Category Archives: Bike

Getting outdoors

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I seem to be immune to the triathlon bug this year. You know the bug – the one hits for weeks or even months after you sign up for some race that scares the pants off you. Not that I’m cured, I do forsee that this bug will hit again in the future. It’s just that I’m seeing that there’s more to this sport than just an obsession with training & racing.

I’m finding other equally rewarding ways to stay involved. For example, this weekend I volunteered at a water station at the Ladner Half marathon. It was great to see everyone out there! As a bonus, we were stationed way out on the country farm roads right beside a self serve farmers kiosk with beautiful purple, yellow and orange tomatoes.

I’ve also been using my bike as a way of traveling lately. Commuting is a great way to get in the training, even if you don’t have a big race that scares the pants off you.

My all time favorite motivator for getting out there is being outdoors. With no racing bug to focus the speed and distance, I’ve been enjoying the settings even more. I have really appreciated my favorite trails and especially the swims in Boundary Bay. Getting outdoors is what it’s all about!

Photo Shoot

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A while back, I had a small film crew follow me around to make a “day in the life of..” style short film. It was a pretty interesting experience – and as a side bonus, I got some really cool photos of my bike.

To get these photos, and the associated film footage, I rode behind a pace car with driver, photographer and cameraman hanging out the back.  As I mentioned, it was quite an interesting experience.

Collection of Good Bike Routes

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Some of my favorite rides **

The Belcarra ride

Wednesday night out at the races route -
South Dyke Ride

Stanley Park Route

Tour de Richmond

Commuter Routes

The longer way home from UBC – via speedtheory

Bike commute to/from UBC – starting at Zaber

Zaber to UBC

UBC to Zaber

Granny bike to run group

Mountain Bike Routes

Delta Trail Ride

Get Yer Cyclocross Bike Out

**note If you see a “this workout is not available for viewing error”, find the – amp; – in the URL and delete those four characters – then the links should work. Stupid WSIWG editor is screwing up my links

Seven for Seven

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I’m 7/7 in the Feb bike challenge! It’s Monday and I have to admit, my legs are tired. Riding 1hr on your bike isn’t actually that much, but I’m feeling it. With such a busy weekend**, scheduling workouts was a challenge (Sunday included a 6am trainer ride and a 9pm speed endurance run – accompanied by Torbin on the bike with lights). Today, I opted out of bike commuting to give my legs a couple more hours of rest. The downside is that I may be on the trainer until the wee hours this evening.

**I took the Triathlon Community Coaching course this weekend. I made some great new contacts/friends and took away some great practical tips about safety. On that note, I’m going to go buy myself a RoadID right now. If you don’t already have one, do the same!

Here’s what my Feb totals look like so far.

Bike for 182.1 km in 08:43
Run for 25.1 km in 02:22
Total Duration: 11:05

The tally so far

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Here’s the results for my first couple days in the February bike challenge

Day 1 – 1:02:19, 22km – nice ride, mild weather
Day 2 – 1:20:51, 27km – soggy bike in the am, nice in evening, also had a quality run session
Day 3 – 1:01:18, 17km – all over downtown

Wednesday night I was super tired, so went to bed early. Man it’s awesome when you actually get enough sleep. I so rarely feel well-rested. Tonight, is a bike commute home through the city. I’m going to meet up with a few of the other bike challenge ninnys for company.

February Bike Challenge

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I have accepted a challenge, worse I even up’d the ante – and bet on it. The challenge is to ride your bike every day in February for at least 1hr. No make up rides the next day & no whining (ok, I admit – I added the no whining part for myself). My friend Murray has 5 other silly ninny’s who’ve agreed to accept his challenge via facebook. I was thinking to myself about all the excuses for days that I’m going to be way too busy to ride, how my coach is not going to like this plan, and I how I didn’t actually officially accept the challenge… Murray just kinda assumed that I was in. [Whine, whine, whine.] I don’t even know all the other guys. [Not fair, poor me] I’ve got to say, “I hate it when I whine”. Even if it is only internally. So, in a rash moment of “What the hell?!” I went and bet everyone that I could do it and they couldn’t. $20 to the charity of their choice, if they finish and I don’t!

Shoot.

On my bike commute in this morning, I was thinking to myself that this wouldn’t even be a challenge (and people wouldn’t think we’re crazy) if we all lived in Amsterdam – where bike culture is part of everyone’s life.

In the newspaper

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canmore-paperMy brother is the adrenaline junky – not me.

I’m not sure what’s with all this media attention that I’ve been receiving lately. I think it might have something to do with my ability to say, “Sure, I’d be happy to help!” I’m exhausted from 3 days of talking and filming. I will be glad to get back to some training.

Brunching, er I mean, Biking

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I had a nice leisurely ride with my LETC friends this weekend – which was really just an excuse to do brunch. Thanks Amy for making the awesome French Toast! and Brian for making me multiple lattes! The start was a bit like herding cats [right Brian?!] but once we got rolling the ride was very nice. Laurel, the swim coach from the SAA joined us for the day. My favorite part was riding with the ladies (Bronwyn, Laurel, and Teresa) out and back on River Road. After arriving home, I headed back out on the bike ride – this time with the dog. We hung out on the beach, she had a quick swim and then I read my book while she dug holes in the sand. All day bike with friends followed by an afternoon on the beach, yup, life is good.

3:27:05, 83km
24.1kph Avg, 51.3 kph Max
129 Avg HR, 160 Max
86 Avg Cad, 113 Max

Stan took some pictures from the brunch so I’ll post ‘em up here tomorrow – when I remember to bring my camera and the cable … here they are!

Second Half of Oliver Race Report

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The first half of my Oliver race report is here…

Race Day morning started really early. 4:30am or 5am or something ridiculous like that. I’m not a fan of the early wakeup. Since it was so early, we decided that it was a dumb idea for Torbin to come with me to the start. It’s tough being a spectator – because you can’t go anywhere I go – and I basically just hang out with my triathlon friend and/or focus on the race. So his plan was to sleep in and then come see me later in the afternoon. Good plan, worked out well, especially since I know that his support is there every day!

Ok, so now we’re at the swim start. I’m a different swimmer now. Much faster, so I wanted to get a spot near the front. I was in the first row… but way out on the side. The strategy worked well. As you can see from the picture, it still was a bit crazy but I was way more comfortable. I like the new one loop course. My time was 34:03 (last year 34:54) – Hmmm, maybe I was a little too comfortable and probably should have gone faster. Oh well, no biggee, it was comfortable. 48358-209-014f

After the swim, we had a 500m-650m run to transition. It wasn’t too bad… kind of a nice opportunity to get your head back from the swim and get ready for transition. There was one bike gone from my rack, and this helped me to think, “OK, race starts Continue reading →