Burnaby Plans

Next Sunday I'm off to Vancouver for the Burnaby 6-day. As has been the case through most of this season, I've had trouble pinning down a partner. It's happened this way in Portland, T-Town (twice), LA, Forest City, and to a lesser extent the planning to go to Europe. That it happened for Burnaby shouldn't have been much of a surprise.

At First Luke Winger and I were going to ride. But he skipped town and went to Argentina. Can't really blame him there. Then a string of others, Cody O'Reilly, Kenny Williams, Vince DeJong, David Byer, and others. Everyone either already had a partner or wasn't able to go.

Finally the race organizer, Jeremy, decided to pair me with a pretty powerful local rider. He has a fair collection of credentials, to put it mildly. A medal from Canadian elite nationals, and a master's world championship in the points race. I may not have ever met him before, but he was clearly a very capable rider.

Then another change. Things have shifted again, and now I'm partnered with Brad Huff.

If this is any indication, Burnaby is going to be awesome.

He's damn fast. I'm going to need to step it up for this one. Especially after seeing the start list. This is going to rock.

Cracked

The Sunday Skibby Spectacular was well attended this week, with about 8 people meeting at the Stone Arch Bridge and heading out along the Cedar Lake Trail. Skibby was in attendance preaching hate and epicness as expected, the Cullens were hammering the pace, Big Dave brought his promised doughnuts, and Homme even came out to do some on site investigation for BTDC. It didn't last long though, as a few miles into it my left crank arm cracked and started wobbling all over the place.

A bit crippled, I skittered one-footed across the ice and back to downtown, with Big Dave coming along to offer a hand and a ride when we returned to the bridge. I think he was also interested in having a good laugh, as the crank fell off completely before we made it to Washington Ave. and spent the remainder of the ride dangling from the pedal still attached to my foot. He even took a few pictures to document it all.

At least I was riding fixed. That made it a little easier.

It's generally a good idea to have the crank arm/pedal attached to both your foot AND the bike. One and not the other doesn't do you much good.


You should be on my bike, not my desk. Then again, you also should have a giant crack running through you.

I guess this is what I get for riding a clapped out piece of junk cobbled together with as many free parts as I could scrounge up. It was a good run, and now my right leg will be super strong.

As for the rest of the riders, I have no recourse except to assume that they will be found in a frozen, huddled mass sometime in March. Or maybe they'll make it back for coffee. Stay tuned to Jimmer's blog to find out for sure.

Come All Ye Faithful

The Sunday Skibby Spectacular (formerly the Stone Arch 318 Ride) will be departing at 9:30 again this week from the downtown side of the Stone Arch Bridge. Join in to hear the preachings of El Presidente on the importance of embracing the hate and learning the true meaning of "epic."

Some may call it a bike ride. I call it a religion. Converts welcome.

You!

If you weren't making me faster, I'd throw you in the river.

The Complete Package

Bring it on, Burnaby.

318 Ride

The Sunday morning ride is growing. Balmy temps (relatively) bolstered our numbers, with 7 of us starting out at the Stone Arch Bridge and meeting up with another 5 en route to Hopkins. Not too bad for a ride in the middle of December. I wasn't even the only singlespeed this week.

Ray came along today, and apparently he and I made the ride real. I guess that means that until we got there it had been fake. Ray also found the slippery spot on the railroad tracks near the Hopkins depot. He was polite enough to be warning others about the dangers of slick tracks at the time he went down. What a guy.

Full recovery!

This was Ray when he found out that today's ride was tantamount to exercise.

Who else is going to join us next week? Ray says he'll be back. Quite a vote of confidence, despite his dissatisfaction with the choice of post-ride coffee shop.

Who's Sandbox?

I hear that after his beating at the Loon State party last week, Don with be changing his blog from donimator.blogspot.com to donimated.blogspot.com