Leftovers

It turns out I had a blog, where I used to write about fun things and sometimes not fun things (but who really wants to read about those anyway). 

It turns out I still do have that blog. Who knew? In my defense, spring arrived in Vancouver which has resulted in me spending even more time than usual playing on bicycles and not writing about it on the internet. Compromises must be made.

Other than playing on bicycles, I've finally started the Rapid Visualization course at Emily Carr that was the main reason I started the Industrial Design certificate program there almost two years ago. Along the way I've done four other classes which all turned out to be quite illuminating... especially the "Contemporary Issues in Design" one which I decided I would hate because it has a pretentious name. It turned out to be really good, and not what I was expecting at all... or perhaps I am just far more pretentious that I gave myself credit for. Other than that, the usual goings-on of life, and idly considering changing the town we live in and my entire career, I've mostly just been riding bicycles.

I did also take some photos from our balcony... look:

I call this composition: "Catwalk specter rampant upon gravel pile"

This one is: "Metallic serpent of decay through the blurred eyes of nature".

An exciting thing for me this year is that I entered Trans Provence. There's a bit of history to that, but the important thing is that I'm going to do it and it should be several kinds of fun. As it's supposed to be quite hard, I thought I'd use it as an excuse to "train" for bicycle racing this year. This involved buying a road bike, buying various new tires, buying a new helmet, some shoes, some socks, having my suspension expensively tuned, and spending money entering other bicycle races before the bicycle race. After spending all of that money I was a bit tired, so decided to take the rest of the year off biking and loaf around eating cake.

Just kidding. I have in fact employed a suspicious Italian doctor and started out on an ambitious program of performance-enhancing drug use and blood doping inspired by my idol, Lance Armstrong. It worked out well for him, right?

Well, that's not true either. My real training plan is to think of things I would like to do better, and find ways of being better at them. Stage 1 was to ride up hills faster. My solution here has been to ride my new road bike up a hill near home (and down again), when I feel like it. I've also been riding Kermit to work and other places every day... but I was doing that anyway so maybe it doesn't count. Stage 2 is to ride down hills faster. I think you'll agree that this training plan is absolutely comprehensive. This part is much more fun than the riding up hills part, so a bit more effort has gone into it. Along with the usual riding on the Shore (which I was doing anyway, so doesn't count)... I rode at the new and exciting Coast Gravity Park, entered an on-trend ENDURO race, entered a painful-sounding event on hardtails, and bought myself a day of coaching with Darren from Endless Biking where he'll teach me how to make corners explode, or at least ride around them fast. That's tomorrow, which is exciting. I am optimistic that this plan will prepare me with the form required to dominate the bottom half of the results sheet at T-P.

Finally, here's a picture that I like... and wanted to put somewhere I would remember it.

Pawel Kuczynski