Carpe Diem

Shawn blurted out carpe diem as narrative to a conversation while commuting home from biking yesterday... and that translated through to today. It was raining and 5C most of the day... but from the moment I woke up I was so pumped to get outside and ride I could hardly describe it. Craig and I met for a little fun and a bunch of socializing with bike friends, then a little more rain riding at the end to wash it all down for the day. I love feeling super excited about riding, it just makes me so happy. Just like these two 'cross bikes are happy being tracked across whatever we can dream up.

Superfantastic Surface

Craig engineered a group of 6 superfantastic riders out to do TransCanada Trail, up the north side of Skogan Pass, Touch of Class down, then back on the TransCanada Trail. That's a lotta lotta techy riding. Craig x 2, Shawn, Jon, Pat, Chris made the 6, and I tagged along in nowhere near their league, but at least made the loop. If the techy riding wasn't enough, especially the steep, off camber, new Touch of Class - it had a few inches of snow on it just to grease things up extra well - taking it from techy to superfantastic technically challenging surface conditions. We did what we could on the elegance side, and had a blast doing it. It was very picturesque, but nobody toted a camera along. Oh well.

Great ride, great times.

ipod touch

Yaay, it's about time. Last one went to fund a bum's drinking via a trip to the pawn shop after my car was broken into.

Rarity

I sold a bike... a rare event. Only sold it cause it went to a good home, and might turn someone into a lifelong mountain biker. Turner Flux, deliver your awesome ride and get your new owner hooked!

New Car, French Driving

I’ve finally fixed the wheels situation and ended up with something that hopefully doesn’t cause headaches for years to come – essentially the same model of SUV I drove before, but 13 years of change too.  It’s weird not having the ability to transport yourself at will for a while – wand when I say “weird”, I probably mean it feels like a royal pain in the ass.

It’s close but not quite the color pictured here in some promo photograph where no SUV outside a photo shoot has ever been driven, nor likely ever will be.  I liked the first M class SUV, so thought it’d fit the bill decently well again just to repeat the experience.  After a day or so, I can easily say it’s the nicest vehicle I’ve ever owned, which probably doesn’t say too much, but it’s still true.  It does car things well enough – going, stopping, feeling not like a piece of junk, etc.  It does modern things well – folding side mirrors in to wedge into my parking spot, doing music well (ipods, Sirius, normal radio), navigation stuff, phone calls hands free, all that.  It does pampering decently well with buttons that make cold parts hot in the winter, headlights that actually let me see pretty far ahead, wipers with a funny travel path that actually work to clear the entire window, and all kinds of other temperature magic.

I had intended to get a lightly used leaseback, say 2008 or so.  The liquidity on them isn’t super high in Calgary, and Canada wide there’s plenty that crop up, but delivery times range across the country.  Blowing up the M Coupe didn’t really facilitate having the time to take this task on, and I didn’t desire to over-stay my welcome on the little Acura RSX loaner… so I ended up with a 2011 model that just got delivered to Calgary and was sitting on the lot – available for pickup at my convenience.  Sometimes path of least resistance wins and frugalism takes a hit.

Most importantly, new bike rack is being picked up this weekend!

Below is an entirely awesome use of petrol, in France no less.  Relative to me, this proves:


a) There are people more likely to catastrophically blow an engine sooner/faster.
b) There are people Tori would be even less amused handing over the keys to her French rental car to.
c) There are people who can shorten the life of expensive tire sets faster!

Freight Train, Dirt Merchant, Surgeon General's warning

Freight train has steeps, big rock face roll ins, a freight train cargo container up gap plus ride off, curved wall rides, and the ability to make me perma grin. New features helped build the skill base... just having such a good time.

The jumps are all sized so perfect that you just don't brake on the trail and you're fine approaching new jumps blind - feels very fun, launching into the unknown and seeing the outcome only as you clear the lip. Did a creek gap too!

I'm not sure the apres diet of beer and nachos would work well if an entire summer was spent downhilling, but it's fun for a short burst. Made it back to one of the two rental houses for a hot tub session, saw a bear walk by 30' away. Wow. I'll still walk up the hill after the night life, but don't want to get lost in the bushes.

The Kona Stinky is "just a cheap rental bike" but until I know otherwise, it sure hasn't held me back... we're all riding the same ones, it's just what you do with them. It's nice being able to roll it into the shop, say the entire real wheel detensioned and it's flopping around, and they just give you another one to roll out with.

We did a sushi dinner at 9:30pm, where somehow 6 sake margaritas per person was the take. After that it was Buffalo Bills, which included top 40 dance floor try hard efforts, 80's originals and remixes, buck hunter, pool, and 8 Jager bombs between 11:30pm and 2am. Surgeon General does not recommend copious sake margaritas and Jager bombs in one night; but Surgeon General also doesn't opine on goofball fun quotient. Leaves you feeling more awake than at noon on a Tuesday. Literally bumped into a Calgary b-ionaire on the dance floor; boss won our 2 on 2 pool game with a baseball swing shot, and miscellaneous other mayhem was cropping up all night.

Red Bull

Madness.