Rubber Side Down

Get me out of here!!!

Oh man, the apocalypse is on us. Beam me up now Scotty, I've definetly had enough down here.

Seriously though, a quote, from a little girl no less:

"They're kinda training us to be warriors, except in a much funner way."

Someone get me a beer, actually make that a keg.

Golden Trees and A New Drivetrain

Beautiful ride home tonight. I almost forgot how exhausted I was. The Aspens are really turning. We won't have leaves soon, damn. Here's a particularly nice section of the ride home.

I replaced my chainrings, cogset and chain on the Jake. I got three solid years of commuting out of them (including winters). The FSA 48 tooth ring makes shifting super-smooth.

Jake's all set and ready to go for this weekend's race. Forecast is for 6c and rain. Classic cross weather.

Cross is back (and so am I)

Sweet, the cross season is in full swing and I've decided to make my competitive (read: fat-lazy beer guzzling) biking return. Truth is I love cross, and I don't care if I get my ass handed to me on a plate by everyone out there, its loads of fun. Its kinda of the antithesis of road racing and mountain bike racing. There's much less ego and the prep time for races is minimal.

Jake is all speced out; I pulled the fenders, replaced the drivetrain and threw the knobbies on. Now I just have to wait for this weekend's Bow School of Cross. There's also a Tuesday night series going. Cross is finally catching on here in Calgary. I hope it sticks.

An Inconvenient Truth

My company's set up a screening of this film. I've been avoiding going to see it, not because I don't believe it, but for the opposite reason, I believe it but don't care to be brow beaten by the subject. Frankly, I've got a enough shit keeping me up at night, I don't need to be fretting about what happens when the glaciers are gone in the Rockies. Besides, every three to four weeks I fill my truck up with gas, my personal C02 output is miles behind most of the people on this continent.

Anyway, the company's screening the film at the Plaza in Kensington and I've accepted to go. At the end of it our environment group is going to detail what we're going to do to curb our emmisions. See, we're a natural gas exploration company, specifically a coalbed methane firm. In order to get the gas out of the ground, we often have to run small compressors which are fuelled by natural gas (methane).

As a company, we've decided to deal with this problem, how we haven't figured out yet, but there's some pretty cool ideas floating out there. The point of mentioning this is, right now, we're not required by any law or regulation to do this. We're doing it because we feel its the right thing to do, irregardless of what Stephen Harper plans.

I'm sure there are plenty of oil and gas firms out there that don't care, but I also know that there are plenty that do care. Thus proving that you can't generalize the entire industry as a bunch of greedy and morally reprehensible thugs. Okay, we're greedy, but who the fuck isn't?

I wish I could bring a tape recorder to the after show discussion cause it'll be a doozy. Given the Plaza's within stumbling distance of quite a few pubs, I imagine a lot of my colleagues (meaning all the geologists) will head over there for a pint or five. Given that I estimate that half of the geologists in the company believe this current cycle global warming is man-made and the other half think the man-made part is a bunch of bullshit, the discussion will be lively.

I'll let you all know how it goes....

Soooo I had this great plan...

To clean up the yard, re-seal our bedroom window, and replace the drivetrain on my Jake. Got halfway through the yard (halfway = cleaning up leaves, picking up dog shit and mowing the front yard), when my neighbour, who helped with my leaf problem with his brand new leaf destroyer came over and said "I think its Miller time."

Dammit! Ambitious afternoon once again destroyed by Miller time.

Tomorrow's supposed to be mid=20's and sunny, lets just hope I can get a ride in before Miller time.

ps - I almost bought a Six13 this afternoon, it was on sale (real big sale) thank god it didn't fit.

The Ride Home

Wanted to spice up the ride home a bit so I hauled the camera along. I didn't snap too many photos while I was in the river valley, I was too busy trying to shake the guy sucking my wheel. If I slowed down he wouldn't pass, if I sped up, he hammered to stay on, got kinda annoying since we had a 45 km/h headwind and he was intent on not facing it himself.

Anyway, here's the end of the path, right by Edworthy Park, just before I start my ascent:

The path coming out of the woods, the south side's been closed for the last month due to an unstable slope:

My set-up, I've had the Cross bike out the past two weeks due to rain and the fact that the cruiser is in some need of TLC. Yes, I know the Patagucci is soooo yuppie, but I'm touch with my yuppy side (besides, I've sown a patch with a skull, dagger and whiskey bottle on it).

Beginning the climb up Edworthy Park road.

This lady was flying, she definetly showed up the roadie who packed his bike into his truck at the bottom of the hill and drove up.

More hill.

The Bow/Sarcee intersection, just below my house. Notice the long line of cars, it stretches back to Westbrook Mall usually. Sucks to be them.

