I was tired and hungry and happy by Sunday night.
