Get em hooked while they're young!

Nick and Emily Nicholson

Nic Nicholson is probably the most consistent rider's of the tuesday night rides at the dump. He usually shows up, rain or shine, or snow or whatever the old man upstairs throws our way. He does not let many things get in his way of riding, but fatherhood is certainly one of them-as it should be. Nic and Lucy just had their first child a few weeks ago, Emily, and as the above picture illustrates, she is already getting conditioned to the mountain biker lifestyle. Nic thought it would be appropriate to pose with Emily next to a staple of Santa Cruz bicycles, since he rides a Nomad and a Superlight. We thought it was very appropriate as well. Nic did the infamous Test of Metal Race in Squamish BC this weekend and was therefore missing in action yesterday as we went out for the ride.

The ride last night was great though, we wanted to do something different so we rode up Skull like usually but then cut across to the bottom of NiteShift and rode up it. That's a surprisingly fun trail to climb, even though descending it is much better of course. From there we rode up to lemmings run, and hiked a bike up to Old payoff. From there we went up twister to the top of Dave's line and then did Southridge. Finally we cut across the top of Fun trail and scrambled to the bottom part of Green ribbon. After that we rode crossover, ruffles and rolly ridge towards the parking lot and finished off by doing Inventive backwards and then taking the shortcut to the TTA. the Conditions in the park are great. It was a little dusty, but the rain today will take care of that. Justin had the privilege of watching Andrew do an uphill endo, which is always spectacular and earned Andrew the RSC-trophy. Justin himself, tried to lay a claim to the trophy when he did a full on endo and consequent sliding on his belly and forearms, right at the end of Green ribbon. He literally had about a foot to go...crashed through the finish line so to speak.

in body building circles (Justin is very familiar with those) this pose is called the left clockwise armtwister-reverse.

mmm...

Lots going on for the rest of March and in April

So fresh off the Viking cat, next month should be a great biking month. The Season is officially on in the Island Cup Series, with a Super D coming up on the weekend in Nanaimo and a downhill on the 29th in Cumberland. For those of you that are not really up for the mountain biking there will be lots to do for you as well. Most notably the 2009 Bike Prom, here's their mission statement from their facebook group:

"Victoria! Flip yeah! The third annual Victoria Bike Prom is on like Goldie Hawn, April 24, 25, 26!

Victoria is hosting three glorious days of bike events. Bike polo, bike art, bike films, bike spoken word, bike rides, bike race, bike posses, bike performance troupes, bike bizarro, BIKE PROM, for the locals and beloved bikey out-of-towners.

More info to come, including events, billeting, transport, and so on. For now, just get geared up for a weekend of good times by bicycle, Victoria style.

In the meantime, check out our blog: http://victoriabikeprom2009.blogspot.com/"

This weekend will be lots of fun and the Bike Prom Alley cat was lots of fun last year. We have not decided what we're doing for April here at the shop, but I think there might be a pedal and a pint in the works. Also in the not to distant future there will be a riders Zoobomb at an unknown location. So start looking around for a kid's bike (16") and get ready to rock the downhill in your spandex and knee pads.
Image shamelessly stolen from bikeportland.org photostream...