A Ride along Canals

I woke up early to temperatures slightly above freezing. Pretty typical for Calgary in the fall. It seems regardless of how hot the day is the nights are always cold. Put on all my cycling gear and hopped on the Rocky Solo CXR to meet Rick for a ride from the shop. The most important thing to know about Rick is that he knows the path system in Calgary better then any other single person I have met. So we head out take a few turns and wind ourselves onto the canal pathway. We decided that since we are a)using gears and b)using CX bikes we should experience some dirt and end up taking what I assume is mainly used by walkers and mountain bikers as the trail was thin, muddy and very off camber. All this being said it was a ton of fun even if my feet got soaked by the underbrush.



Once through that we made our way again on as much gravel trails as possible out of the city and onto the canal pathway south along the canal to Chestermire. It amazes me how simple it is to be on a maintained bike path and yet be out of the city. For most of the ride I enjoyed farm land, a lack of noise and no site of the city behind me. The ride took us longer then expected as we had to dismount frequently to cross roads since we were riding along a gravel road that was fenced off. It was completely worth it and we were rewarded with a short lunch at Boston Pizza in Chestermire. Once lunch was over we headed back into a head win that turned out to be more of a cross wind that didn't bother us to much. The overall beauty of the ride was refreshing even if it did remind me that I haven't really biked more then a half hour since TR and defiantly need to start.

Nose Hill CX

I have an addiction. There I have said it. It is not booze or drugs but bikes. Over the past 10 years I have accumulated a lot of bikes. I have bikes for cross country, bikes for down hill, the open road, commuting, cruising and track. The only bike I do not at this point own is a cyclocross bike. Due to this obsession with bicycles and the owning of them I have recently been scouring the interweb (that thing that is a series of tubes and spinning tops) trying to find my dream bike. For some reason I have a love of steel lugged frames and thus have been looking at a lot of custom bike builders, I might add none of which I can afford. It is because of this indecision and realization that if I don't get one I truly love, I will simply have to add another bike in the future to my ever growing collection that caused me to borrow my mom's Rocky Mountain Solo CXR. This bike is gorgeous. It is in my opinion the nicest looking bike rocky has ever made that can ride on the road and on the dirt. The more I have ridden it the more I have fallen in love. The love affair started this spring when at home in FSJ I didn't feel like loading my road bike in the van driving to pavement and then preceding to bike that I grabbed my moms bike and took it on a bunch of paved and not paved roads. It was a blast. I have contemplated buying a newer version but none of the new ones have quite the same beauty or the amazingly light Easton tubing that has caused me pause.

Now enough with my obsession and on to the fun of riding a rigid cyclocross bike on mountain biking trails. So I woke up this morning geared up and hoped on my bike. I cruised into a strong gusting head wind up to nose hill and as soon as possible veered uphill on to dirt and off the paved path. It took roughly an hour of riding before I became fluid and learned how to let the bike bounce and rock beneath me. At the half way point of my ride I stopped in at a little cafe called Friends that I looked up last night. I grabbed a coffee and a made fresh this morning muffin. I sat outside enjoying one of the few nice days we have had this summer and enjoyed the beauty around me. It is hard not to have fun on a nice day with so many amazing colours around me and a bright blue sky above.

If you are reading this and don't bike, buy one, borrow one, or find that one you forgot you had hop on it and go and enjoy the beauty of the fall. It is the smell of the leaves and crisp air that will revive you in ways you didn't know and if you have the a place with little or no traffic put on some music and let it be the sound track to your day.

Life

The more I write on this blog the more I have come to see what one of my passions is. If you have read the majority of these posts you will realize a reoccurring theme, food. I love food. In fact I ride, climb and run more just so I can eat more food. Not only do I adore eating food but I love making it. The other night I got the craving for a chicken pot pie so instead of doing what most people my age do (I am 25) and going and buying a mediocre one, I made one, but alas I just can't bring myself to follow a recipe so started it like they say. I had onions, carrots, celery, salt, pepper, red peppers and chicken broth. Now for the fun stuff, I added turmeric, curry powder, cumin, and cayenne. Essentially I made a curry inspired chicken pot pie.

The cooked chicken with tons of spice

Simmering the broth down

All cooked up and ready for the pastry top

All covered up, doesn't look like a chicken pot pie...yet

The finished product, it was amazing

Then today I got bored after getting frustrated with my van, more about that in a bit, and decided to make desert for supper since my sister was making steaks. So I grabbed my cook book and read the concept behind apple crisp and again apples by themselves are good but add canned peaches from my grandma and some black berries and 'BAM' amazing. I will make one change next time which is to remove the 1/2 cup of brown sugar in favor of a bit of honey, it was a bit too sweet for my taste.

