Hermanator

We're a few weeks into 2013, and it's already shaping up to be a year of change and surprises. A lack of surprises would be surprising itself at this point of course, which makes surprise entirely predictable in my life. Predictable surprises. Hmm.

I've been enjoying quite a bit of work at Our Community Bikes the past few weeks and have applied myself to some productive sorting and purging of old junk, which leads to the discovery of old treasures. The main problem I face with this task is resisting buying all the old treasures. Luckily I don't have a disposable income since spending it all (see below for details on that), so that problem rather solves itself most of the time. Kermit has been riding strong, though needed a rear-wheel and drive train implant after I wore out the rear rim and chain. Winter isn't kind to bikes but luckily all of this was quite cheap to do, thanks to me being a bike mechanic. I feel justified in calling myself that these days. 

Though I'm enjoying my current bike-fixing employment, the threat of a steady job looms ever closer. I've had a few false-starts with that lately and sunk a huge amount of time and effort into job research, applications, and interviews. I do at least now have a clearer idea of what I'm trying to achieve with my work and life, though quite how I'm going to get there remains predictably - a mystery. This week I'm off out-of-town for more interviews, which hopefully will lead to me inching, err, an inch closer to where I want to be. No doubt when I arrive where I want to be, I'll think of some other place that I want to go next. 

Speaking of inching, we had a fun day out in the sunshine at Mount Baker on Saturday. Paul, Kala, Brad, Lina, and I went in search of some decent snow to ski on (with slight success) and ended up navigating our way around Mount Herman.

Me, inching toward a place I wanted to be.

Paul and I reaching where we wanted to be, shortly before deciding to go somewhere else.

Paul and I somewhere else (I think I may have exhausted that theme now). 

An aerial photograph of the blue line we spray-painted around Mount Herman

Now, as for that disposed-of income I mentioned. Lina and I lived in China for a year. Whilst we didn't exactly earn a fortune there, we spent incredibly little (due to the lack of coffee, cheese, and bicycle parts for me to spend it on). When we returned to Canada, we avoided drowning in our vast accumulated wealth (?) by going on a couple of very fun trips, renovating the apartment, and then both managing to both get jobs which we really enjoyed and of course paid appropriately badly. Despite all of this, some savings persisted... which were put aside for something which I've been dreading. Buying a car. We had a car already, which was the source of my dread in buying another one. The old Subaru and I got off to a pretty terrible start with blown head gaskets and spewing fluids, but we worked through that and have been quite a few thousand kilometers south, north, and east together. But change is inevitable, and we had to face the reality that an automatic would mean Lina and I could share driving and the Subaru could move onto some new owners.

Months of searching the internet for the "one car to rule them all" which is simultaneously big, small, automatic, standard, efficient, tenacious, and powerful revealed that this machine does not exist. No surprise there (for once). We decided that the best compromise was to buy a large rectangular object with four wheels, made by the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer. These important criteria gave the Honda Element as our only option. I test-drove a few, which were all either junk or too expensive... until we found a blue one being sold by a man with a dragster in his garage, in Mission. One rainy evening I got the train out to Mission with my licence plates in my bag, rode up the hill, and drove home in our new vehicle - the Blue Elephant. My old Subaru  will be setting up home further north in BC, I hope it's happy and behaves for its new owners. I also hope the Elephant behaves for us...

The Blue Elephant parked on some snow, wearing its new winter boots.

New year dog-party

We saw-in the new year in Maple Falls, Washington. Whilst Maple Falls is nice, the real draw was Mount Baker and the park-and-play backcountry skiing available down there. It's almost like drive-though Wendy's, but for mountains. We took advantage of the stable snow, good visibility and massive amount accumulated festive season calories to do a circuit around Table Mountain with some excellent skiing on the way.

What goes around? We did.

Lina, circumnavigating some American snow

Other than gobbling yet more lovely food, which I seriously need a break from now, and skiing around mountains we had a fine number of four-legged friends to play with. Our new-years day ski was a genuine dog-party.

The small white one

...and the big black one

...plus two more furry friends (who were interested in Lina's lunch)

How many dogs can you find in the picture?

And finally, here's a couple of things which slipped through the (inter)net. Can you see what I did there? It's a joke. Like, "slipped through the net", but on the.... oh, never mind.

Christmas 2012 from Andrew Dye on Vimeo.

Our new plant apparently likes 2013. Thanks Marc and Nikki!

The yurt'n Albertan

...would be a good pun if I was from Alberta. But I'm not. I did stay in a yurt for the past three days though with some fine friends and we "destroyed some pow", so to speak, up on the Duffey Lake road. It's good to be back in BC.

