Category: general

Categories
bikes general

Scotland bound

When I had to pull out of the Tour Divide, I cancelled the leave I’d arranged with work, and we tossed up options for a family bike holiday/vacation in late summer. Mongolia? Cuba? The Maritimes? Israel? The Chilcotins (in BC)? Maybe Scandinavia? Or somewhere in the States?

I left the final choice up to Alex, seeing as I will be claiming a good chunk of time when I finally, hopefully, ride the Tour Divide.

He opted for Scotland. A corner of the UK we never got to when doing our big Euro cycle tour in 2009. Not too far away, reasonable for a shorter trip.

And so now, 3 months later, my knee still isn’t 100 percent. But we’re sorting out gear, trying to remember how to do this multi-day bike touring thing, and trying to strike a balance between comfort and weight as we make our final gear decisions.

In a few days we’ll be jumping on a plane. I hope my knee will be ok.

Categories
canada general moosling snow

A winter flashback

????????????????

I made a video! Finally, Finn’s winter adventures have been cobbled together, relying on Youtube now rather than Vimeo as a host due to the vagaries of auto copyright detection software.

The moral to the winter was that it’s harder to get out on big long adventures now that he’s big enough that we can’t just carry or tow him around, but not big enough to have big days under his own steam – at least not out in the cold. As a result, our day trips have gotten smaller in scope for the time being. On the plus side, he seems to be growing. I suspect I only have a few years to go before he is out-skiing me.

Categories
canada general hiking moosling

West Wind Pass

????????????????

Hiking adventure!

West Wind Pass is just 5km return, but a nice taste of Kananaskis hiking. You get some of the views, and none of the scree. Perfect for flat-landers who still don’t have the hang of hikes with huge elevation gain, and perfect for boys who are declaring loudly to all and sundry that they don’t want to go up a mountain, and they just want to play minecraft/lego.

We had a short picnic session at the pass, re-enacted the scene from the Lion King (I’m very tempted to borrow another baby and come up and try this another time, when the light is a bit more suitable).

Back down above Spray Lakes…

Before heading home we made a quick diversion to this lovely mossy patch, which is a few hundred metres from the road on a nearby trail. It’s one of my favourite close-to-the-road spots in Kananaskis.

Categories
bikes canada general

24 Hours of Volunteering

Bitter sweet fun up at the Nordic Centre this weekend.

My injured knee meant I was volunteering instead of racing for the first time in five years.

It was harder than I’d imagined. Sitting by a line of recycling bins and directing people how to use them appropriately may well be a laudable activity, but it was also two hours of staring at people hammering home over the finish line, exhausted and ecstatic, then happily talking to their team mates about how that lap went for them.

As a side note, kids were way better at recycling correctly than adults, and never seemed to get it wrong. *sings* The children are our future */sings*

The work teams went well, had fun, everything went smoothly.

After finally giving in and buying a second-hand Tout Terrain Streamliner (thanks to the wonders of German ebay), we can actually get out with Finn on rougher singletrack and trails. All of the North American trail-a-bikes seem to be heavy, clunky, and with no suspension. The Streamliner has great suspension, and is lighter and easier to use. Unsurprisingly, it’s also wildly expensive, hence the second-hand purchase on German ebay.

So far it’s been a great success, the suspension is fantastic, and Finn is a fan. We’ll be testing it out thoroughly with our upcoming trip to Scotland – booked for late August after my Tour Divide leave was cancelled. Hopefully my knee can handle some easy bikepacking by then.

Categories
canada general hiking

Sunshine Meadows

Sunshine Meadows is miraculously free of bugs right now. Rumour has it that they’re all over in British Columbia somewhere, planning the next phase of their campaign.

Having friends visiting is a pretty good excuse for our annual visit to the meadows though. The wildflowers are out, and there are piles of coins to be found on the ski runs. I mean, there are cute ground squirrels on the ski runs.

I first met Ben and Rosalba when we were at the University Games climbing in Sydney, back in 2003. This doesn’t make me feel old until I consider that it was over 12 years ago.

I was competing on a climb right next to Ben, but was allowed to re-start it because he had the footwork of an over-excited golden retriever.

Then we all climbed at Nowra, and did the 10 hour drive back to Melbourne together. Fun times. It’s good to catch up with old friends.