A bit runny but still full of flavor

There is something about cooking that occupies my mind and is very satisfying. It is the creation from many tastes and smells into one amazing dish. It is like life and our experiences. We are not simple just the result of a single event but the culmination of all of our experiences and the way they have changed and steered us to the individuals we are today.

Now enough about food because if I keep writing I will have to go and eat more and since I haven't been biking might not be the best idea, and on to my van. By which I mean the van owned by my sister, my brother and I. We own a 2002 Ford Windstar. Since we have bought this van, the transmission and alternators have gone and been replaced and now a leak. At first we decided it was the water pump. So being the guy I am I was like I can fix that. So I take off the alternator and a whole bunch of other items lift the engine 3 inches. Thats right had to lift the engine to remove the water pump. Once it was out the gasket took another 2 hours of scrapping and gasket remover to come off but being paranoid of a gasket not sealing convinced me it was time well spent. I then reassembles everything put the wheel back on. Oh did I mention I had to take off the passenger side wheel.  Once I added the coolant there it was drip, drip, drip, drip. So story short 15+ hours of work and nothing has been solved. So tomorrow I will wake up AGAIN, done my greasy dirty work clothes and try and figure out what is wrong and if I can't find the source of this leak then it will be fingers crossed bars leaks to the rescue. Well at least until I can get home for Thanksgiving and my dad and I can find the actual source of the problem and fix it for good. Oh and by the way, I can't wait to have a job where I can afford to own all the tools I actually need to make these fixes a lot faster.

The water pump almost ready to go or so I thought.

On the plus side this post really has calmed me down and let me get out a lot of my frustration with the whole event.

Winter Wonders

The cold winter looms ever closer here in Calgary. The weather still hasn't decided if it is going to get nice for a while and give us a long fall and great riding or if winter will come early and allow for some winter riding. I am sure that part of this bizarre desire to ride in the cold will be dashed on the first long hard cold ride or if it will awaken a new love of riding in weather most deem unrideable. Part I am sure is the idea of all the new gear I will be able to buy.

I have been starring at photos of cyclo-cross riding. Cyclists running with bikes over their shoulders in mud with snow falling. It is the purity of the snow that draws me in . The crisp cool feel of the air as you breath it in. The bite on the exposed skin as your body is warm yet cold.

But I will have to wait for the leaves to turn and enjoy as much of the riding during the fall and the yellows and reds of the soon to be slumbering trees.

Canmore

So a couple guys from work and I decided to drive out to Canmore and enjoy the nordic centers trials.

The Nordic Center in Canmore sure has some of the most amazing well rounded trails I have rode. The trails combine the right amount of pain due to climbing with the well planned downs. It amazes me the way the trails weave back and forth with small sprint climbs to help elongate the decent. In fact one of the trails I had the most fun on was this little green trail, the name of which I forget, that simply weaved back and forth. I was riding the Rocky Altitude 29er and I simply pedaled and got into the back and forth motion of the bike. It was so simple yet so beautiful. The feeling of carving, similar to carving big lines through deep powder on a snowboard. Being able to simple pedal and forget everything in your life save what is around the next corner, over the next hill makes tomorrow a lot easier to deal with.

The last trail we road was FYI. Sure it took us most of the time riding to find the trial as none of the people I was riding with are familiar with the trial, but the time spent was worth it. That trial is so fast and fun that I found a smile on my face and a heart rate through the rough. It was that trial that to me defines why I ride a mountain bike.

A beautiful day in Canmore for biking

A couple 29er test bikes and a Specialized HT

Who said downhill racers can't climb

Cookie checking fit

Zilla rocking out on an XC bike

We ended the ride hungry and read to enjoy the Grizzly Paw's amazing bison burgers and since we were sitting at the big kid table some amazing grizzly paw pops.

Victoria part Deux

On Sunday I came to two realizations, one I need to spend more time just enjoying the simple things of life. Things like going to restaurants I have never been to and look interesting and two that I need to either find more people who enjoy riding bikes or climbing. I am quite the solo athlete. I tend to do all my training by myself and have a hard time slowing down or altering the way I ride for other people. I feel this is something I need to try and develop and improve upon.

It also has occurred to me that I want to spend more time riding my bike this winter. I am not talking about short rides on perfect days I want to do day long rides to Canmore and Banff. This means two things, I have an excuse to buy another bike, and an excuse to buy winter riding gear. As of right now I don't have the clothing to pull this off but come winter I plan on having it.

It has also made me consider more endurance races. I will be checking a bunch out and seeing if I can be like a new friend and just dive into the challenge and see what the out come is.

Last thing, this is a call out to all people in Calgary I need to find a good place to have homemade perogies. I passed a little Polish Deli everyday I was in Victoria and never stopped in and now I have a craving for good perogies.