Between trying to do a good day's work, getting to grips with the fact I will be married in less than a month... and the surprise that I will become Canadian next week there has been plenty of other stuff going on lately. I estimate that around 50% of the food I have eaten since the summer came to Vancouver has been from a barbecue. In fact, I'm making myself late for another barbecue by writing this. There has of course also been food-unrelated fun. But first, here's something which was no fun at all.
I got my first "real" day at Whistler bike park the week before last. By real, I mean that I was wearing all my body armor and riding my "big" bike. Things were all going very well, until our first run on Dirt Merchant. I got to about the point that Cedric Gracia is riding right about here, taking the line up on the left to jump across the gap to the landing. I am no stranger to falling off my bike, and as the ground approached my reaction was along the lines of "Oh, I seem to have made a mess of this... but why?". The inevitable sliding, rolling, and bashing on rocks followed, and when I unraveled myself from my heap in the ditch I was pleased to find that my body seemed to move in all the usual directions, and no new ones. Suzanne (riding behind me) arrived and pointed out to me that my bike was not quite right.
Something is wrong here
I had, for the first time in 17 years of mountain biking... snapped a handlebar. This explained my sudden visit to the ground on the landing of the jump, which was nice to know. I replace my bars every year or so to prevent this kind of thing happening. Oh well. I made my way back down the mountain with my detachable handlebar on "Easy Does It", past a bear (yes, really) and arrived in one piece at the base of the mountain. As what had happened sunk in I realised how glad I was that I was wearing a full-face helmet and armor, and how this could have ended up much worse of me. All in all, I have come to the conclusion that this was my lucky day (of sorts).
With my missing skin gradually growing back, there has been some fun to have this weekend. Lina and I ran the Hanes Valley Rout from Lynn Valley to Cypress last night, which turned out to be great, after a bit of a rough start for me. I haven't run since Knee Knacker and didn't seem to want to either... luckily that changed. Getting home was a bit complex and ended up with us sitting at the bus-stop at 9pm on a Saturday night... drinking beer disguised in a paper bag. Now there's a classy date.
Creek crossing near Norvan Falls
Lina in the boulder-field
Still snow up there!
Today Lina was working over at Deep Cove, out on the water... so I headed to Port Moody with a king-sized group of the usual suspects for a ride. The sun was shining, and I was grateful for every moment we spent in the shade. The trails were fast and dusty and general good times (and a lot of faffing around) was had. These days I am enjoying my fashionably-wide-and-low handlebars. I may be rather late to the party with this trend, but it reminds me of when we all got "really wide" bars about 10 years ago... that were still about an inch narrower than what I have now. What with those and my remote-adjustable seatpost I am almost a dedicated follower of fashion... just a bit slow in getting on the bandwagon. The bandwagon sounds like a fun place to be.
Two kinds of old ironmongery
Forest faff