A Christmas gift... for you.

So here it is....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

WOW, 2012... what a year.

It started in China where we continued to work/travel/take in all that the Chinese culture had to offer. After a year working in China we returned to Canada in July and had an awesome homecoming in Whistler for a Canada Day mountain biking extravaganza (in the rain). It was amazing to be back with friends, on bikes, and in BC.

As we were still renting our apparent until the end of August, we kept moving and landed ourselves in Ontario visiting the Augaitis gang. While enjoying family time, a stand-up-paddleboard race, and the Augaitis cottage, we managed to sneak in an awesome five day back-country canoe/SUP adventure in Algonquin Park. We still had some time to kill before moving back into Vancouver life, so at the end of July we packed the car (which miraculously survived a year languishing in the parking garage) and headed south on a road trip with mountain bikes and SUPs. We rolled through WA and OR with stops to check out some trails along the way toward out target of Stanley Idaho. We spent a week in Idaho and just loved everything about Stanley and surrounding areas. The scenery, the people, the weather, the lakes, the rivers, and most of all the trails. Fast, smooth, long, alpine style mountain bike trails. On the "way home" we ended up in Moab, Utah in the unbelievably hot off-season. There was still great biking to be had, but only in the early hours of the morning. A few brief detours in California and Oregon on the way home (really this time) saw us back in Vancouver and moving back into our place.

As our stuff was all in storage we took the opportunity to tear the place apart and make use of the ideas that have been rattling around in Andrew's head for the four years since he moved in. We're really pleased with the results and are enjoying having a bit more space to move around (and Andrew's enjoying his workshop). Lina has had the chance to travel to Mexico (twice!) since we've been back to paddle and race SUP and enjoy the beach lifestyle. Paddling back in Vancouver is a little less warm, but still possible even if you don't drive standard and your car is a standard...

Something we missed in China was a real winter. Some may argue that Vancouver doesn't have a real Canadian winter (and they'd probably win that argument), but a couple of hours up the road we can find all the snow you could possible want for a day exploring the mountains on skis, which has again brought us back together with all our outdoorsy friends and should keep us entertained until the spring comes and the trails start to dry out.

Our best wishes for 2012, whatever it brings you. May your trail be dry and your snow be crisp.

Lina and Andrew

To make one of these, all you need is...

...some rather unusual living room furniture, with a TIG welder underneath it. Oh, and some old bike parts. Merry Christmas everyone.

 

Christmas gifts from Andrew Dye on Vimeo.

Has anybody got any salmon?

I'm supposed to be doing something else, so it's clearly a good time to be writing on the internet about my bike. Again.

Somewhere back in the mists of time I lived in a teepee with an Irishman and made a bike frame. Since then the frame lay dormant for a year and then finally became a bike and went on some mountain adventures over the summer. Lately Kermit has finally found his intended purpose and is my used-every-day bike for getting around Vancouver. As I've just put some nice new brake pads on him, I thought I should take a few photos for the record. Internet, meet Kermit.

Sorry about the top-tube pad. I'm not a hipster, honest.

What makes the wheels go 'round? Well, a strange mix of old road and mountain bike stuff I gathered together over the past few years in OCB.

Half road, half mountain, all action. 

Here's where the fun really is. About 15 years after it was the exciting new thing to do, I am using the "hidden click" in a old Shimano 7 speed shifter to shift on an 8 speed cassette... using a 9 speed rear mech . It actually works too.

Kermit, standing rampant in our kitchen. 

Salmon? Sorted.

Mud, glorious mud

One of the (many) things I missed while we were in China was the Mud Ride. There's been a change of venue now that Marc and Nikki aren't islanders any more, and the cast continues to evolve... but the mud was back in full force this year. Fortunately the temperature wasn't as numbing as some years, so we had a fun and squelchy time... followed by gobbling lots of nice food, including a highly flammable chocolate cake. I recommend flammable cakes.

A truckload of bikes

 We started the ride with eleven dry riders, one soggy rider, two dogs, and one plucky runner. Somewhere along the way we gained another rider (which was unexpected, for everyone including him) and ended the ride missing a couple of riders and a couple of dogs but were re-united again in time for beer, hot chocolate, and hosing ourselves down in the yard.

Pippa, a true poseur.

Really\ quite muddy.

Thank you to Marc and Nikki for keeping the dream alive for another year and thank you to all to showed up to get wet and muddy, or just drink beer and eat (flammable) cake. The tradition lives on.