The last hill of the day, which is also the steepest. I once miraculously drove my truck down this sideways on an icy November morning and missed every parked car. I must've had some good karma saved up.

Rawley is normally first out the dog door to see me when I get in.

The bikes safe beneath the prayer flags where they get blessed every night, or rained on, whatever.

An update on the moustache growing contest, beardification is complete, now its time to choose a style. Fuego, you're going down.

Groundhog Day

September is kicking the crap out of us here in southern Alberta. It started out great, temps in the mid 20's clear blue-bird skies. Then came last week.

I spent  Tuesday in the  field driving around the Drumheller area visiting some wells and getting a general lay of the land. About mid-afternoon, I could feel the weather shift with a cold north wind blowing.

Wednesday, I woke up to drizzly rain and temps in the single digits. This is when my hell began.

It should be known to people who haven't read this before, that I love riding my bike. I'd rather be pedalling uphill into a headwind in -20c, than stuck in gridlock traffic in a tropical paradise. For this reason, drizzly rain and single digits bothers me little, maybe kinda like a hang nail or something.

The hellish part of riding to work in this weather, is simply my coworkers. Every morning from Wednesday through Friday (it was cold and wet everyday), I was asked multiple times, "You didn't ride in didn't you?"

When I invariably replied "Of course. A little rain doesn't bug me." My colleagues' eyes would widen in a look of which can only be described as a mixture of astonishment and horror. The first morning, I laughed it off, by Friday afternoon, I was ready to go all Samuel Jackson on their asses. It felt like I was stuck in some horrible looping movie.

Probably the most absurd aspect of all of this is that out of all my coworkers, only one is genuinely interested in riding in all winter like me(once he gets settled and gets a bike) and he happens to be fresh off the boat (well plane, really) from ECUADOR. That's right, the country right on the freakin' equator. Canadians can be such wimps.

Biking Home with the Wife (sniff, so romantic)

Dropped an email to Maria late in the afternoon today to see if she wanted to join me, or me to her for the ride home. Her school is just on the other side of downtown Calgary.

She decided to meet me at my office since it would give her time to pick up some buffalo ribs for Yoho and Rawley (to give you an idea, buffalo ribs for the dogs is like me and beer, i.e. our eyes light up and maybe a little tear is shed at the sight).

We continued on from my office to the Bow River path, where we were greeted by the usual scene of competitive bike commuters all out to win the Tour de Go Home. It was 30c and smoky due to that huge freakin fire in BC and Washingtion. We took it easy on the ride back and even stopped for some sody-pops on top of the hill, just below our house. Me, a cream soda and her an orange crush.

While sitting outside the convenience store we ran into our neighbours. A bigger contrast of two couples might not exist. Maria and I all sweaty from hammering up the river valley and them, driving 500m (yes, that's METRES not miles) down a hill so she could go to work.

Gorge (Cow Crap) Creek

What was supposed to be an easy 3-hour trail ride in south Kananaskis turned into a 5 hour marathon last saturday. Sunny skies and a predictied high of 28c motivated me and the wife to head down to Turner Valley to do one of my favourite rides, Gorge Creek.

Last summer, this trail was essentially closed as the June floods had washed out the 4wd road which accesses the trailhead. This year, with the road repaired I figured it was a good time to return.

Within a km of the trailhead we started to get our first signs of the herd which we would soon find out, had obliterated the trail for the entire fackin' loop. Undaunted at the start, we headed to the first major climb of the day, which is also preceded by the first cow shit infested stream crossing of the day:

Next up was the climb itself. Under normal circumstances this climb is tough, but in hot weather with little recent rain, and a whole herd of cattle marinated the trail, its impossible to do without a hike-a-bike. I valiantly attempted it but made it up only 3/4 of the way before completely losing traction:

At the summit, the views were awesome, not a cloud in the sky to ruin our day, just 50 freakin head of cattle:

This was the last photo of a smiling Maria, in fact it is the last photo of either of us on this ride, the easy downhill turned into chop suey and the hard downhills were impossible. I did manage to get a couple of shots of Gorge Creek itself. No cows there:

When we got back to the parking lot we only had beer on our minds. I gunned the Mazda all the way back to town where Hogaarden awaited. For dinner that night, I had a steak sandwich, medium rare. My little way of thinning the herd....

If I can't see the sprawl, its not happening.

Its funny how everybody who visits Calgary and a good portion of us who live here, see how quickly the city is sprawling, but since the city government doesn't like that term, Calgary does not have a sprawl problem. Well, here's yet another news article detailing Calgary's sprawl problems. I think I should go show it to the Mayor, he lives right around the corner after all.

I mean we have a larger footprint than New York city for cryin out loud and yet we have less than a 10th of NYC's population.