Cobble Hill DJ Park

So yesterday dawned sunny and pretty....aaand then got cloudy and stormy and a little rainy...but we had plans to go riding and no amount of heavenly spitting was going to deter us....well almost no amount.

So off we ventured out to the Cobble Hill Dirt Jump Park for to get our play on. Mitch spent a great deal of time on the "Advanced" line tail whipping with wild abandon over the gaps. Baker took pictures and played on the odd jump, and I learned how to do tabletops....this was my first day jumping so i wan't expecting much.
All i can say about the whole experience is DAMN!!!!!!! Dirt jumping's fun. As for the park, the jumps are in mint condition, perfectly packed and smooooooth. As usual, respect the park and don't ride it in the muck and mud and wreck all the hard owrk that's been put in to this sweet little spot. That said, it's a great little day trip up island whether you're going to prefect a flatspin 360 or to start from scratch and learn how to pump off a jump.
Mitch tailwipping over the advanced line up


Chevy's first day jumping...

Boonen still following the white line...

Boonen has been caught for this before...and now he's possibly ruined his career after winning the Roubaix this spring second year in a row. What an idiot! Come on man, there are plenty of other ways to get stupid without having to use drugs banned by the UCI and in this case also illegal. How about...booze, skydiving, high speed driving exercises, mushrooms, coffee, and tobacco?
Yes Boonen was caught using Pixie Dust again...Of all things being caught for non-performance enhancing drugs is probably better than being caught for performance enhancing ones. But it's not any smarter. Apparently Specialized/Quickstep is going to send him to "counseling" which is just a fancy word for celebrity rehab. So congrats Boonen, you're making Belgium Proud.

http://www.velonews.com/article/91924/quick-step-urges-counseling-for-boonen

UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill - La Bresse

Old man Peat getting it done in La Bresse and giving those young guns something to think about.

On busted carbon and aluminum...

We sell carbon bikes. Our brands have brainwashing sessions that teach us how their product is superior to the competition... Sometimes, these sessions have to be taken with a grain of salt, and sometimes the instructors are really pulling at straws... Here's an example quoted from a rep: "This bike is not the lightest bike or most laterally compliant, but it is the lightest AND most laterally compliant." Hmmm...I no it sounds weird, but I'm not making this up. The idea there was that the bike is the lightest bike out there that is that laterally compliant... See what I'm getting at with the salt?
Another common brainwash is that "Carbon does not have a lifespan." Now this one is true as long as there is no trauma to the carbon, it should be as good ten years from the date of purchase as it was when it was new. You don't loose stiffness/flexibility etc. Provided there is no damage to the frame or part where the carbon is used. This makes the material highly desirable along with the fact that it is extremely light, and can be layered in a way that provides stiffness and flexibility in the desired manner. This is hard to duplicate with other materials. There is a downside though...
Much like aluminum, when carbon goes, it snaps. Check out this blog: http://www.bustedcarbon.com/

Note: I wrote this entry last Sunday...Later that morning I snapped my aluminum frame at the top of the trail in Harbourview...funny huh? And slightly ironic. More detailed entry about the frame failure and the backcountry repair to come...

In bikes as in many things, you get what you pay for

I've voiced my frustrations in fellow cyclists on these pages here before, but ultimately I appreciate everyone doing their bit and choosing to ride rather than drive to wherever they have to go, squeaky chain or not (honestly). Since May is the "Bike month", and next week is the annual bike to work week , our shop has been very busy lately. This has something to do with it being spring and all, but whatever the reason we appreciate the business. One thing that boggles the mind is the ever present "department store bike," that appears on the shop step much too often. This phenomenon is a bastardized version of the bicycle, usually sporting some kind of horrific "suspension" and more often than not seems to be made of solid metal if the weight is any indication. I honestly believe these bikes do more harm than good. They bring their owners a skewed vision of cycling and bikes in general. Imagine a person that's getting back into cycling after years of being away from it. They decide not to spend too much money on their first bike in decades and end up with a $200 department store bike that they hate, and causes them never ride the bike ever again. "This is not how I remember biking to be," they think, "this thing is heavy, it squeaks, creaks, is uncomfortable and inefficient - I think biking is not for me." I'm positive that this scenario is not uncommon.

This is the powerclimber from Next... some serious high end stuff...cough cough

We get people bringing those sort of bikes in all the time because they're not working properly for their owners. All we can do is get them closer to their original condition which was pretty horrible to begin with. This poses an ethical dilemma for the shop boys: "Do we refuse the person service on the basis of the scrap heap she/he brought in this morning, or do we try to fix it as best as is possible knowing that the end result will still be a horrible bike.?" Cast not pearls before swine" is written in some black pulp fiction novel treasured by many.

"I have delivered your bike to the scrap yard for your own betterment," I heard Steve mutter under his breath the other day when he was working on one of those fine machines.

Viking kicked out of country, partner relieved.

I write you from the "fish tank," the holding cage deep in the bowels of the Vancouver airport. PDA's are wonderful but slow so bear with me. The reason for this strange place to write a blog is as follows:

On Sunday I put on my Randonneur smock (yellow cycling jacked with super long tails and lots of reflective material), adjusted my helmet mirror and made cucumber sandwiches and tea. The tea I put in a Plaid Thermos, the sandwiches in my Ortlieb backroller plus panniers and then I dressed Jax up in the matching getup as myself. Yes, she did resist but I'm stronger and I own a war hammer so my will prevailed. Lastly I raised the stems on both of our bikes donned my wraparound safety glasses with yellow lenses and then the two of us got on the Goose like civilized people. We made our way to the Switch bridge where we reflected on the human condition and the ever increasing traffic, had some tea and crumpets and continued down the Lochside trail. We saw many fellow "randis" and when we passed another group, we nodded to them because "if you want to be safe, you don't take your hands of the handlebars Jax!" At the Blenkinsop trestle we had another tea and counted birds and then we rode non-stop to the Michells farms, where we bought some fruit (which I stashed in my handlebar bag). Thereon we rode to Sidney. In Sidney we scoured the local thrift stores, had some Shepard's pie and rested our weary legs. Finally after a few hours of sifting through antique stores and making a down payment on an excellent replica of the Mallard duck, which conveniently was also a telephone, we made our way back home. Jax did not appreciate this Randonneur fad and was growing ever more irate as time went by. When I insisted that we stopped near the farms in Saanich so we could enjoy the country air and have an opportunity to put out my Burberry blanket and have a proper country picnic, Jax said "sure" and waited for me to bend down and put out the travel set of cups and saucers from my "Windsor" travel set. then she promptly beat me over the head with her bike, stabbed me in the thigh with my exquisite cheese knife and took off screaming: "There's a mad foreigner chasing me. Shoot him, he's got rabies and swine flu, don't even let him come close, shoot on sight."

last photo of Halldor as a legal resident in Canada, before the madness set in

Fiddy fever and unorthadox helmet use

Pretty sweet Cruiceliner tandem too eh?

Some of you may remember this pile of previous years' shoes against our stairwell at the shop. they've been sitting there ever since I started working here, and every once in a while a pair gets sold. However, we have grown tired at looking at this pile, and it also takes up some prime real estate in the shop so we've decided to put all the shoes on sale: All shoes $50 in sizes ranging from 37-48. We've got some jackets on sale as well, ladies and men's jackets for $50. We even have some lids on sale, so if you need some stuff, stop by the shop and grab it before it's gone.
For you helmet hating types...you might be intrigued by this strange video from Denmark: