Wallysworld

New Site!

2011-04-13T22:32:00.000-07:00

Wallysworld has reached its lifespan.

Check out the new site:

www.corywallace.com

Thank You Jana for all the effort and design. If anyone needs a pro website made up check out www.janavisions.com !

Island Cups, Camping Trip

2011-04-08T15:24:00.000-07:00

The past 10 days on the island the weather has earned a "F" grading but the biking has been A+. 2 island cup xc races (Campbell river and Cumberland), 2 victories, 1 random 3 day bike tour/camping trip around Campbell river/ Quadra island and close to 30 hrs on the bike. All this has added up to a very tired biker who is currently Fried. Nothing a couple days of R&R and natural foods can't fix...

The Island Cup race series out here is possibly the funnest race series around. Cheap entry fees, technical 90% singletrack courses, good people and no politics. The series is as grassroots as it comes and does a perfect job at gettting anyone and everyone interested into racing out into a non hostile environment to enjoy some great riding. Add in the laid back island attitude,some typical wet weather and you have the makings for some memorable weekends. Where else are the race organizers lumberjacks who shoot the start pistol off from the top of a cutoff stump in the bush while downing a beer?

Check out the website:

http://www.islandcupseries.com

As for the bike touring on Vancouver Island there is some serious potential for epic trips. There are logging roads all over the area, tons of campsites, small fishing lakes, lots of firewood and small communities all over the place to re-stock. There is a slight problem with the weather though. This past week after touring 5 hrs in a torrential downpour in +3 temps I was forced off the bike and into the woods to warm up by a bonfire for 3 hrs. Day 2 of the tour went more of the same so I ditched the plans of going to Tahsis and headed back to Campbell river to the laundromat as every piece of clothing I had was drenched. After a bit of laundry the bike trailer was re-packed and it was off to Quadra island for the night. Another night of rain, another day of hail and the first bike tour of the yr came to a close. I figure mother nature needs another couple weeks to get here sh*t in line.

Spring Series Round 2

2011-03-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

Last week was spent on the mend as I tried to get rid of a bug that has been lingering for sometime. Friday AM I sensed the little bugger was near its end so I loaded up the North Face backpack, hopped on the road bike and headed out in the rain towards Vancouver for another round of the Spring Series road races. The ferry over to the mainland and back can get expensive, really fast, but doing the commute on bike is pretty economical at $15 each way. From Victoria it is a nice 1 hr ride through forests and countryside on the galloping goose bike path to the Victoria ferry terminal. After a 1.5 hr boat ride you unload on the mainland and then theres three options.

A) ride the direct way to Vancouver through the George Massey tunnel. (pros: shortest route at 1-1.5hrs, cons: sketchy/illegal.

B) ride the long way around through Surrey, via the Alex Fraser Brdige. ( pros:good training ride, cons: long at 2-2.5 hrs)

C) catch the 620 bus to bridgeport (pros: direct, cheap, good for rest days as it leaves only .5hrs of biking to vancouver dt, cons: bus takes over 1hr so overall it doesn't save anytime over option A.

Rumour has it Roddi Lega use to choose option A as he believed trying to sprint up the 1.5 minute incline on the otherside of the tunnel was a perfect race pace simulation as there would be a lineup of cars behind him honking/yelling at him providing ample motivation to mash the pedals harder. On this rainy day I chose option C and arrived in Vancouver mid afternoon just in time to pick up a box of goodies from Kona which included 2 fresh Maxxis Courcheval tires for the wknd. The race wknd went well, no flat tires, and 7 hrs of race pace efforts.

On Saturday, fellow mtb'r Neal Kindree was out and the two of us used our fat tire tactics to get away in a 5 man break for most the race before both blowing up with a couple laps to go and finishing 5th and 6th. Apparantly we used our legs more then our brains which some of the Roadies deemed un-roadie like as it messed around with there pre-determined Roadie tactics. Nonetheless we both got what we wanted out of it and we managed to blow both the peloton and our legs into outerorbit. On sunday more of the same occured. After the last race's were over, Lilla and I found an open hillside in the sun and nestled down for a 1 hr siesta. Theres not too many better ways to end a hard weekend of racing! Thanks for the support and feeds over the wknd Lilla.

This past week the flu has opted to resurface and the riding has been kept to a minimum. Between 2 weeks of this, 6 weeks of a broken thumb and weeks of insomnia the last couple months have not been ideal training. Apparantly the body needs a rest at some point and it has figured out that this is only going to happen if it makes it happen. Sorry body I will be more careful in the future and try not to hurt you as much without periods of proper rest. I have probably been unfair to you.

Tommorow is April! April is a good month.

Spring!&@^#

2011-03-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

It is Spring!!! The sun is out, the flowers are starting to bloom and there's bunny rabbits hopping around nibling on the plants at an old folks home causing a few of the residents to shed there hair. It isn't shorts weather yet but the next time my sketchy fender setup falls off my road bike they are done for the yr. As for Snow, if it comes back here for another round there will be one less cyclist in Victoria and one more in Mexico.

Last weekend were the first races of the yr in Vancouver, the ill famous "Spring Series" road races. On saturday there was a flat tire and a helmet issue. On sunday there was another flat tire but not before I had a good 2.5 hrs of intensity. Ouch.. the first real fast ride since Costa Rica. The legs felt a little sore but the cardio system seems to be functioning 100%. It is always a treat to get back up to speed after a couple months of slooooowww base kilometers.

Check out these rad Giro shoes I will be sporting this yr. Thank you Steve Gaffney (OGC Rep) and Giro for the goods! It feels like Christmas in March!

Hibernation

2011-03-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

Hibernation. That is why this blog is still not functioning. There's good news though as spring is nearly here and that means Mr. Wally is coming out of his winter coma. The last 3 winters this has been avoided in thanks to Central America but this yr Mr.Wally decided to stay in Canada for the brunt of the winter. I now understand why Grizzly bears hibernate through the winter. Pretty Smart animals. The monarch butterflies are also right up there with there migrating patterns to Mexico. I have much respect for these two animals.

Sooo... the last two months have gone something like this. 1 week training camp with national team, 1 week training in sunny victoria, 1 bonehead move which = broken thumb, 3 weeks in a cast, 2 weeks riding/ cross training (aka xc skiing, snowshoeing), 1 week riding in the rain, a little bit of college work, alot of central America dreaming and here we are now, March 9th, with racing season just around the corner.

Being in Canada this winter has been a little different then riding around central american volcanoes and beaches. I respect those bikers that train up here every winter. They are hardcore. My head is having a rough time grasping the concept of riding in rainy and freezing temps day after day but in reality there aren't that many bad riding days, just bad clothing choices. Thanks to one of my new sponsors, The North Face, the rain/cold doesn't have the bite it use to have. I'm not sure how they can make clothes that breath like a siv yet block rain out like a tin roof but somebody, somewhere in The North Face factory is on top of there game!

With spring around the corner my body is starting to get amped up for another wicked race season. New bikes are coming, new team kits, new race dreams and a summer full of epic good times awaits! Now I just need to remember to get my riding clothes dried out before another wet coast ride in the morning.

Where's Wally

2011-02-24T20:10:00.000-08:00

Central America

2011-01-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

This blog has been functioning like my mind since the Vuelta de Costa Rica. Riding around chasing supercharged 125 lbs latin americans up and down mountain sides for 12 days has a lasting effect on us Canadian hockey players. We should be in good shape for pond hockey when we return to the north....

After the Vuelta everything hurt, thanks to my tico buddy Ronald, the healing process was sparked by 2 days of rest at his cottage in the Costa Rican countryside. There probably isn´t a better place to go after a hard race. Ronald, if we return to the Vuelta next yr can we book into your place for a week afterwards?

On Jan 1st Lilla and I hopped on a a free first class plane ride to Guatemala to visit her Uncle and spend a week staying in an Antigua mansion, a Guatemala city penthouse, cooking steaks on a volcano, tubing down a river, running over a mtn and swimming through caves. So good. Guatemala is the home of gongshows but for some reason this trip was pretty relaxing. Lilla did you have something to do with this?

Two days ago Lilla flew back to Vancouver for school. Being schooless I hopped on my bike and am now on day 2 of training for 2011. Yesterday training consisted of riding 5 hrs to the Mayan city called Tikal. I´m not a huge history guy but seeing giant temples rise out of the jungle is cool. Today the plan was to get up at sunrise and bike to Belize in the cool morning air. After an 11hr sleep it is now mid morning and I have opted to procrastinate a little longer by doing this blog update before heading out to train in a giant sauna for 4 hrs....

Vuelta De Costa Rica

2010-12-19T17:48:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple links to follow the rolling gongshow known as the Tour of Costa Rica which I'm currently racing with the Canadian team "Tour de Quebec".

Race Website:

www.ciclismoenvivo.com

Costa Rica Newspapers

www.aldia.cr

www. nacion.com

Video:

www. monumental.co.cr

Hello Canada, Goodbye Canada.

2010-12-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

I have been back to Canada for 10 days now and have come up with my Christmas wish list.

1. Fly to Costa Rica

2. Race my road bike for 12 days against Latinos on "special vitamins".

3. Rest on the beach

Don't get me wrong, the past 10 days in Canada have been great. Returning to Canada is always great. There's just something about riding bikes in Canadian weather for 5 months through the winter which my body doesn't like. This has caused a seasonal migration south for the past 3 winters. I may have to get this dealt with at some point but for now I will follow the strange outside force which sends me down to central america each winter. I really can't complain.

Too make things even sunnier down there I will be accompanied by my girlfriend Lilla this trip. She has been a huge support for me throughout this past racing season and will be helping our team at the Vuelta de Costa Rica which starts up this friday. It is clear that she is only allowed to put in as much time helping as she puts into sun bathing on the beaches.

If you look up the word Vuelta in the dictionary it will say "see gongshow". After racing it last yr it became clear some of the racers in it have "special" forces for the race and ultimately it leaves us clean eating Canadians a little off the back. For this reason I will be looking at this race as a winter training camp in Costa Rica. We do have a strong sprinter in Jean Michael Lachance which we will be trying to get a stage win for before the race hits the mtn slopes.

Tommorow Lilla and I head down to Seattle to catch a flight south. Flying out of the states is alot cheaper and it allows us to hit up some cheap shopping while the US/Canadian dollars are at par. Right now the mind is still spinning from getting back from NZL but I'm sure Costa Rica will help settle it down. Goodbye Canada! Thanks for the past week of good food, hockey games, wet rides in Victoria and long sleeps in fresh Canadian air.

NZL Bike Tour part 2

2010-11-28T21:19:00.000-08:00

Part 2 of the NZL bike tour turned out to be more then I bargained for. Lesson learned, sometimes when 12 different people give you the same advice about what can't be done they are right. But then again sometimes they are wrong. Either way I got turned around 80 km into the adventure which changed my plans for the coming days and put me in a much different location then I planned to be. Luckily I'm in NZL where there's usually another paradise around the corner. The days that followed the lost mission ended up being some of the best yet. If any of you ever wander over hear make sure you check out Kinloch lodge and the surrounding wilderness. There is a reason the Lord of the Rings was filmed hear.

Yesterday I returned to Queenstown for another couple sleeps and had the best day yet in NZL with a bike/hike mission. Today was a little different as I road 1.5 hrs into the bottom of a deep valley, ripped a sidewall in my tire and then hiked 3 hrs back to town. You win some you lose some...

Tomorrow its back to Christurich to visit my Kiwi mates, Jeff and Karen for a couple days before another endless summer will come to an end. Thursday the crow flies back to Canada!

Sheep, Glaciers, and Bikes

2010-11-24T21:36:00.000-08:00

New Zealand is a small country of just over 4 million people and apparently over 10 million sheep. The sheep are all over the place like a bunch of mating jack rabbits but they are slowly being removed and being replaced by the more lucrative cattle industry. It will be sad if they are removed from the landscape as they fit in perfectly with the peace fullness of this country. It seems like this place is stuck back in the 70's or 80's as the pace of life is pretty minimal. The North Island up by Auckland is probably a little different with 3/4 of the countries population living around the region.

After spending a great first two weeks being toured around the country by my friends Jeff and Karen I was finally given my graduation card to set out on my own. For me this meant a bike tour from the North east tip of the island, Picton, down to Queenstown (NZL's version of Banff).

Stage 1 Picton to Nelson: 100km
Day one of the tour was 100 km from Picton to Nelson. After 60 km on pavement I headed up over a 40 km shortcut through the mountains. Time wise this wasn't a shortcut as it went up a abandoned gravel track over a mtn and then down a sketchy loose decent. The bike and 20 kg of panniers survived and we rolled into Nelson to meet up with Jeff for a couple days of xc riding in one of the single track hot spots on NZL. I was pretty wrecked still from the previous month of travelling and spent a majority of the time laying low while Jeff made the most of the great riding.

Stage 2 Murchison-Punakaiki: 145km
Day two of the tour I hopped a bus 100 km to Murchison to avoid boring highways. I figure life isn't long enough for these. Once in Murchison the 90 km ride down the Buller Gorge to the ocean was pretty amazing. This was followed by 20 km of boring highway and then 30 km of spectacular coastal scenery to the hamlet of Punakaiki. Punakakia is famous for its pancake rocks and blow holes. I met up with James at the hostel, a traveller from Wales and we drove down to the blow holes to check them out at high tide as the sun set. Nice spot to call it a night.

Stage 3 Punakaiki- Ross: 135 km
Another nice ride by the ocean to the West Coast hub of Greymouth. Loaded up on food and then road 40 km of flat highways to Hokitika. Met up with Brandon, a bike tourer from the USA and rode with him to an abandoned Hostal called the Old Church. Place was grand with a pool table, BBQ and 40 acres of country farm to ourselves. Brandon is probably my long lost cousin as he not only shares Wallace as a last name but he also has stories of touring around Central America on a bike. Good times.

Stage 4 Ross-Franze Josef Glacier: 95 km

Rolling ride through the lush NZL West Coast rain forest and through open sheep pasture land. WET rainy day.

Stage 5 Franze Josef Glacier-Fox Glacier- Lake Paringa: 125 km

Woke up early to beat the other tourists up to the popular tourist glacier. The 3 km trail leading to the head of a glacier looked more like a small road then a path and nobody was around yet so I opted to ride up to the glacier. No biking signs look weird sometimes. This plan failed when I began hiking my bike up onto the glacier to get a good photo opt when a ranger walked out from behind a moraine. Not sure what he was doing up there but I was caught red handed. He liked my effort though and told me he didn't feel like dealing with the paperwork, so he gave me 20 minute's to get out of sight before the tourist droves arrived. Deal. Road down the highway up and down some big hills to Fox Glacier and opted to hike the no biking trail this time to a cool viewpoint of Fox glacier from through the rain forest. The glaciers in Canada are bigger and more impressive but NZL's glaciers come down to 250 m above sea level and meet a rain forest! Really Cool. After the sightseeing it was 90 hard headwind km below the Alps and through countryside to Lake Paringa for a rest.

Stage 6 Lake Paringa- Wanaka: 197 km

This day was a long one. Started with 50 flattish km along the ocean and then the road headed up a valley into the heart of the Southern Alps. Had a nice headwind and the scenery was the best yet with waterfalls and snowy peaks surrounding the valley. After 120 km of riding I started to tire a little and 2 roadies blew by me telling me to "hop on." I probably said something like "f" that". But then decided it might be worth the effort to draft them for a while. After 20 fast km we pulled over to meet up with the camper van that was following the Dad, son combo. Apparently I was now part of a family vacation as Mom and the other son were touring in the camper van and supporting there family members. After a coffee and lunch we hopped back on the bikes, panniers now in the camper van, and the three of us cruised the last 3 hrs through lakeside scenery to the tourist village of Wanaka. Wanaka is a small version of Queenstown, kind of like what Jasper is to Banff. I could have stayed hear a while but wanted to get to Queenstown while the body was still fully revved.

Stage 7 Wanaka-Queenstown 70 km

Great ride up over NZL's highest paved highway at 1070 m. This is pretty low considering Calgary is close to 1200 m! Felt high though and the 750 m drop into Queenstown was a great ending to the first leg of the bike tour.

Yesterday was spent being a lost tourist in Queenstown as I tried to let the body come down from the exertion and today I checked out some of the local xc riding which is great. I highly recommend Queenstown for anyone looking to xc ride, party and sight see. It deserves the claim to being NZL's Adventure Capital!

The time is ticking as a week today I will return to Canada! I am almost looking forward to the rest but first there is part 2 of the bike tour to take care of!

New Zealand!

2010-11-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

New Zealand is pretty much coastal BC only on the other side of the globe with two exceptions. The first one is dangerous as every drives on the wrong side of the road. Knowing which way to look is harder then it sounds. The other difference is the language as Kiwis speak 95% english, and 5% kiwi language. Jandals, arvo, bangers, mozzie, rooting... I have been more then lost in a few conversations already but am almost bilingual after 2 weeks cruising around with my mate Jeff.

Still mopped from spending too much energy in Australia so thats it for the read today.

Croco Classic

2010-10-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

The idea of riding 1200 km over 10 days in the northern outback of Australia with a bunch of euoro roadies and sketchy aussie animals sounded like a grand adventure. It was. I am now 12 days past the race and the body is finally starting to come around again.

Stage 1 I felt like a sack of burnt mashed potatoes. Staying at a backpackers hostal the night before and getting 1 hr of sleep due to drunk backpacker drama wasn't a nobel prize winning decision. At the start line I slept for 1 hr. We then raced for 1.5 hrs, had a 2 hr intermission due to course problems and then raced for another 3 to the finish. It was alot like La Ruta day one, jungle, mud, hills, but only 75% as tough. I probably would've finished back with the mchappy meal sized belgium roadies but my 1.5 hr nap at intermission got the legs firing just in time for the last climb of the day and a 3rd place finish.

After a 11 hr sleep, stage 2 I woke feeling like a bag of potatoes. We had a hard 45 min climb through the jungle to start the day. Last yrs winner, Urs Hubar (Switzerland) and Bart Brentgens attacked the hill like a couple of rabid dingos. I turned my pain threshold off and tried to think of happy thoughts as I hung on like a piece of dog dung on the back of there wheels. Once over the top we decsended into flatter Aussie outback country and the 3 of us road to the finish. Having 24hr diesel engine legs I had a .1 % chance of winning the stage. I tried attacking 1 km from the finish and made a perfect lead out for the other two. 3rd place.

During the night a hoard of Wallabies came into camp and made like a bunch of kindergarten kids causing havoc all over camp knocking over stoves, chewing on tents and one nibbled on my tire. I thought nothing of it as there was no damage but 80 km into the 157 km stage 3 I flatted on a open road while riding with the 3 other leaders. Gongshow commence. The stage was flat for the next 50 km into a head wind making it important to be with a pack so I took the wheel off, shook it hoping the tubeless tire sealant would seel the hole and then started chasing back to the leaders. psstttt. super slow leak. on top of the next hill I took the wheel off again to put a tube in only to look up to see a savage farm dog charging at me from 400 m away. *#&$. I popped the 10 psi wheel back on the bike and sprinted down the hill to a safer zone to repair the flat. by the time there was air in the tire again I was in 8th and road the last 60 km to the finish alone into a headwind. Lost about 30 minutes. At night in the 70 person outback village the local HillyBilly Goats band came out to entertain. Prefect way to end a gonger of day.

Stage 4. The road racing begins as the stages get flat. First 90 km our lead pack of 11 guys ride easy. With only 1 km until a 50 km finish on a highway begins we ride over a rocky patch and both my tires implode. psstt. psttt. two flats. Tabernack. Another 50 km ride alone into a wind until the mchappy meal roadies catch up and we ride in for 15th or so position.

Stage 5-8. Roadie stages on flat, corrugated outback roads in 32-40 degree heat. Scenery is pretty cool for a Canadian and watching the roadies crash in the small creek gullys kept me entertained. Stage 8 ended with a big climb in Cooktown to a viewpoint over the ocean and cool breezes. Highlight of the race. After spending the last 3 stages leading out the other riders to the finish line for the sprint I got some payback on the climb and finished 2nd.

Stage 9. Flat roadie stage. The race organizers had been giving away Boomerangs to the stage winners each night and this was my last chance to get one. I used up some energy from next season to try and get the W but came up 4 ft short in the sprint to a rider who had been sitting in the pack for the last 7 days. Danm roadie tactics.

Stage 10. 37 km TT in the jungle along the coast. Alot like Costa Rica only no monkeys. Finished 4th on day and 5th overall.

The next 4 days were spent cruising around being a tourist. 30 of us from the race went out to the Great Barrier Reef 2 days after the race. We looked like a bunch of hungover college students with at least 15 of us sleeping at any given moment. The other asian tourists on the boat gave us disgusted looks all day as they updated there twitter acounts and made chronological diaries of the Reef tour.

Riding the Croc Trophy was like riding over mexican speed bumps in a sauna with someone blowing dust into your face for 10 days. It was pretty neat. I would come back to try it again as its nothing like we have over here in Canada. Overall the biking was ok, but the 10 day camping trip that went with the race and the days after in Cairns make it trip worth returning for. After all if I was back in Canada in October I probably wouldn't be riding my bike around this much!

After a week trying to get over my croc trophy hangover in Australia I made my way over to NZL to visit my Kiwi buddies Jeff and Karen who I met in Canada last yr. Jeff, also my pit manager from 24 hr Worlds, and I tried hitting up a 80 km race in the NZL mtns last weekend. That story is currently in the press and is not too be missed!

Crocodile Trophy

2010-10-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

Australia is a country of just 22 million people but it has 11 of the worlds 15 most venomous snakes, oceans full of jellyfish and sharks making them unswimmable for certain months as well as countless number of spiders and other creepy crawlers. Yesterday I made the 3 hr flight to Northern Australia to the tourist town of Cairns where the 10 day Crocodile Trophy SR will start tomorrow. I have been sweating bucket's since I got here as the 30 degree temps and max humidity are rivaling that of coastal Costa Rica. This place is creepy crawler central. Apparently all the bodies of water in the area are off limits to swimming due to crocs and jellyfish. I assumed all the croc warnings were like the bear warnings in Canada and more of a joke than anything. Nope, Croc warnings are for real as they apparently munch on tourists all the time! The next days few days of acclimatization could be rough without access to water.

24hrs was a tough race which drained the tank. After 8 days of recovery in Sydney the system warning lights have gone off. Thanks Jon Odam for taking me into your home for the week!

Racing in The Croc Trophy is going to be full tilt as it is 90% european with the likes of Bart Brentgens (Olympic Gold medalist), Urs Huber (Croc winner last yr) , Jaan Kirsippu (4 tour de France stage wins) and the European Marathon champion Allan Oras making the trip from euro land. I'm planning on holding back a bit and letting the crocs get the first few racers and then hopefully taking over from there.

Check out race updates at www.crocodile-trophy.com

24 Hr Worlds

2010-10-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

The days leading up to the 24 hr Worlds were pretty gongshowish as my buddy Jeff Collins (Kiwi) and I ran around Canberra picking up food etc for the race and setting up our Pit area out at race site. Prepping for a 24 hr race is a challenge in Canada, and that's when we are able to load my truck with everything including a kitchen sink and drive 3 hrs to Canmore for the race. Making this happen half way around the World is another story. We had some help from the other Canadians down here, our home stay (Darro Stinson), and big help from the Kona boys who showed up with tents and mechanics.

Race day:

11:45 am- lemans start! I go from front row to a mid pack position over a 300 m run.
11:47am- On the bike, the legs feel unreal and I ride up to the lead group, look at the boys and then hammer away up the hill.

I was pretty nervous heading into the race as I had never been in a field of 400 riders and most of the Aussies seemed pretty serious. I figured the best way to deal with the emotions was to go on the offensive. This worked for the first 5 laps as the chase pack of 7 riders began to blow up one by one. The British national champ and a few of the top Australian's bit on my attack and blew them selves up and essentially out of the race. The only problem was the defending champion, Jason English was one step ahead of me and hung back, not pitting at all, eventually catching me on the 6th lap still with good legs. Over the next few laps he would take 3 mins out of me a lap and soon had a 20 min lead.

I was riding hard but at the same time a little pre-occupied with all the crazy animals hopping around the course. One lap I came barrelling around a corner into a posse of 7 kangaroos, I almost wet my pants as I skidded out of control towards them. A little later I apparently just missed running over a black snake which slid out of the way just in time and then lunged at the British rider behind me. I was in zombie mode at the time and didn't know anything had happened until talking to the Brit after the race. In the night a baby kangaroo (or wallaby?) lept onto the course just ft ahead of me and then back into the woods. He was a lucky little bastard as by that time in the night I was RUI (riding under the influence) of copius amounts of caffeine, adrenaline and over exerction and wouldn't have the reflex's to avoid him.

Going into the night things were rolling smoothly with Jeff keeping things together in the pit and the legs still pushing over. On lap 13 the gongshows began as I double flatted, had co2's blow up, ran out of tubes etc... 20 minutes later I got air back in my tires and made it back to pit row where I was now sitting in 4 th position.

For the next 10 hrs I had an epic battle going between 2 Aussies (Andy and Scott) for 2nd position. Jason kept his lead and managed to pull off a successful defense of his 2009 title. The guy is a true champ and deserved the win as he out witted us all with his yrs of 24hr experience. I'm not sure if he was the fittest guy in the race but he was the most focused and best prepared rider there.

The 3 of us battling for 3rd couldn't gap each other and by the last couple laps we were working our way back up to a xc race pace. This was retarded to be riding this hard after 22 hrs on the bikes but we were all stubborn like a bunch of mexican mules. With 3 laps to go Andy made a move and gained 5 minutes on us. I was suffering like a guy who had been on his bike for 22hrs but I figured Andy would have to slow down at some point and that maybe just maybe there was a little bit of adrenaline left in the tank to fuel another quick lap.

Lucky for me there was a few drops of adrenaline left which surged me through the last lap, passing Andy mid way, and into a 2nd place finish! At the finish line the adrenaline switched off and I went from feeling invincible to a 85 yr old man with arthritis in about 15 minutes.

The post race party/ awards ceremony down at the university was about as exciting as a layover at an aiprort. By 10pm the place was cleared out with just the crazy single speeder dudes hanging around. Those guys are a different breed.

The day after the race was a right off. I fell down a set of stairs and then decided to sit still for the rest of the day to prevent any further mishaps. The day after that Jeff and I forced ourselves to get organized and head over to Sydney as he had to catch a flight back to New Zealand. Huge Thank You Jeff for taking the time and effort to come over and support me for 24!

A 24hr race is a team event as it is the Pit crews which keep us riders going through the night and I had some of the best help there. Big thanks to my Dads friend Darro Stinson for giving Jeff and I a place to stay for the week and loaning us a car, Ben (kona rep), Team Canada (Erin and Kelly you guys were great, Kate Scallion, Leighton for the calming influence and everybody else that kept things rolling for me!

I was to follow Jeff over to NZL today for a tour of the North Island but after the 24 race was over I received an invite to race in the 10 day Crocodile Trophy through Australians Northern Outback. Probably not the best idea but how do you pass up on 10 days of ripping around with some of the fastest euros on the planet through crocodile and kangaroo infested landscapes. Not to mention a trip to the Great Barrier reef afterwards? Some days I wish I knew how to say no. Sorry body, I promise you a proper rest either when you quit working during the Croc Trophy or once the last day is over. Sorry bike but you will be ignored for a long time after this one is over.

Off to be a City slicker and check out some Opera house.

24 Ready to Go!

2010-10-08T01:56:00.000-07:00

There is a wombat digging holes in the course, divebombing magpies and rumours of a skitzofrantic kangaroo around the pit area. The Aussies have guranteed themselves a 1-2-3 placing on the podium and are doing there share of trashtalking. Not sure what is going to play out down here but us Canadians are ready to get this thing rolling!

The toughest part of 24hr events are the days leading up to them. Nerviousness, preps, etc... Once the bike wheels are rolling its all cool. For the first 6 hrs its a bike race and then its survival for the next 18. I figure the 6 hr bike race should go pretty good and after that I have my fingers crossed.

Rumour has it live updates will be on the race website at http://www.corc24hour.com.au/

www.24wsc/ may also work.

Off to work.

The Other Side of the Road

2010-10-06T00:58:00.000-07:00

September was spent overtraining myself to the point of resembling a hungover drug addict on East Hastings st in Vancouver, recovering for a couple days and then repeating. It seems alot easier to overtrain oneself after an already long race season then it is at the start. After I wrecked myself really good the last time I opted to go to the backcountry with my Dad, brother (Dustin), 7 horses and a dog for 5 days to get away from the bike.

Day 1 one we left the highway and hit snow 7 km into the ride. Soon after we spent 4 hrs cutting deadfall off the trail. We eventually rode into camp under a full moon through 6 inches of snow. 5 days later through wintery conditions, cutting out 20 yr old trails and wading through rivers we reached the highway again. Dustin and Dad went home, I hopped in the truck and drove across the countryside, hopped on a 34 hr flight to Australia and am now hanging around with Kangaroos. Thank you Lilla and all the boys at Freewheel Cycle for helping me get organized for the trip!

Being in Australia is like being in Canada. The only difference is that everyone drives around on the wrong side of the road. That is sketchy. So are the Kangaroos. And divebombing magpies. Everything else is great. Sunny days. Hospitable people. And the accents are cool. The customs officers are pretty rad as well. I heard they were pretty stingent with checking through luggage for foreign food etc. The officer checking my luggage must of been a biker himself as he rolled me through the line. Pretty stoked as I wasn't sure how my unlabled bags of seeds, buckwheat, random pills and green powders was going to go over.

With the 24 hr Worlds coming up Saturday I am trying to keep the biking under control to prevent any further burnouts before the race. There will be ample opportunities for that over the weekend.

I will update my blog once I figure out where live updates of the race will be available. Last yr it was at http://www.24wsc.com/.

Leading up the the race 24 hr Twitter updates are at. www.24wsc.com/twenty4-tweets.

I rode out to the course for a couple laps yesterday. There is going to be carnage. Gap jumps on a 24 hr course won't mix well with lethargic bikers in the middle of the night. Other then that the course is pretty tame. 2 big climbs, 2 fast rocky decents and roo's all over the place.

The race starts 12 pm Saturday over here, when translated in Australian, that is equivalent to 6 pm Friday evening Pacific time in Canada. Not sure how that works but as it sits now I got ripped out of a day of my life which I will only ever reclaim once I return to Canadian soil.

Right now there is a small problem with Jet lag. Off to deal with that. aka 10 hr + sleep.

August Goodness

2010-08-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

You can tell how good a race buggered you up by how long it takes to post something on your blog afterwards.

The Transrockies was a good one.

Stage 1 : 31 km Mudfest time trial

- started 5th behind Adam Craig (Giant), Max Plaxton (Sho-Air), Matt Hadley (Canada), Carl Decker (Giant) (based on UCI pts)

- thinking top 5 would be solid

- left the shoot at full steam trying to catch Decker who started 1 min ahead.

- catch Decker, leave him in rear view mirror

- close in on Hadley

-finish 3rd behind Craig and Plaxton

-ride of the week!!! I thought....

Stage 2 : 72 km Climbing Roady stage

- Decker sets pace, drops eveybody but Plaxton, Craig and myself

- Craig ups the tempo, Decker drops off

- ride with Plaxton and Craig towards finish

- both guys seem to be suffering so I up the tempo and open a gap

- 3 km to go and i'm beating Plaxton and Adam Craig!

- Come across the line 1st, 25 secs ahead of the other duo

- Biggest win ever.

Stage 3: 70 km of true TransRockies Goodness

- 40 km muddy fireroad

-15 km hike/bike/crazy willows/ giant rocky climb up the continental Divide

-8 km decent down boulder field

- 1 flat, Hadley and Kona boys pass me, Plaxton is ahead for the the win

- fix flat, catch Kona boys who also flatted, real in Hadley.

- roll in 2nd on stage.

- Adam Craig had a rough day and loses 10 min. I move into 2nd in GC.

2nd overall TR3!

Stages 4-7

-Team up with John Firth from Canmore for last 4 stages.

- finish 2nd overall on stage 4 and 3rd on stage 6.

- learn John is one crazy ass hardcore Diesel engine hockey player who can tear it up on a xc bike.

- freeze our asses on stage 6. Deja vu Bow 80....

Stage 8- Party

- 1 yukon jack, 3 fireballs, 1 wine, 1 ???

- crash hard

Stage 9- Road Provincials

- get worked over by 8 man H&R block

- Jamie Sparling and I spend 1 hr chasing back break

-catch break with 8km to finish

- try to ride in on diesel fumes for the victory

- finish 7th behind riders who emerged from the pack for the first time all day at the finish...

Stage 10- Ice Cream DT Cochrane then Camp on the Icefields.

Monday-Wednesday: Write off

Thursday-Saturday- Hike up in the Rockies

I'm still pretty worked over, hence this messed up blog report.

Next up is Hinton XC and MX Provincials this weekend. Come out to the Rockies for some good times!!!

Grizzlied

2010-08-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

The rest week after 24 hrs was pretty perfect. Fishing, camping, hiking and hanging in hammocks up in the mtns. That was until friday night when Lilla and I were returning to camp around dusk only to find a Grizzly in our way.

After some yipping from our golden retriever dog, and some yelling by us we managed to really piss the old grizz off and he charged at us through the willows only to stop 15 ft from us to growl and let out his outrage in hair rasing noises. Slightly intimidated we opted to backtrack down the trail to give the beast his space. The only problem was he started to follow, charging through the bush, stopping just short of us to let out his outrage again. After a few minutes of this it got to the point that we were either going to have to keep this up for another 60 km back to civilization or else try to get past the cranky thing to my truck which was only 500 m away.

I opted fro Plan B, Lilla probably disagreed, but she followed as we road back at the Grizz who was just out of sight in the willows beside the road. Once we got past him, old grizz started running beside us in the bush then onto the road behind us and over onto the other side of the road. I gave Lilla my best thought out advice. "Don't Fall!" "NO SHit" I think was her response. With the truck in sight and the dog already under neath it, Lilla and I hopped in and watched as the bushes and trees were trampled away only 30 ft in front of the truck. The Grizz would never come out and show himself, but we had a standoff with him in the woods growling for 15-20 min as we sat belittled in our truck. Eventually our friend got tired and wandered off up the mtn, letting off one last angry freakish noise as he faded into the night.

Our problem now was to either return home with a 2 hr drive, or to risk the 7 minute hike through the dense bush to get to the hut. We made the hike in 4 minutes. Dog in tow.

The next day the Sun was up, Grizz was no where to be seen and life was pretty good again...

Tonight we are down in Fernie gettting ready for the TransRockies to kickoff tommorow. I will try to defend my TR3 Solo title I won last yr. This is probably a pipe dream with top World Cup racers Adam Craig (Giant), Max Plaxton (Specialized), and Carl Decker (Giant), on the start list but I will I empty the tank trying.

After the TR3 finishes off I will be sticking around to cover the final 4 days of the TransRockie Team event as it finishes off in Canmore next Saturday.

Starting tommorow, reports will be up at http://www.sleepmonsters.com/

24hrs of Adrenalin

2010-07-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

24 in Camnore last weekend was ridiculously rad. Not going to lie, I am pretty f'd up at the moment. The opening lap was dangerous with a 4 minute le mans run to start out the event. I lost over 1 minute in this to some dude in baggy shorts and was probably 30th. I was embarrassed so I ripped it up on the first couple laps putting in a solid gap on the other soloists.

24 dominator Leighton Poidevon from Canmore kept it close for the first 8hrs before falling ill in the night. This left a decent gap to the next rider, Luke Way, and allowed for some solid cruising throughout the night. Luke Way, who also grew up in Jasper and is the owner of TriWay bike fitting had an amazing ride to come in 2nd. Way to go buddy!

The closest call in upsetting the ride was when I came upon 6 other riders stopped on the trail claiming there was a bear and 3 cubs up ahead. I figured I was faster then a couple of the riders so I convinced them that if we all rolled togethar we could probably make it. We went through, Momma bear looked pissed, we all pinned it and apparantly all lived happily ever after....

23 hrs and 54 minutes after starting I rolled around to finish my 20th lap and claim the National 24hr Solo Championships and a trip to Australia for Worlds in October!

Here we come Aussies!

Huge thanks to my pit crew who kept things togethar for me throughout the night. Lilla Roy, Reiner Thoni, Travis Hauck and Dad, you guys are amazing!

I am pretty impressed I got this blog out. Off to the mtns to feed on fresh trout and wild blueberries.

ZZZZZZZZZZZ.................

Canadian XC Nationals

2010-07-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

The XC Nationals in Canmore were pretty fricken awesome on saturday. The course was built for fitness freak's as it climbed 250 m vertical per lap. There were alot of fitness freaks on the start line.

I rode a steady race and watched the fireworks go off around me as riders blew themselves into outer orbit. The race was alot shorter then I'm use to at just over 30 km but this we made up for in intensity. The first 4 laps I rode at sustainable pace but when there were 5 of us all within 20 seconds of 4th place on the last lap the dog fights began. Once the dust settled I found myself curled over my bike trying to fight off leg cramps and gasping for oxygen as I savoured my 7th place result.

I was pretty stoked with the ride as I haven't been in a National level competition in 3yrs and wasn't too sure what to expect. Apparantly the top 7 riders will be selected for the National team to head to the World Championships in September. I am an extreme long shot given this is the only selection race I have attended. Probably a 2% chance. Next season this could make for a good challange.

Right now its off to Canmore for the 24 hr Solo Canadian Championships. This one has been on my hit list since pulling out of World's last yr with a severely obliterated mind and soul. With the winner getting a trip to 24hr Worlds in Australia the motivation won't be a problem...

The Race action this weekend starts at 12pm Saturday afternoon. Check out the link to follow live updates!

http://24wsc.com/adrenalin-live/

Canadian XC Nationals

2010-07-16T09:44:00.001-07:00

The week after BCBR was a right off. Tubing, mtn climbing, whale watching, resting. Made it to Jasper in time for a summer snowstorm. Re-lit the legs with a couple spins. Riding a new bike with big wheels. Life is good.

Tommorow is XC Nationals. Just another ride, only this one is being televised live on the internet.

If you want to watch Canadas Fastest duke it out check out www.pedalmag.com and click on the video link.

Race starts on Saturday the 17th at 2:30 PM (MST).

BCBR

2010-07-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

8 days, 450 racers, 400 km of trails, 8 different towns, 4 ferries = 1 hell of a road trip!

I've heard big things about the BC Bike Race (BCBR). To get to do it as part of the Kona Factory team was unreal. Right now I feel like hell. WRECKED. Body and mind are overloaded and in the same state as a world war two battle field. All logical thoughts point to curling up in a cave for a few days, but before that occurs hears a little rundown from the week of ripping some of BC's best trails!

Day 0, Prologue- 2.1km of north shore singletrack. passed 7 riders including 1 guy (Chris Holm) on a unicycle. wasn't sure if it was a circus or a bike race. finished 2nd behind Chris Sheppard.

Day1, Nanaimo- attacked at the gun. road away from the field, got lost, got back on track, got caught, road with 12 man lead group for 1.5hrs, blew up, suffered hard, downed an energy drink which was suppose to give me wings but instead gave me an upset stomach, ripped the dh to salvage a hard day. 6th

Day 2, Cumberland- leisure pace to start day, hard 20 min climb split field, dropped the americans on the dh, fell over on flat fire road trying to pick up sunglasses, road with Colin Kerr for second half, followed Kerr through singletrack and up on log rides, ended up on a 20 ft log ride 10 ft off the ground and got scared, built a small grudge against Kerr for scaring me and not choosing the easier lines, decided Kerr is the best technical rider at BCBR then dropped him on the last climb. 3rd

Post stage interview:
http://www.cyclingdirt.org/videos/coverage/view_video/237274-2010-bc-bike-race/344542-stage-2-cory-wallace-bc-bike-race

Day 3, Powell River- *$&#, dropped 1 km into stage, road around like a small boy in need of a nap for 1 hr, began pondering my future in biking, got smacked by a low lying branch, woke up, rode like Jesse James, caught Manuel Prado, watched him almost die on a stair decent, walked the stair decent, hammered to the finish. 4th

Day 4, Sechelt- &#%(#, dropped again in opening km's, lost a water bottle, crashed hard on decent, fight back tears as I see my race fading away, passed by Rocky boys (Widmer, Lazarski), catch up to Rocky, the 3 of us get lost, wander around trying to find the trail, find the trail, ride like panzies, Lazarski wonders why Widmer and I are riding like a couple of high school girls, get smacked by low lying branch, wake up, ripp for an hr to finish bad day, lost a pile of time in GC, 6th

Day 5, Sechelt- Legs back firing, no gettting dropped, open it up on 30 min climb, ripp down wicked decent like an illegal mexican immigrant, look around to see trails going everywhere, keep it togethar, didn't get lost, kept ripping, made up all the time I lost in Day 4. 3rd

Day 6, Squamish- Back in 3rd in gc, 3 min ahead of BCBR 2009 winner Colin Kerr. Days mission- stick to Colins wheel like a pile of fresh dog shit. Followed Colin for 1 hr with Kona teamates (Sneddon, Wicks) making sure I stuck around. Colin attacks on sketchy bermy decent. Kona boys drop back to not risk crashing out as they have a 30 min lead in the team gc. By the bottom of decent Colin and I catch up to the leaders Sager and Shepperd. Colin kamikazes next dh gapping us by 30 secs. Never see Colin again. chase hard, lose Shepperd and Sager, chase harder, ride dh's on edge of sanity, come in 2:40 min behind Colin at finish to keep a 40 second gc lead going into final day. 2nd

Day 7, Whistler- Deja Vu of Day 1, charge hard off the line, drop field, look up to see pink flagging tape everywhere. completely lost and wishing I could dissapear. play eany, meany, miny moe and pick the trail going straight up ski hill, rest of field reaches the pink flagging gongshow and chose the trail going back to the finish, riders yell at me to follow them, i follow them as it's 250 riders vs 1. we decend back to start line, realize it's a bad choice, pedal back up hill to the flagging gonshow and take the trail I iniatially took. burry myself on the 20 min climb to gap Kerr, Kona teamates escort me for first half of race to help keep the gap on Kerr who is charging hard, ride like Geronimo for the 2nd half of race, finish 50 sec behind Sager and Sheppard and 1 min ahead of Kerr to maintain 3rd on day and GC. Podium Spot!

Day 7.5 Whistler- Podium, banquet, $10 drinks??? what, party doesn't take off for some reason...$10 beers???what... Hike back to hotel at 11 with Sneddon to be well behaved bike racers and save our budgets for the rest of the season. 10$ beers....???party poop. Ciders will be self supplied and given away at Nationals to insure no Party poop.

Sunday- Cooldown ride with teamate Erik Tonkin who was the calming influence for the team all week showing his 10yrs of experience on the team. Roll back to Victoria with Mical and Regen. Thanks for the ride!

Recap-

KONA KICKS ASS!

1st Team Division- TEAM KONA (Barry Wicks, Kris Sneddon)

3rd Mixed Team- TEAM KONA (Wendy Simms, Norm Thibault)

3rd Solo Men- KONA (me)

6th Solo Men- KONA (Erik Tonkin*) * Erik cracked ribs on day 1 and road hurt all week and still hauled ass! TROOPER

Thanks Dusty for keeping all our bikes rolling brand spanking new all week long!

Thanks Maxxis for the Monorail tires which kept us upright and with 0 flats for the week.

Thanks NUUN and CLIF SHOTS for keeping us fueled.

Monday- Costco Trip for rations. Rest Day. Wave goodbye to Bro who's off to Alaska on 6 week tour with Coast Guard. See ya in August Bro!

Test of Metal

2010-06-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

The Test of Metal is probably the biggest single day non UCI cycling event in Canada. 67 km, 950 riders, fans lining the course, a crazy huge festival of a feed zone and some of North America's best riders on the start list such as Kabush, Pendrel, Plaxton, Sneddon, Lazarski, Widmer, Hadley and all the past "Test" winners. After the singing of "Oh Canada" it was off on a 15 min road climb to the first $100 prime before we entered the trails.

Near the top of the climb nobody was making a move so I came up the outside to make a sprint for the prime but my teamate Sneddon had the same thoughts and beat me to it. After that I took Kabush's wheel into the singletrack, blew up a little and dropped back into 6th to lead the chase group of Hadley and three Rocky Mtn Riders (Kerr, Calhoun, Day). Hadley dropped off to fix a derrailure, and soon after I dropped off to fix a leaking tire. Chasing hard through the feedzone I came through in 8th and slowly reeled in riders going up 9 mile climb.

Coming over the top in 5th, 1.5 min behind 2-4th places I was feeling good. I soon passed Widmer on the decent as he was fixing a flat and then fell off rythym for a bit through the sketchy plunge decent. The infamous Plunge is a cheeseball decent which makes even the best riders look like rookie pre school decenders as the only way down is to lean back and let your bike pinball off jagged rocks and roots. I went over the bars in the only spot there was 5 photographers in the same spot. I felt shame but was relieved everything on the bike was still in one piece.

Going through the feedzone for the 2nd time produced a unworldly sensation as my legs were cramping like a knotted fishing line yet I was still ripping. My body legs were out of control for the few minutes as we passed hundreds of yelling spectators. I was praying to god they would decide to keep moving as I knew I would fall over in a chaotic pile of knotted muscles if they didn't. Taking a feed from Kona dude Seth I managed to get out of the raging feedzone in one piece and back into the quiet singletrack through the Squamish mtns to rip the last 25 min to the finish line. With 4 km to go I was given news from a spectator that Lazarski who had 2 min on me had flatted and was trying to ride it in. I charged hard trying to close the gap but it was to no evail as I came through the finish line in 4th, only to see Lazarski just getting off his bike. 9 seconds from 3rd. Lazarski deserved the final medal as he had better legs on the day but I would've taken it.

After the race the party would start at the finish line and end at various houses party's across town. It is amazing to see how strongly this town backs biking and can make the Test of Metal one of the highlights of the yr and attract World Class riders like Geoff Kabush, Catherine Pendral and Max Plaxton. I understand why all 1000 spots sell out in 25 minutes each yr. Too show the local support the top Squamish riders are also given a huge andvil. Squamish dude, Kelly Servinski took top honors coming in 8th overall. A wicked result for a wicked dude. Kelly is also organizing "Team Canada" for the 24 hrs Worlds in Australia this October. Check out his blog http://www.squamishmonkeys.blogspot.com/

The day after the "Test" 6 of us went for a little Squamish recovery ride. Led by Kelly, and Neal Kindree we soon found ourselves wading through river's and in the misdt of a 5 hr epic with various all out sprints throughout. I'll take credit for igniting a few of the sprints but we were all to blame for the savage recovery day. All in all it was a rad day with some rippin fast dudes on some rippin wicked trails. Pretty perfect training for BC Bike Race this week.. Brian Bain had a 5 hr drive back to Salmon Arm after the ride and Simon Tremblay had a 6 hr journey back up to Campbell River. Poor dudes.

Resting in Victoria enjoying some summer time sun... Here We come BC BIKE RACE>>>>>

Rockies!!!

2010-06-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was a highlight on the race schedule as racing bud Simon and I got to return to the Rockies for a couple of races up at the Canmore Nordic Center. World cups, 24 hr Worlds, Canada Cups, Nationals, TransRockies, Alberta Cups, Canmore does it all.

After pre-riding what could be the best XC course in Canada on friday evening I drove into Calgary to visit my buddy and sponsor at Triway Racing, Luke Way to fit the new factory racing bikes. 3 hrs later I rolled away from Lukes bike fitting sanctuary with the 29'r and dualie dialed in to the max. Pretty stoked to test them out I headed back to Canmore for a solid sleep before the XC race on saturday.

XC Saturday:

With over 250 riders and 26 elites on the start line including Canada cup smashers Stefan Widmer (Rocky) and Matt Hadley (Xprezo) it was going to be fast. For some reason the pace was a little slack heading up the first climb. With the race only being 1.5 hrs long I was keen on making it hard so I sprinted off the front. Soon after Widmer over took me and rolled around the wickedly fun 6 km potential National's course to take a 2 min victory. Hadley and I rode togethar for 2nd till the final lap until I lost some steam, flatted, had a C02 malfunction, walked for 5 minutes to find a pump, hand pumped the wheel and then rolled in for 9th.

5hr Marathon Sunday:

Sunday's Marathon was too much fun to even talk about. A 12 km course full of Canmore goodness, blue sky, 230 riders, 1 bear, and a super dialed in organization (Cyclmesiters out of Calgary) and it was for sure a highlight of the racing season. After getting in some crap for launching an attack in the XC event I made sure to do the same here. Sure its just an Alberta Cup race but I figure any race before Nationals should be ridden at 100% effort as these are training tools for the big events to come. I can gurantee the start at Nationals or 24 hrs Worlds is going to be a sprint at 110% so a guy might as well get use to it beforehand so he can be ready when it really counts.

After getting a sizeable gap, Stefan Widmer rode up to me but soon flatted and I was on my own finishing the first lap in 35 minutes. One lady wanted to disqualify me as she figured I cheated and cut the course. Thanks for the compliment. The rest of the race was textbook, legs were operating at full steam, the Hei Hei Supreme soaked up the technical course and the lap times stayed pretty consistent> 35 min, 38 min, 40 min, 41 min, 40 min, 39 min.

In the end I had a sizeable gap over the next solo and managed to beat the top team by a couple minutes. Now if the legs can keep that going for another 19 hrs then we may be in business at 24 hr Worlds this fall.

Off to the coast for a bit of downtime before the real first test of the season comes this weekend at the 67 km Test of Metal in Squamish. With Canada's two best riders on the start line, Geoff Kabush (Rocky Mountain-Maxxis) and Max Plaxton (Sho-Air Specialized) it is going to be the real deal.

Roadie Weekend

2010-05-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

Foul weather. Good Racing.

Weekend Report can be found at:

http://cog.konaworld.com/archives/3873

Todays To Do List.

Power Nap.
Consume copius amounts of food.
Ride 2hrs at 0% effort.
Nutrition course.
Power Nap 2.
Chicago, Philly Game 2.
10hr Sleep.

Mini Golf, BC Cup, Tofino.

2010-05-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

May long weekend 2010 was top notch. Right up there with the best of them. The first annual May long "Try Not Too Break The Club Over Your Head Mini Golf Championships" took palce Saturday afternoon in DT Nanaimo. I choked like a young boy trying to swallow a Dodger stadium foot long dogger and was out of contention after hole 2. Dad was next up after launching his ball onto the freeway. Simon followed suit with his angry frenchman antics. Dustin kept it togethar until letting his hockey past get in the way and slap shotting a ball out of play and down near the go kart track. Lilla schooled us boys bye demonstrating that mini golf is suppose to be a finesse game, not a testosterone driven power clash.

Final Results (Front 9 + Back 9: Total)

Champ (aka Lilla Roy)- 29+26: 55

Dad (aka Brian Wallace)- 26+33: 59

Brother (aka Dustin Wallace)- 36+29: 65

Angry Frenchmen (aka Simon Tremblay)- 29+36: 65

DFL (aka Me)- 33+34: 67

Camping saturday night the rain came down and the tarp went up. Pre-race meal, campfire stories and bed.

Gameday

A little rattled after finishing DFL (Dead F@!$* Last) in the Mini Golf Championships I was out for redemption in the BC Cup on Sunday.

Ripping out of the gates on the new horse (Kona Hei Hei Supreme) I quickly gapped the field going into the opening climb and everything pointed to a great race ahead. 2 minutes later it turned into a Tabernacker race as I mis timed a shift and destroyed my new XTR front derrailure and chain at the same time. With the race rocket upside down for TLC, the other racers stormed by as I used my butterfingers to set a new record for fixing a chain. I did a Taiwanese job of it though as it broke again 3 seconds later. Fixing it properly this time like a Nerdy Japanese automobile technician I was soon saddling back up to start the chase back up the the leaders. Coming around the first lap a little under 5 min down gave me a glimmer of hope as I new it was going to be a longer 2hr+ race.

With 4 laps to go on a demanding course and loving the new race machine I set the cruise control on high and slowly reeled in the leaders. Each lap had a 13 min climb followed by a wicked 6 min dh that the downhillers raced on the day before and then a short 5 min flat singletrack section through the woods. It seemed I was gaining about 1 min-1.5min a lap on the climb, a little bit on the decent and then losing a few seconds on the flat section which my middle chainring couldn’t keep up too. In the end the new rocket machine and I came in 2 min ahead of Greg Day (Rocky Mountain) to take the first legit W of the season.

It was a nice victory having family and friends on hand and I wasn't too sure how the legs were going to work after a week of treeplanting. I will also admit I was pretty lucky to have my double refixed chain hold togethar for the rest of the race as I had used a broken chain link to fix it.

In the past my Bro and Dad have come to such episodes as, Seat Falling off BC Cup, Double Flatter Nationals, 70 ft'r Ass slide Canada Games and Pukey Puke 24 hrs of Adrenaline. Needless to say I didn’t want to add to that list.

After the race I was convinced on a fast forward trip to Tofino for a day of surfing on holiday monday. Rainy, windy, wet and another new addiction is formed. Santa if you are listening I would like to wish for a new surfboard, wet suit, hoody, gloves and booties for Christmas. PS I am not sure where I will be but I will shoot off fireworks so you can find me and I will have lots of cookies and milk.

]

Next up is the BC Road Champs this weekend in Beautiful Victoria BC. Things will start off with a 4 km Hill Climb Friday night with Tour de France rider, Ryder Hesjedal on the start list. On Saturday we will race 140 km up the wild west coast to Port Renfrew and back. Sunday will close the weekend out with the historic 75 lap Bastion Square criterium in the heart of Downtown. The legs are screaming to be let loose.

May Long

2010-05-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

Blink. kaboom, 1 week bike tour, 1 decent bc cup race, 1 week planting in the Rockies, 2 new factory race bikes.

Intermission.

Here we come Nanaimo for BC Cup race #2. Long weekends are always gongshows. May for sure. Tonight is a Wallace boy's night out as the Bro, Dad and I are headed out to the stix for bonfires and bull shit. Tommorow its racer campout on the ocean then game day on Sunday. Monday? we'll see whats left over in the tank.

Here we go.....

Tabernacker

2010-04-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

There's great races, good races, alright races and then there's the Tabernacker races. Last Sundays island cup xc in Parksville was a Tabernacker. The race started good with Team Yukon (Daniel Sessford) and I taking a solid lead off the front. That was where the goodness ended.

Fifteen minutes into the race Team Yukon took a muddy corner in overdrive. I figured he was going to eat it hardcore but apparantly the laws of physics don't always apply. Seeing Yukon make the corner I figured what he could do I could do as well. Not happening. Logics took over and the wheels slid out and I torpedode 30 km/hr into a stand of dead willows. Stunned, bloodied and stuck I peeled myself and my tangled bike out of the mess just in time for 3rd and 4th place riders Sullivan Reed (Team Prince George) and Carter Hovey to catch up. Carter was soon dropped as Sullivan and I gaver hard to catch Team Yukon on the long fired road climb.

In the pre-race briefing the organizer had informed us the local loony toon characters had changed some of the course markings. Apparantly we were to follow some arrows but not the others. Having not pre-ridden the course neither Sullivan and I were to sure which arrows were fake and which were real.

We found out in a hurry as the fireroad we were on deadended in the middle of a cutblock. Already 4 minutes off course in a 1 hr race I was content on calling it a day and rode into the cutblock to find a place to curl up and sleep. Sullivan wasn't too ammused and insisted we try to get back on course. I felt bad as Sullivan had drove 10 hrs from PG for the race so I saddled up and we headed back down the fireroad. We ran into 25 or so other lost racers. We turned them around and eventually got back on course to ride humbly to the finish.

All in all it was a text book Tabernacker race. I was impressed with the effort Daffy duck and Twitty bird put into getting us lost as they hadn't just changed arrows to get us off course but they had put up more arrows once we were lost to insure we got royally screwed. Grade A effort boys. Off to work...Pedi Cabing.....

Springtime on the Island

2010-04-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

Victoria is an unreal place to train in the springtime. The last few weeks have been full of local races, exploring new roads and trails and finding out just why this place is Canada's cycling capital. Former Canada Cup racer, Carter Hovey, showed me a whole new side of Victoria when he took me up on the highland xc trails. I've ridden my xc bike over 100 times in Victoria, always at the Hartland Dump trail network. What Hovey showed me boggled my mind. There are months of exploration ahead, apparantly the "Dump" only makes up about 10% of the trails around Victoria. Super stoked to get out there to get lost in the future.

The races have been solid. The Island Cup XC series out here is probably the funnest race series in Canada. 80% singletrack courses, solid rider turn out, BBQ's, super laid back racer attitudes and $20 entry fees bring us all back to why we started biking in the first place. Last week in Cumberland was no exception. The race was fast from the start with Stefan Widmer (Rocky Mountain) and I gapping the field early. I had a good legs and could set the tempo up the climbs but Stefan is an unreal bike rider and would constantly gap me on the singletrack. In the end the best rider won on the day, not by much as I came in 40 seconds behind. Good times for sure.

The local VCL (Victoria Cycling League) is a solid series as well with weekly wednesday night road races on 2-3 km road loops out in the countryside. I had a 2 race winning streak going into the race last night but was outduelled by Nic Hamilton and Marcel Arden, both riders coming off strong rides at the Walla Walla in the States including Hamilton's victory. With a strong field I decided to set the tempo by attacking at the gun. Didn't work out. Ended up 5th which was solid considering I'm training for Marathon races and rode 6 hrs before the race. This weekend is another Island Cup race upisland in Parksville.

The other night we had a small dinner party in Victoria with homemade Veggie burgers and Chocolate Moose. Below is the Chocolate Moose recipe, courtesy of Canadian Ski Mountaineering Champion and fellow Jasperite Reiner Thoni.

Good for You Chocolate Moose

4 ripe avocados
1 cup coconut milk or almond/rice milk
1 cup cocoa powder
add sweetener to taste of your choice. Agave nectar or real maple syrup makes it smooth and healthy. Bannas or dates are also great but not as smooth. Stevia is another all natural, no calorie sweetner option as well .
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla seeds

Method

-Put all the ingredients into a food processor, or a blender, and blend until smooth.
-If it is not sweet enough add more sweetener and if consistency needs adjustment add more avocados to make it thicker and water or milk to make it thinner.
-Next, place in a bowl and put in the fridge for 1 hour. Keep in mind when mixing ingredients that it will firm up in the fridge.
-Serve with fresh fruit to enjoy this guilt free treat!

Loaded with healthy fats, antioxidants and electrolytes it not only tastes good but it feels good to eat!

Nice Work Reiner!

Juan De Fuca

2010-04-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

Being out in Victoria has ignited a fire which has made it tough to stay off the bike. Endless roads, rockin trails, decent weather and a lack of sketchy central american dogs to chase me while I ride has made it quite enjoyable. Too much riding in April can be a problem in August though, so last week I made a point of staying away from the bike and set out to trek the 47km Juan de Fuca trail with my friend Lilla.

The trail is known as the little cousin to the West Coast Trail and the entire length of it within view of the ocean. With rocky cliffs, suspension bridges, waterfalls dumping into the ocean and waves crashing into the rough West Coast the views were pretty unreal.

The first two days were spent hiking up and down big creek gullies, we figured we made about 100 m horizontal movement for each 1 km hiked. At one point I thought I heard howler monkeys, Lilla being from the East coast pointed out they were probably sea lions. Hmmm, would've never known.... Next we thought we were seeing hoards of 100's of seals, but they turned out to be giant kelp and logs. Weird. Tides were another problem. With parts of the hike on the beach it would've been wise to check out the tide tables. Nothing 1 hr of waiting and trying to time the waves can't fix. I got pretty wet, Lilla showed better finesse and made it across dry and lady like.

The third day we woke up to rains, hiked for 4 hrs, then it started to rain sideways as gail force winds moved in and started knocking branches and tops of trees down. Hiking the next 4 hrs in the storm, on icy wet board walks and ankle deep mud with the tree's tossing crap at us was an adventure. Reaching my pickup at 6pm in 100% saturated clothes but our heads still in tact was a relief.

Rrrrrrrrr..a.rgggrgrag.. Was my pickup trying to start. F&%#@ piece of s#*$&# was my response. A couple home mechanics were in the parking lot and they helped us in the pooring rain for over an hr. No Luck. Still in wet clothes and ice cold I renamed my truck B-POC (Black Piece of Crap) and then we hitched into Port Renfrew to call the tow man. We were dropped off at the local pub, our friends drove away, we walked up in the pooring rain, saw the closed sign, swore again and then looked around for another hideout. No luck. Power was out all over town and there was nothing else in the town. Too our luck a guy came out of a back room in the pub where he was watching the new star trek movie. He felt sorry for us, let us inside, made us tea, gave us a phone too use and then let us hang out till the tow truck arrived.

2.5 hrs later the tow truck showed up and we started towing B-POC 120 km back to Victoria on the sketchy Coastal highway which was now littered with trees and branches. Half way back we went by the trailhead we had started the hike at. 3 days earlier I had stashed my bike in the bush as I had used it to get to the start of the hike after dropping B-POC off at the other end of the trail. I convinced the tow truck driver to stop for 10 minutes so I could hike down the trail to retrieve the bike.

Running down the trail, in the storm, in the middle of the night, with a small headlamp was a gongshow. After running around in the woods for 30 minutes resembling a chicken with his head cut off I waved the white flag on the mission and headed back to the tow truck to humbly continue our journey home. At 12:30 am we finally reached Victoria to conclude the 17hr hiking day, minus a bike, a working truck, and anything of any sort still dry.

The next morning my brother Dustin, Lilla and I spent the day ripping B-POC apart. Luckily Dustin is a top notch home mecahnic and he figured out the problem and pointed Lilla and I to do the labour. 6 new spark plugs and spark plug wires later and B-POC was back to life. Apparantly spark plugs should be replaced every 3 yrs or so. Mine were 9 yrs old.... Prevenative maintenance has always been on the dusty pages of my dictionary. It is now on the front cover, highlighted in bold letters and in three different languages!

A few days ago I went back and found my bike. Much easier in the day light. In the end I'm not sure if the hike fit properly into the term "rest week" but it was a solid enough adventure to help ease a guy's mind who is going through post Central America travel syndrome.

This weekend its up Island to rip some trails in Campbell River and try my luck at the Island Cup XC race in Cumberland on Sunday.

New Sponsor- TRIWAY

2010-03-25T12:46:00.001-07:00

Proper bike fit is one of the single most important things for a competitive biker. When every pedal stroke counts its nice to know you and your bike are operating at 100% efficiency.

The past two yrs I have been lucky enough to have had Luke Way fitting my bikes for me. Luke is a fellow Jasperite who now lives in Calgary and operates TriWay bike fitting. His setup is second to none with lazers, live video feeds, wattage meters etc. When I leave his place I know my bike and I our working at optimum efficieny and I have one less thing to worry about for the yr. Thanks Luke!

Check out his site at http://www.triway.ca/

After last weekends sub-par results my perfectly fitting road bike and I took on the local race scene in Victoria on Sunday. I was a little nervous going into the Newton Heights hilly criterium as the course is just over 3 minutes long and half of that is a steep climb. Doing 15 laps of the course is the equivalent of doing 15 x 1.5 min max intervals with 1.5 min "rest" between.

Not too keen on doing an interval session I attacked on the first lap and set a high tempo for the race. Too my suprise nobody followed and after 13 laps I lapped the field and took the first victory of 2010! A low key local race is nothing to get to excited about but its definatly a confidence booster to know that the winter training has been effective thusfar.

Race Weekend

2010-03-25T11:55:00.001-07:00

Cracckkk!! That was my shin hitting a cut off log
on a fast decent during the first XC race of the yr in Port Alberni last weekend. 3 seconds later I picked myself up off the ground and looked down to see a ostrich ready to hatch out of my leg and blood flowing freely. The pain was at the level of whole leg numbness which is scary as I wasn't sure if things were broken down there or not. Luckily things were alright although there was a good limp for the next couple days. First and hopefully last DNF of the yr.

The day before was a 120 km road race in Vancouver. The legs felt good but I'm pretty sure guys were peaking for this pre season training race. My goal going in was to empty the tank. Managed to do that in the first 10 laps through various poorly time attacks and chasing down breaks. Forgot to eat, cracked and then spent the last 2 laps hanging on for the bunch sprint. My elephant sprint came out and I finished 28th out of 35 or so. Pretty stoked to cream 7 pack filler roadies.

After the race weekend I headed up to Campbell River to ride with racer bud Simon Tremblay. Simon had the week off from fixing helicopters so we spent 3 solid days ripping up some great singletrack in the area. Cumberland, Forbidden Plateau, Campbell trails... Definatly some of the best kept riding secrets in BC. Riding road bikes is cool if your going some place but theres really nothing like ripping through the woods on some tight singletrack.

Last night the 3 week road trip came to a hault as I pulled into my bros place in Victoria. Pretty stoked to dump my travel bags upside down and start to set up base camp.

Hell ya Canada!

2010-03-09T18:26:00.000-08:00

Canada is unreal. Getting back in time to catch the final weekend of the Olympics in Vancouver was even more unreal. The amount of Canadian pride shown and the party in downtown after the gold medal hockey game was out of control. There are good parties everywhere but this one was in its own league. It made Carnival in Panama look like a small town high school party. Good Work Canada! 14 Golds is going to be tough to match.

With the Olympics over it was off to the mtns to visit the folks. Theres nothing like home cooking or sleeping in a room filled with fresh Canadian air. Central America is awesome, and I hope to continue to use it for my winter training grounds in the years to come but everytime I return to Canada I am overwhelmed just how huge and amazing this place is.

Last Sunday my mind was hurting as it tried to grasp the beauty of skiing 55km around the Tonquin Valley loop of Jasper with Jasper Ski gurus Dave Mcdowell, Tony Jones and friend Lilla from Nova Scotia. Skiing below 10 000 ft snow clad peaks, touring over a high mtns pass and ripping 25 km down a river through tight singletrack ski trails has left my my mind spinning after the previous 4 months in the jungles. A few days later we skied up a local river canyon, broke a ski, fell in the river and howled with wolves 200 ft away. Unreal.

The weather is another story. It has been nice up here but a few days ago I hopped on the bike for the first time in 10 days to start up the training again and had a bashful time to say the least. With 2 inches of fresh snow on the ground, just enough to cover the glazed ice trails it turned into a bruising day. I crashed more times in the 3 hr ride then I have in the past 4 yrs combined. Two of them were gooders. Crashing on an old injury riddled shoulder from hockey wasn't ideal. The one that hurt less physically but more mentally was standing going up a hill, having the bike slide out from under me and falling backwards on my head. It felt like getting laid out in center ice by a 220 lb d man after a suicide pass. When I finally made it back home I was feeling like Ovechkin must have after our Candian Junior team rag dolled him in the 2005 World Juniors.

The last week was highlighted with a road trip through Western Canada's major cities with Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver on the list. Had a great 150 km ride through the foothills of Calgary with Ultra endurance crazy Dallas Morris last Sunday. Last time we rode togethar it was 2am in the morning and Dallas was shouting at me to cowboy up as I was curled over my bike trying to lay an egg during the 24 hrs of Adrenaline Worlds.

Back in Vancouver now, living out of the truck for a few more days. Things are starting to smell a little funny in there. Usually the first sign its time to set up camp somehwere and get things back in line. With my bro out in Victoria with an empty bedroom available I may have a solid home for a while.

Goodbye Costa Rica-Panama, Hello Vancouver.

2010-02-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

Kaboom! 3.5 months in Central A. and base training is done for oh 10.! Capped it off with a splendid 5 day voyage back to San Jose from Panama.

Day 1 was a 3 hr hike a bike, 2 hr ride through the mtns. Met 12 Germans coming down the trail and was told I was out of luck as it was impossible to go up there with a bike. Hahahah. Funny people.

Day 2 got baked for 9 hrs in the sun. 4 crappy flats, 1 crash = broken off front derailleur and eventually a 35 km hitch with a bunch of grungy watermelon workers in there wagon to the un touristic town of Palma Norte.

Day 3 nice 3hr cruise along the ocean to gringo surf vill of Dominical. Spent the afternoon cross training (aka battling riptides and cruising around with a couple of Swedes.

Day 4 another nice cruise to Costa Rice tourist central of Manuel Antonio. Drafted a semi for 35 min. Pretty stoked. Monkeys, iguanas and swimming in the hostel.

Day 5 was a top notch 10 hr ride through the mtns back to SJ. Asked for directions to San Jose and was told ¨Nope, too far to bike¨. Alright, but which way is it. ¨Nope can't be done on a bike in one day.¨ Alright I get the point. Asked 3 more people for directions (3 is the magic number as everybody will till you a different way). Once I had the 3 different directions and distances I took the average and headed out. First 3 hrs got sun baked royally. Next 3 hrs the road went up. Final 4 hrs were spent between being curled up in a ditch, riding backwards 4 km to pick up a lost glove, eating 2000 calorie sugar load followed by 2 hrs of ripping to my buddy Ronald´s town of Santa Ana. One last 20 min hill effort up to Paolo Montoyas house to watch him pack for his trip to Italia to race world cups for the summer then down to Ronalds house for a sleep.

Today I woke up broken and satisfied as the body is done for a few days.

Tommorow it is off to Vancouver.

Thank you Ronald, Paulo, the Tedman Family, the Wynn´s, and everyone else for helping make this voyage a memorable one!

Endless Summer

2010-02-16T06:03:00.000-08:00

The endless summer continues...

Training for the past two weeks has included a 3 day race in Panama, a week riding single track and Volcanos in the mtn town of Boquete, four 5 to 10 hr travel days on the bike and a week up in the mtns hiking and building outhouses with my Peace Corp friend Kat.

The 1st ever "Epic" Panama Off Road xc SR was too much for me to pass on given the $60 entry fee and the word Epic in the name. Racing in a first yr event in a 3rd world country is usually the recipe for a top notch gongshow. Day 1 started with nothing less as the 100 riders took off on a dusty gravel road with the lead out quad hitting the ditch. We thought it was pretty funny but soon the quad was trying to catch back up to the start of the race and blew by us stirring a huge dust storm and knocking the rider in front of me into the ditch. After that the pack of riders were biking in a dust storm worthy of Africa with about 1ft visibility. The road was littered with large boulders and the question was not if you were going to hit one but when. The rider beside me was taken out by a basketball sized boulder while I bounced of a bigger one but managed to stay unscathed and started working my way up the leaders.

About 25 km into the 55 km stage I could see the 5 leaders about 20 seconds ahead as they squeezed by a herd of cattle. When I reached the herd, the road had narrowed with steep walls on each side with no room to pass. Pretty soon 4 other riders caught up and we were all blockaded by the fat asses of the cows. We tried to squeeze by but to no avail and pretty soon 2 or 3 minutes had passed. The cowboy controlling the herd thought it was funny but I don't think he understood there was $5000 on the line in the race. In an effort to make a hole in the herd a Panamanian rider picked up a 12 ft stick and started using it as a ramming pole. Soon another rider and myself followed suit and started jabbing and smacking our way through the heard. Our cowboy friend didn't like this but it helped ignite his desire to get his cows out of the way. Soon after with his help we got through the cows and started to chase down the leaders.

45 minutes of chasing later with a couple Ticos in pull I made it back up to the lead 3 riders for a great 6 man sprint down the Pan Am highway weaving through vehicles and drafting off the faster ones in a typical Latin America gong show style finish. I sprint like an elephant and finished 6th out of 6 riders with Panama's hero Mohammed taking the victory and 5 time La Ruta winner, Lico Ramirez taking 2nd.

The next two days we raced through coffee fincas, up cow trails and down sketchy descents through 2 ft deep grass. It was a cool race but whoever translated the word Epic for these guys was drinking cheap rum as 1.5 hr racing days is a criterium sprint race not an endurance mtb race. In the end local rider Mohammed would end up Victor, Lico 2nd, Licos teammate Aleman Sanchez 3rd and myself 5th. My legs were on fire for the race and a 3 way battle for the win looked to be in the cards for the weekend but luck was not on my side (broken chains, flats, getting lost due to not understanding the spanish course directions ) Having the legs to attack the top riders in Panama and Costa Rica was a great confidence booster and one day these boys will be eating Canadian dust.

After the race I was welcomed to the home of American´s Craig Wynn and his wife Dana in Volcan to recover for a few days and eat giant un-organic salads from nearby Cerro Punta where 80% of Panama's veggies are grown. 2 days later and recovered again it was back on the bike for 2 days of riding-hiking through single track, gravel roads and the Pan Am highway eastwards to the Indian hamlet of Cerro Iglesia to visit my friend Kat and take a much needed rest week off the bike.

Nearing the end of her 2 yr Peace Corp commitment Kat took the initiative to start a project to build outhouses for 20 Ngobe (Indian) families in her district. The Ngobe's are Panamas largest Indian tribe and they live across the mtns in the west-central part of Panama. These amazing people live a simple life in small bamboo huts mostly living off what ever the land can supply. In some cases there are over 12 family member's sleeping in the same one room 15 ft by 12 ft home. Too me it was pretty amazing that this even still existed in such a developed country as Panama.

The outhouse project we were working on is an effort to prevent illness's and sanitary problems that come with the current outhouse of choice for many of these families which is the closest river or creek. This causes a shitty problem for the habitants downstream. By digging 3 to 4 meter deep outhouses holes and constructing a transportable cement foundation it allows the families a place to take care of there business for 4 to 5 yrs. Once the first whole fills they then have the ability to dig another hole and transport there outhouse over it. The US Peace Corps does an amazing job down here in Latin America and this is just one example of the numerous sustainable projects they work on.

While working on the outhouse project the daily commute was a .5 to 2 hr hike on winding Indian trails through the mtns. The hikes could have been quicker but the Indians love there Peace Corp volunteers and walking with Kat through the small villages was like being in Hollywood with everyone and there dogs wanting a moment with her. Once we reached the construction sight it would take around 3 hrs to do our work, thanks in large part to the 5-15 Indian helpers we would have each day. After work was completed the families would generally serve up a plate of homegrown rice and beans then it would be off to the next project with usually a few sling shot shooting Indian kids in tow. Watching these kids work there sling shots I soon understood why the bird life was rather scarce in the area. 6 days and 8 outhouses later I was back on the bike and Kat was off on her next project in Panama city. Having a chance to work with my friend brought me into an unbelievable world that seems almost impossible when you look at the pictures of sky rises from Panama City just 25o km away!

In the future more outhouses will need to be built in this area as already Kat is being asked by the neighbouring families when they can get in on the next outhouse project. With Kat finishing her term in 4 months she will not have a chance to build anymore. She is the 3rd Peace Corp volunteer to live in the area and the last for a while as Peace Corps doesn't want the people to become dependant on the volunteers.

As a result, outside help will be needed to construct these outhouses. Kat and I have had a few discussions on a privateer project to build another 20 to 30 of them. If any of you are interested in this idea feel free to contact me as I will be looking for ideas to raise money to make this happen. With a building cost of approx $70 per outhouse this is a pretty cheap initiative given the huge positive and lasting influence they will have in improving the quality of life down here.

Today everything in Panama is in slow motion as the country trys to recover from the previous 4 days of Carnival. Panamanians know how to party hard, toss in 50 cent beers and a 3rd world attitude of making the best of whatever good is around and you have the recipe for one hell of a mammoth event!

Kona Factory Team

2010-02-05T04:03:00.000-08:00

In 2010 I will be riding with the Kona Factory Team.
This is a dream come true!

In my hometown of Jasper, Kona's have been the bike of choice for ripping up the best trails in the world for over 15 yrs. I began riding Kona's when I was 11 yrs old and have never been more excited to ride them than now!

We are currently working on a 2010 Schedule with Marathons being the main focus.

Stay Tuned for more.

Rolling out....

Riding Along

2010-01-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

Following the jungle experience in which the system emergency lights went on I started a retreat back towards Santa Ana to recover at my apartment. The last of my fumes were used to ride 140 km over the 3300 m¨Cerro de Muerte¨ (mountain of death) from San Isidro to San Jose, a repeat of the last stage of the Vuelta. I´m not sure what was harder, riding it in 4 hrs at race pace with a pack of riders during a sunny day or by myself at my own pace (6hrs) carrying a pack through a rain storm. Either way I rolled into SJ pretty ragged and worked over thoroughly. Once in SJ I pit stopped at small cafe for a green tea and saw two other bike tourers who asked ¨How´s the ride over from San Isidro?¨ I looked at there sketchy 40 lb hybrid bikes with probably 80 lbs of luggage on them each, with a pink bell on the girls bike and shuttered. ¨It´s beautiful, nice mountains.¨ I left it at that and headed out. I figure they will have a grand adventure lugging there bikes over the mountains. Definatly a better day then passing through on a overcrowded bus.

Back in Santa Ana things have been peaceful. Lots of resting, a little bit of studying, plenty of spanish lessons and of course some riding. Its great to be able to go out for a bike ride knowing you have a shower, comfy bed and fridge full of fresh healthy food to return to. Yesterday the body was starting to feel normal again so it was off too Volcano Irazu. 80 km later I stood on top of the 3432 Volcano long enough to get a good feel of Canadian coldness. Once my hands started to numb I felt like I had my little piece of Canadian winter and happily retreated down the Volcano to greener pastures. 1 pack of Strawberries, 2 cocount waters and 2 hrs of pedaling later it was back to Santa Ana for a Salad feast with my friend Ronald and ¨Jungle House¨ adventure buddy Dan.

Road riding in Costa Rica is great. There are roads going everywhere with each one offering its own unique adventure. With the steep terrain, uncovered manholes, uncontroled dogs and some of worlds more crazier drivers there is never a dull moment. I have been lucky to have my buddy Ronald show me around as it would take yrs to find all the great rides down here. The biggest problem is the heat which makes sure most riders get out on the roads before 6 to insure they dont dry up before the ride is over.

Other than riding, CR is a pretty cool place to travel. I have found there are two main typs of travellers down here. Familys or couples on 2 week vacations staying in luxury hotels and the expats, generally single middle age men down here for the girls, beer and trying to do as little as possible. There are some backpackers as well but generally they like to stick to the cheaper surrounding countries such as Panama and Nicaragua. This is a bit of an illusion put on by amount of tourism down here. If you stay in the hot spots its will cost alot of money but at the same time if you have the will to adventure off the tourist trail then you will find the real Costa Rica and normal prices. As far as I can tell Costa Rica has the best structured tourism scene of any country down here and there are enough cheap crazy adventures to keep anybody busy for months. In Central America, probably only Guatemala can match Costa Rica in the # of wild outdoor adventures available. One day Honduras could join these 2 as well but at the moment there is very little tourist infrastructure and the crime is pretty out of control. For now I will stick to Costa for a bit longer as theres a few more Volcanos and a few more jungles to roam around.

Mountains & Jungles

2010-01-13T18:23:00.000-08:00

After the downtime in Jaco the initial plan of returning to Canada was overidden by a mtn called Chirripo and a Jungle called Osa.

Mount Chirripo being the highest pt in the country has been on my radar since my first trip down here. I figured it would make a great start to 2010 so I headed off down the road. Like all roads in the country it soon went up and pretty soon the pavement was gone. Riding up steep costa rican gravel roads on a road bike is not the smartest idea but it is still faster then buses. In fact I have been a busy beaver and did the math on buses vs bikes in costa rica. I was always a better sport kid then school kid but I´m pretty sure bikes are faster than buses every time except on long distance trips on the interamerican highway. On a road bike you can avg approx 25-30 km an hr over 6 hrs. Buses avg around 45 km an hr on the good paved highways and anywhere else it goes down. Calculate the time waiting for buses, connecting to other buses, catching taxis to and from bus stops and a bike is faster everytime. When the roads are unpaved hiking is probably faster then the buses as well. To get to the Chirripo trail head, 21 km from the city of San Isidro it takes the bus 2 hrs and a road bike 1.5.... Point proven.

Once hiking, the trail went up 1800 m over 14 km through jungle to a mountain top hostal at 3300 m. With a typical Costa Rican bike toureres packsack with only beach clothes in it I soon made like Frosty the snowman for the remainder of the adventure. I had purchased a $2 jacket in San Isidro for the acent but I probably should of gone with the $4 model. At the hostal the French came up with a the idea that everybody should get up at 2 30 am to hike the last 6 km to the summit to catch sunrise. I was keen on sleeping in but I was outnumbered and overinlfuenced. We all made the summit at 5am for sunrise. It was colder than Canada up top and we could see 6 ft in front of us. The dutch were mad at the French and they took off down the mountain. The French looked upset and they also took off. The Americans and I pulled out our sleeping bags and used them as rain jackets to stay up top stay a bit longer in hopes of a clearing. It cleared to 8 ft vision so we took bad photos and headed out. On the way down we passed the Swedes who were making like a bunch of sleepy turtles. By the time they hit the top it was a blue sky day and they came back with photos of both the oceans off the summit. I never believed the story of the turtle and the hair but I am starting to see some similarities to it.

After the mtn trek I met up with Dan Clark (American friend who helped us at the Vuelta) and away we went off towards the Jungles of the Osa Peninsula. Dan on his motorbike and myself on the roadie. We rolled into the rustic town of Puerto Jimenez 2 days and 180 km later to stage a 55 km 2 day hike through Corcovado National Park, what National Geographic calls the most Biologically Dense place on earth. Not sure what that means and we never found out as the Chinese guy with the gong began making a racket. Regulations, reservations, sketchy information etc.. etc. etc...

Instead of hiking through the National Park we ended up travelling to an old farm house 15 km up in middle of the jungle with 7 argentinian girls, a german couple and a swede. Not too sure how we ended up there but there were no complaints. We were all pretty stunned to be at such a ragged, remote place but with hiking trails and waterfalls surrounding us the place proved to be pretty cool. Sleeping in a house with 7 beds for 12 people proved another problem.

Dan had the quote of the trip "Danm, I have spent over half my life in bush camps in Alaska but that lil 90 lb Argentinian snores as loud as any of the lumberjacks up there."

In the morning the howler monkeys came through at 5am. Dan eventually hit his time budget and headed back to his house in San Jose. The few of us left at the house spent the day exploring through the jungle. 5 of the girls got scared and returned to the house while 3 of us wandered around looking for jaguar cubs. We didnt find any. There were monkeys, parrots, snakes and numerous other unidentifiable insects and birds. Next time I figure a guide would be well worth it for a quick lesson on the goods and bads of the jungle as it is a wild place.

After the episode of "jungle house" I made another effort to reach the depths of Corcovado National Park on a garage sale worthy mtb bike I rented off a local. After 4 hrs of riding through rivers and across the jungle that plan was finally foiled as the bike and I both malfunctioned around the same time. With the diesal tank low from the previous days efforts I opted to let Corcovado win this round of the battle but I will be back for round 2 as what I saw of the place is spectacular.

Baked Potato

2010-01-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

The last day of the Vuelta was a blur for me as I was out of Hempseeds and running on smoke as I barely managed to hang with the main pack for the day over the Mountain of Death to the finish line in downtown San Jose. In the end I finished 30th out of 90 starters in the 12 day race. It was the fastest race I ever did. Only the 24hrs of adrenaline compared in how much my body was messed up afterwards. Casper (aka Cody Canning) made a showing into the main pack around 30 minutes into the final day. For an untrained shaggy pipeliner the white ghost came around strong near the end of the race.

Stage 13 was pretty tame as 12 days of racing hit most the riders pretty hard although the Colombians were still given'r. We joined them in there room for a bit, I sat beside two large boxes of syringes and unlabled vitamins. Probably just vitamin C and aspirin .... On another note the UCI quit doping tests after stage 6, right before the 6 toughest days of the race.

The Tour was definitely an experience I will remember for a long time. Racing in a foreign country is always a great time Although I have learned many times that you must roll with the punches as your always in a uncontrolble environment with gongshows galore. Big thanks to Marc Dufour (Team Manager) and Jean Michael Lachance (Rider / organizer) for making this trip happen!

After any big stage race there is one more day after In which the body functions and then it becomes as useful as a baked potato for the next week as the stress of the race takes its toll and the body trys to recover. With New Years last night, the recovery took a few steps backwards. It was a top 3 New Years ever. We joined hundred of travelers from around the world out on the Beaches of Jaco. With a full moon, waves crashing, a bonfire, fireworks shooting in every direction and the party going till sunrise it was a night for the books. Today was a write off. Tomorrow we will hit the bikes again for a light spin before I start contemplating a trip northwards to the mother land for some much needed recovery and some work to refuel the bank account.

One more round

2009-12-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

Ouch, the stage 10 climb hurt. Ouch again as the 30 km time trial today hurt even more. I experienced a bad case of deja vu as the time trial we did took place on the same 30 km piece of highway in which I got monkey sick in 2007 while bike touring. That day was probably my biggest gongshow day ever on a bike as my engine fell apart after weeks of copoius amounts of biking and I was swerving all over the road and puking in the ditches. It took me over 3 hrs to ride the small piece of highway. When I finally made it to the town of San Isidro I went to Mcdonalds, bought a smartie Mcflurry then passed out on a table for a couple hours and soon after hopped a bus to San Jose where I spent the next week curled up in a hammock. Today was different. The ride took just over 40 minutes although it was full of flashbacks and the guys with time trial bars and aero helmets definatly made us mtb look a little slow. At the finish line I cruised by Mcdonalds to a proper food joint and started refueling for the ride back to San Jose tommorow.

Stage 12 is the final day of the Vuelta. The Queen stage they call it as they saved the best for last as we will acend from 700m up to 3300 in just over 40 km. Over the climb we will have a 100km, 2300m vertical decent into San Jose where the beers and the flor de cana rum will wait for stage 13.

9 down, 3 to go.

2009-12-25T18:00:00.000-08:00

The Vuelta is getting weird as all us riders are starting to act hungover 24/7. The dutch are starting to understand the guatemalans, the english canadians are starting to understand the french part of the team and the Russians are still hanging around the hotel surfing around on facebook all day. Not too sure why the Russians arn´t down on the beaches with the bikinis but I havn´t understood many of there decisions since they arrived.

After two crazy climbing days and an uphill time trial we were given a day of rest on the 24th to send out belated wish lists to Santa. I headed to the Canadian embassy to send mine as 3 of our packs were randomly selected for Santas anonymous and somebody took off with our pass ports. Guess I may be stuck down her a little longer after the race until Santa finds me with a new pass port. I am really sad about this as I may have to head down to the beaches to kill some time. After my embassy visit, Cody Canning and I headed down to the nearby town of Sant Ana for Christmas haircuts. They took close to 3 hrs and once they were done it was dark. Not quite what we had in mind for a rest day but we hopped on our bikes and pedalled 1 hr back to San Jose in the dark. The locals said we were gonna get mugged with our nice bikes as the city was dangerous at night. We were lucky and didn´t get mugged although I was questioning how ¨dangerous¨ it really was as kids were playing on the streets and and Chirstmas music filled the air.

Today was stage 9, the Presidents Circuit in the beach town of Jaco. Doing 10 laps of a 10 km course with bikini girls lining the streets was enough to get me off the back of the pack and into a 6 man break for the last 3 laps. I figured if there was ever a stage to win this would be the one but the only problem was that my legs dont´sprint so well as 8 hr bike touring days build more of a diesel engine then the croch rockets the Ticos are riding.

After the race we stopped at a river to see alligators. We couldn´t see them so well off the bridge so we pulled a Jon Nutbrown and went down to the river bank to get a closer look. Our photographer was getting some sweet shots of them but when the Guatemalan with us got a 12 ft stick and began poking one of the gators we decided it was time to go before someone got munched on. The scariest part of the day was the 2hr drive back to San Jose. We saw 6 vehicles with smoking engines on one of the steep climbs and witnessed numerous close accidents. I don´t understand why there aren´t more accidents in this country with the crazy highways and the even crazier drivers. I think Costa Rican´s would make the best rally car drivers ever.

Tommorow we climb a 50 km 2600 m climb. Not sure where were going but it sounds like a nice ride. It will probably hurt though with the Colombians setting the pace.

Merry Christmas!

Road Racing

2009-12-20T17:57:00.000-08:00

Road Racing in the Vuelta de Costa Rica is like doing interval sessions for 4 hrs a day, day after day after day. I havn't done intervals in 2 yrs and these intervals are the variety that last anywhere from 10 seconds to 1 hr, the pack decides. The first few days blew my lungs up and left my legs in a world of hurt but since then the body seems to be adapting alright as I have slowly moved up from finishing in the mid 30's to 25th today. With the so called "flat stages" behind us we will start up on the mtns tommorow.

So far our team of 7 from Canada has had its ups and downs as Jean Michael Lachance was in the sprinters jersey for 3 days before crashing out in todays stage to join Arnaud who also crashed out of the Vuelta. There are 5 of us left now and the pace is picking up although we seem to be getting more adapted to the nasty pace being set by the Ticos.

The 5 teams from Costa Rica are flying as this is there show. Guatemala is all over the place. On day 3 three of them hit the same pothole with two of them flatting and the other going down. They also have a crazy 110 lb climber who is riding in the top 10. The Russians won stage 2 and 3 but then boycotted the race after one of there riders was dsq for cutting 20 km of the course and then winning a stage. Not to sure what happened there. The Dutch are suffering as I don't think they have hills in Holland like they do here. The Colombians are starting to rev it up as the real mtn stages start tommorow. This week they have been busy shaving bus drivers heads and whistling at girls.

Highlights of the week have been watching a dog run into the middle of the pack and somehow dodging all the bikes and not causing a massive pile up. Yesterday we deceneded a road at 75 kmh with 1 ft deep potholes all over the place. It was like dodging land mines. At least 3 riders hit the pavement hard and about 12 others flatted. Today the huge crosswind sent a few riders mtb riding into the ditch. I never new road racing could be so exciting but I am starting to find a liking for it. Tommorow will be a real test as the road tilts skywards.

Vuelta de Costa Rica

2009-12-12T16:22:00.000-08:00

12 day road race starting on wednesday... (http://www.vueltacostarica.com/vuelta2009/)
http://www.tourdequebec.com/article.php?sid=150

Living with 4 teamates from Quebec, training in 28 degree temps.... good times.

Getting ready to roll...

Tour de Panama

2009-12-06T15:57:00.000-08:00

Post La Ruta is a weird time as the body and mind experience an aftershock something like what a drunk experiences when they try and sober up. This year the days of post La Ruta started in the small village of Puerto Viejo on Costa Ricans east coast. This town has a plume of marijuana smoke coming from it with everyone and there dogs trying to impersonate Bob Marley. The overall attitude is “nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.” Pretty much the reverse motto of La Ruta.

On our second night we headed off to the beach to get away from the reggae noise and check out the crashing waves. After 4 minutes of tranquility we were ambushed by 8 policia with machine guns as they figured 4 gringos on the beach must be smoking the ganga. I couldn’t stop smirking at the robo cops as they tried to act tough. I thought it was a goodtime given I was probably the only person in the whole town who had never smoked marijuana. I wasn't too sure about the history of my friends but we all escaped without incident. I have nothing against marijuana or people that smoke it. I figure it has a much better overall effect on society then alcohol but nonetheless I rather get high off my bike. After an unsuccessful search, the robo cops wandered away rattled. I’m pretty sure they would need the whole Costa Rican police force to deal with the weed problem there.

Having enough of that gong show we headed off too Bocas Island in Panama for Spanish school and living on the ocean for $10 a day. We learned some very important Spanish phrases which will come in handy.

“A donde Chica’s picante?” and “Bueno Culo”

This Panama island was a proper place to relax although the weed was still everywhere. As we walked down the streets the locals would walk up to us saying their three words of English “weed, weed, weed”. After the 8th time of this I confronted one of the weed men and tried to sell him pills of vitamin C which I had in my pocket and hassled him till he walked away. This tactic probably wouldn’t last long before we got into trouble but we were scheduled to ride off the next day so we made full use of it.

The 110 km ride inland Panama is epic as it tours along Panama’s poverty stricken Caribbean coast and then climbs over the continental divide through lush jungle. The last two yrs I did this ride it went somewhat smoothly with no confrontations. This yr I was being told it was dangerous and not to do it alone. I figured info coming from drunken American ex-pats wasn’t legit so I headed off on my ride. Three km into the ride a man in the ditch began yelling at me while whirling his machete overhead. Ten minutes later 8 seventeen yr old punks walking down the highway with there hats on backwards and skull t-shirts tried to stare me down. A little later I stopped at a store for some water and 6 punks surrounded my bike and tried to look tough. I bought a bag of M&M’s to share with the punks and pretty soon we were friends. Seven hrs later I rolled into the Lost and Found hostel unscathed and still a firm believer that people are good wherever you go in this world.

After two nights of Snoreathon in the 13 bed dorm room I talked my friends Jeff and Karen from New Zealand into moving onto the quite mountain town of Boquete for some proper rest. 2 days of riding later we came on the peaceful little town. What we didn’t know was that it was Panama’s independence weekend and they had set up speakers throughout the town to insure everybody was involved in partying till 4 am for 3 straight nights. Night 1 we gave in and headed down to the party where we found a no cover charge, no liquor charge party zone. This = trouble. We couldn’t understand who would give away liquor in these quantities for free but nobody complained.

Trying to fight off a cold and a still a little fatigued I headed for Costa Rica the next day as I signed up for a road race called the Vuelta de Costa Rica which needed proper training. As the daylight faded I opted to hop on a bus so I could meet my Tico friend Ronald and his family at there cottage on the Pacific Coast for the weekend.

Buses are a great idea but I have a long history with them and we don’t get along. This bus was no different as there were over 70 people on the 50 seat bus. After standing in an aisle smelling BO for 45 minutes people began complaining “Much Frio, (were cold)” and everybody started to close the windows. “What??? You guys are drunk, this is a Much Sauna.” After another 10 minutes of dripping sweat and trying not to puke from the twisty pothole ridden road I got off the bus at the next stop which was very soon given we were on the milk run. It was dark out and my 7 hr bus ride only lasted 1.5 hrs so I had no clue where I was but that bus was a rolling gong show that I had no interest in being involved in. I spent the night in a ½ star Chinese hotel, woke up at 6 am and rode 180 km, close to my friend’s house and received a nice surprise as Ronald and his girlfriend Angela gave me a ride the last 20 km of the way. The next two days were spent getting a 100% pure Costa Rican sunburn, practicing my hammock swing and tossing peanuts to crocodiles.

Since then things have been calm as I have rented an apartment close to San Jose for the month and have settled into a proper routine of training in the mornings and studying to be a nutrition consultant in the afternoons. Looking at ridiculous weather reports from Canada I’m content as I transform from a mountain biker into a road racer for the 12 day Vuelta de Costa Rica starting on the 16th. I will be racing with the Tour de Quebec team from Quebec. Apparently the race has around a 50% attrition rate and theres National teams from Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala coming. Not too sure what I've signed up for but my friend Ronald has been looking after me and has been showing me how the Ticos train down here (25% climbs, 25 km climbs up volcanos and high end bike skills in an attempt to survive on the roadways.)

A Story about La Ruta

2009-11-17T08:26:00.000-08:00

When it was snowing and minus 10 in Canada La Ruta seemed like a good idea. While pushing my bike through gongshow mud for 1.5 hrs in plus 33 temps with humidity on day 1 with Costa Ricans sprinting pass me I began wondering why I thought this was such a good idea. Racing day 1 of La Ruta with improper training is about as smart as sticking a metal fork in a socket. I like sticking metal things in sockets though especially in Costa Rica. Midway through the day was a tour de france type climb for 22 km over a mtn. Ben Sonntag from Cannondale had some troubles in the mud as well and caught up to me half way up the climb. He probably had the 3rd best legs in the race this yr. I tried to keep up to him for 15 minutes, blew up for the 3rd time on the day, got passed by 4 more riders and was soon pretty much over the race and began looking for ice cream. Half way down the back side decent Rune Hoydahl ripped passed me asking "What are you doing"? "Looking for a ice cream I shamefully replied". He shook his head and continued on his rampant decent. Having a World Cup downhill winner rip past you doesn´t happen often so I put my ice cream aspirations on hold and took to eating his dust. For the last 3 hrs of the day we road togethar. We made good riding partners as we were both suffering hardcore from being 165 lbs riders from snowbound countries trying to keep up to a bunch of freakish mountain goats. At one point we met a car head on and I was about 6 inches from being the rocketeer. Thankfully I am use to dodging two hundred pound defenceman and made a finesse move to the lefthand ditch. Hoydahl was impressed.

Day 2 is probably steeper then M-ount Everest. I road hard staying in 13th place, just behind the lead group of 12. Decending down the back side of Everest I caught up to 3 riders including Bishop who had took a wrong turn. Riding with Bishop we caught up to a Costa Rican taking a feed from his car and holding on for an extra ride. A little after he took some pills from the car. With the race organizers stating that anyone receiveing help outside the feedzones would be disqualified Bishop and I reminded the Tico of this and he had a spaz attack and began riding into Bishop. Bishop told the guy if he ran into him again that they were going to get off there bikes. The next 10 minutes included being run off the road into a front yard, having gum spat at us, being called ass holes by 5 guys supporting the rider and finally Bishop sprinting off to get away from the unright Tico. A little after I was gaining on my friend before he took a short cut. At the finish line there was a confrontation as I wanted to jersey the guy but his support crew stepped in and his sister sweet talked me out of it.

Day 3 Bishop ripped over the Volcano with Tinker and would get lost going down the decent and would eventualy finush 10 minutes behind a Tico that knew the way. I spent the day riding in 11th, 15 minutes behind the lead group and 15 minutes ahead of 12th place. On the decent I made it to 8th before disintegrating my back brake and eventually finishing 10th. Decending Costa Rican roads with brakes is sketchier than Guatemalan street food and without brakes its pretty much suicide as dogs, cars, kids, chickens and donkeys are all over the place. At the finish line I talked to Bishop to see how his day was. He responded "Great, I still have control in this uncontrollable environment. I knew coming in that racing down here was full of suprises and I´m just running the course.¨ Pretty solid words to come from a guy who had the legs to win the race but had mechanicals, route finding problems, and ticos trying to fight him.

Day 4 is a day for the diesel engines. With my legs coming around I managed to get over the first two climbs of the day with the leaders and was stoked to get down to the flatlands to give some payback to the climbers for making me suffer for 3 days. Unfortunately I bent my front derralure on a fall and then proceeded to crank my chain around my crank and bending a link on the chain. The next 30 minutes included 2 broken chains, a ripped off front derrailur and a bent rear derrailure. I was soon back in the 40´s riding a 3 speed. I caught riders for a while but then a Tico sped by me motor pacing behind his support vehicle and I got rattled. This wasn´t proper racing so I changed tactics on the day and slowed down to help American Louis Kobin. Louis was in 2nd overall in the womans gc and needed to gain 5 minutes on the Costa Rican that was winning the race. Apparantly the Costa Rican had two male riders helping her and a support scooter throughout the race. After my experiences at La Ruta over 3 yrs I decided it was time for a whitie to get some help and let Kobin draft off me for 80 km to the finish. She was riding well on the day and may have taken over the lead anyways but this way she won by over 23 minutes.

In the end La Ruta is always a great adventure. I will probably be back for more but it will either be as a reporter as an end of season cool down or possibly with a support crew and proper training to try and even a few scores. For now it is off to Panama for spanish school so I can learn new trash talking words.

DeJa Vu

2009-11-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

For the second straight fall I have unexpectedly ended up in Costa Rica. It is starting to be a problem. Ready for a rest after 4 month and 5 month Central America adventures the past two winters, somehow I end up back here with a huge grin on my face. With school falling through and the work scene weak I had little choice. Unlike the unorganized shows of the past, this yr is going smoothly with my friend Simon and a couple friends from New Zealand, Jeff and Karen joining me as we stay upper class in an air con condo. A rather large step up from the cockroach infested, bloody wall hostel cell I stayed in last yr.

Thinking the race season was over, October was spent riding horses, playing hockey and hiking the legendary 190 km North Boundary trail in Jasper. Thankfully bike fitness comes back fast and with a couple weeks of decent riding things seem to be coming around. Too simulate the 4 stages of La Ruta we booked a flight down with 4 legs to it (Portland to Phoenix, Phoenix back up to Philadephia, Philadelphia to Charlotte and Charlotte to Costa Rica.) It was very important we did this 20 hr, four leg flight as it perfectly simulates the 20 hrs and 4 days of La Ruta. I'm not sure if Bishop, Tinker, Rune Hoydahl, Heras, or last yrs winner (Lico) did this so they may be in trouble.

Right now we are in full rest mode. Tomorrow we will try to restart the engines and then day one is on. This La Ruta has allot less racers at around 200 but the competition is the best ever. I'm not sure if this race is the end of my season or the start of the next one but either way I am stoked as this race is one of a kind. Day 1 is going to hurt hard. Two of the toughest days of racing in my life our La Ruta 2008 stage 1, followed closely by La Ruta 2007 stage 1, followed by Transmexicana 2009 stage 2. Day one is like a boxing match where both the boxers get knocked out only in this case over 200 racers get ko'd and then have to race for 3 more days afterwards.

Can't wait, gotta go!

Throughout the race I will be reporting at www.sleepmonsters.com

Fall in the Rockies

2009-10-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

My fall was set to take place in Nanaimo at VIU going to school to be a faller. VIU will now be refered to as the school of Gongshows after they cancelled the course for the 4th straight time in the last 18 months. 1st time a student got saw dust in his eye. 2nd time they forgot to arrange a block for the students to practice on. 3rd time there was a fire hazard. 4th time there weren't enough students. Rumour has it they have replaced the fallers course with a new program called "Sh*t Show 101".

Being pretty hard done by I have had to resort to the following to pastime this fall......

Eating Recovery Food.

Walking the dog.

Fish studies.

Searching for Sasquatch.

A little Play.

Next on the list ..... Search for forestry job went 0-6...... It's -7 and snowing in Jasper........Plane tickets are $270 to Costa Rica..... Sleepmonsters could use a reporter at La Ruta...... I have a bike.... I like to bike..... I like warm weather, beaches, waves, and riding around foreign lands.... hmmm.... Some tough decision's lie ahead.....

Double Header Gongshow

2009-09-22T09:42:00.001-07:00

With the ’09 mountain bike racing season coming to a close my buddy Simon and I had a little adventure lined up to end it in grand style. The plan was to race the 70 km Cheakamus Challenge in Squamish on Saturday then hop in my nascar racing truck and drive 11 hrs to Bragg Creek for the Bow 80 on Sunday. We figured if everything went perfect we could be in Calgary by 1 am for a decent sleep before a nice sunny ride on a beautiful Bow 80 course followed by ice cream cakes and swimming with hot girls in a lake afterwards.

At 10 am Saturday morning we set off with 260 other riders to race up to Whistler on some super fast rolling trails. Things went pretty straight forward with Marty Lazarski (Rocky Mountain) and I battling it out for the win. With around 8 km to go a stick slammed in my derrailure, I stopped for 7 seconds to get it out, Lazarski gapped me and I could never close it with him eventually pulling away for a 2 minute win. Simon would come across the finish line soon after in 13th place and then the next race was on as we hopped in the transport machine and peeled off to Alberta at 3 pm. From this point on the small korean guy with the big stick began wailing on the gong.

Between pit stops, highway construction, a crazy rainstorm over rogers pass and a 1 hr time change our perfect schedule ran ontime like a ukraniane wedding as we rolled into Bragg creek at 4 am. We were hoping to party with the Bow cycle guys at there end of season bash but they were being good race organizers instead of hardcore partiers as they had already gone to bed. With the race starting at 7:30 we figured sleep was a good idea and pulled our sleeping bags out and slept in a meadow. At 4:45 it began to rain and soon after Simon took off for the truck and I moved below a large pine tree for shelter. At 5:30 the rain began dripping through the tree. I tried to think like a fish and enjoy the wetness of my soaked sleeping bag but I'm not a fish and was soon off to the pickup to find Simon. At this point we were both not super stoked. The next hr was spent contemplating our decision making skills and searching around my truck in 2 weeks of piled up gongshowness to find our riding gear and food. After being told I couldn't race by the lady at the sign up desk then being allowed to race as the other lady remembered me from last season I made it to the line just in time to head off with the other racers to try and defend my title from last yr.

Early on I realized the day was going to be hard work as the internal racing system was short circuiting and I felt more like a 13 yr old hockey player with a concusion playing in the 6 am sunday morning game of a five game tounament than a biker. Probably too my advantage the weather on the day was short circuiting worse than I was and the light drizzle we left in was a full on downpour and pretty soon frosty began spitting large snowflakes down at us. I was super stoked as I hadn't been in the snow in over 16 months but that feeling was overiddened by an odd numbness which would take over for the rest of the day. If it was a treeplanting day we would've planted for a half hr to make camp costs and then started lighting things on fire. This was a bike race though and Brian Cooke and Brian Bain were riding hard for the win. Cooke would drop off but Bain was taking advantage of my concussed hockey player riding skills on the technical sections and I was clawing back on the climbs. With 15 km to go Bain and I were riding togethar and going down one hill he told me he was going to die. Soon after we began running up most the climbs to stay warm and coasting slower on the downhills to prevent wind chill. It was fricken cold still, probably in the top 2 of my coldest rides ever next to another eskimos day in Chile.

We had no choice but to ride happily on through the snow with Bain eventually dropping off on one of the climbs. Riding alone in the lead I did a sketchy endo in a hub deep mud puddle but felt zero pain when I landed thanks to my numbed body. Pretty cool I thought, I was now a feelingless human pin ball but somehow the legs still went around which was nice. With .5km to go from the finish I came to a sign reading "Tom's Snow re-route", pointing right off the main trail. Thinking like a concussed 13 yr old hockey player I went right as I figured some guy named Tom had made a re-route to shorten the course due to the snow. Apparantly it wasn't the right way as after a while I finally re-connected to the real trail to find myself in 2nd place with Brian Cooke 20 ft ahead. Feeling like Frosty the snowman on drugs I chased up to him and said "Hey", he looked back confused asking "what???what the hell are you doing here??". "I'm cold." I responded as I sprinted ahead to take a 6 second victory to defend my Gold Buckle from last yr.

At the finish line I was escorted bye Mrs.Bain to the medical trailer where Brian Bain and I would spend the next 1 hr curled up in sleeping bags, drinking hot coco and acting like drunk 13 yr old concussed hockey players. As the day wore on only 40 of the 180 riders would finish as the other 140 were either pulled or had enough logic to pull themselves from the snowy gongshow. My buddy Simon spent his race leap frogging from warm car to car to keep warm as he was determined to make it two for two on the weekend as well. By the time the last rider crossed the line the sun poaked through the clouds but there would be no ice cream cakes or swimming in lakes with hot girls this day.

The next day Simon and I were unproductive. We left our campsite at 1 pm to find the ranger had locked the exit gate on us. After trying to move some rocks we put the 4x4 on and made our own road out. Tuesday more of the same continued as we went for ride in revelstoke and ended up hiking our bikes in the dark below some huge rock bluffs for close to an hr. Today is Wednesday and nothing has happened yet as we are having coffees and green teas discussing a no body moves, nobody gets hurt tactic for the day.

USA Marathon Finals

2009-09-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

The road trip to Cali hit a small bump in the road at the boarder crossing when we forgot to claim our apples. The boarderguard asked if we had any fruits or veggies but we figured he wouldnt check so said no but he checked. My bro had 1 bag in his backpack and I had two bags in different areas of the truck with the patrolman finding one of them and not looking to pleased with us for trying to smuggle them into the states. After a short lecture on apple bugs etc.. we were on our way south 1400 km to Soda Springs, CA the sight of the USA Marathon finals. Friday evening after two solid days of driving, camping in the woods and getting lost in Portland we arrived on race site with Tinker Juarez rolling up beside us with his bodyguard/mechanic. Tinker Juarez is probably the most identifiable mountain biker in America with his long dreadlocks, Mexican skin tone and 20 plus yrs of Olympic and world cup race experience. Being on site caused quite a stir in the other riders as they constantly wandered up to him asking for autographs and pictures. My bro and I were pretty tired from the days of driving so we hit up a local campsite for a short nights sleep before rising at 5 an on Saturday for a 6:30 race meeting and race start shortly after.

Race day was a bit of a gong show with us waking up a little late, hitting road construction on the interstate and then having a valve fly out of my front tubeless wheel about 10 minutes before the start. The valve posed a bit of a problem as my front wheel was now empty and the piece I needed was somewhere below my truck. Somehow I must of ate a four leaf clover somewhere along the way and managed to find the valve below my pickup and pretty soon the bike had two inflated wheels and I rolled into the start just in time for the gun to go off. Another lucky charm on the day was that the opening 6 miles of the 92 mile race was down hill, this gave me a chance to pop out of the sleepy daze I was in which ended also requiring a 2x caffeine gel's 10 minutes into the race and half a bottle of cold water down my back. Going along in the top 15 I was watching guys flat all over the place as the terrain was super rocky and dusty which posed huge problems for the poor guys with tubes. Once we hit the bottom of the hill I encountered another problem as the bowels were sending signals reminding my head that it had forgot to hit up the john before the start. This was a problem as the pace was picking up and Tinker and 4 other riders were quickly riding out of sight and there was no time to stop. I began thinking of the Hoover dam to keep things clogged up and set off to catch the leaders.

Pretty soon I was up with the leaders just in time to watch Tinker and a Chico rider attack up a hill. Soon after the Chico rider blew up and then it was just Tinker ahead going into a 4 mile decent. All the way down the decent I followed Tinker’s Dust and was able to close the gap a little before he pulled away on the next climb. I soon pulled some time back on a 10 mile single-track section before running into Tinker as he had beat a volunteer to one of the junctions and didn’t know which way to head. I was pretty stoked to be back with Tinker with close to 1/3 of the race down but soon after on a long steep climb the 135 lb Tinker began to use his special dust to fly away and out of sight around a switchback. BAAANNNGGG!!!!, just as Tinker went out of sight either his wheel blew up or someone was opening up shooting gallery. I was scared to go around the bend but having paid $160 in entry fee’s I wanted to get my moneys worth on the day so I kept going to find an old school hick with a rifle across his shoulder. Tinker was now a long ways up the road and riding way faster then I’ve ever seen someone climb. I’m not sure if this is how he always rides or if he was freaked out by the gun firing hillbilly but this was the last I would see of him as he would claim victory on the day in 7 hrs 24 minutes. Getting past the crazy hillbilly was my victory on the day as I would cruise along the last 50 miles solo in the spectacular rugged California countryside to claim second around 20 minutes behind Tinker and his special dust.

Finishing 2nd to Tinker was a wicked day for me and to celebrate I jumped off a dock into a 2ft deep lake. I hit the bottom hard, came out with a bloody toe and am now contemplating a better way to celebrate the next celebratable moment. After the race closed out we headed back to camp for a little relaxing around the campfire with apple ciders in hand. Today my Bro watched NFL sunday, I went for a wicked singletrack ride up in the mountains and tommorow its off to Oakland for Monday night football! (We'll be the guys hanging off the rafters with binoculars.)

Road T to Cali!

2009-09-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

I tried finding work for the fall but the bush scene has dried up so I have had to resort to plan B, A Road Trip to California! Yah, life is tough in this economic downturn so it looks like the fall is going to be full of spinning pedals, not planting trees. Tommorow its off to the west coast to pick up my Bro and then southward we go. Theres only one thing guranteed for sure on the trip and that is getting stopped at the boarder and being pillaged by the boarder patrol for having hemp seeds on the dash and a sketchy looking black truck.

The unknowns include trying to scalp tickets to a monday night football game in Oakland and racing in the USA Marathon 100 miler finals in Nevada. The race is the main excuse for the trip and has me pretty stoked as its 100 miles through the mtns up and down gold miner trails and down old outfitter trails. They call it the most wild and remote of the 7, 100 mile races and it sounds like an adventure in the making for sure.

After the XC Provincials last weekend it was back to Jasper for the week to ride some local trails I have yet to hit up this summer. After the last 5 days of sweet riding I have confirmed that Jasper is the #1 place to mountain bike in Canada. Other places such as Fernie, or Squamish come close but being able to ride a different trail full of wicked flowing singltrack for 2 weeks in a row without crossing the same line is pretty tough to beat. Add in the road rides up to Cavell, Marmot Basin, Maligne lk or down the south highway through towering mtns and you have a smokin place to ride around. My oppinion may be slightly biased but I was pretty pumped to get out to explore around my own backyard for a while after travelling around for the summer. Later on in September once the races are done it will be time to scale some peaks and check off a few epic rides i've had in the books for a while.

Race Weekend in the Foothills

2009-09-02T12:49:00.001-07:00

The Provincial XC race was pretty sweet on the weekend. Thanks to Crazy Larry, the Froehler family and all the other volunteers that showed up things went off pretty smoothly. Having a black bear with her cubs on course chasing racers the day before the race added to the weekend although it seemed a little dangerous so I called the fish and game warden to chase them away. He showed up 26 hrs later, sunday evening as we cleaned up the course. He walked the course with a rifle trying to find the bears. I'm pretty sure he was probably off duty and actually hunting as the last racers had gone home 3 hrs before and nobody is probably gonna ride the course again until next yrs race.

As for the race the local Freewheel Jasper team did pretty good as Loni Klettle won the Elite Womans Race and I won the Elite Mens race. Andrew Bovard was second in Master Sport, Derek Anderson was third in Seniore sport and Angus Jenkins won the U15 Novice mens race. All and all not bad day for the small town of Jasper. Being the race organizer I didn't think I was going to get to race but thanks to all the helping hands I was able to hop on my bike at the last minute. Cody Canning kept things close for a couple laps before I gapped him on the climbs as I was pretty motivated to get my first Provincial Jersey. Pretty stoked to be able to win a race so close to home and have the chance to wear the Provincial colours next yr!

After the race Crazy Larry kept everyone entertained giving away swag and tossing out comments from left field that only he could think of. Sunday night Larry and Brian Bain stayed at my house. We were all bagged but Larry iniated a midnight game of glow in the dark frissbee with a bunch of 15 yr old girls in the middle of the street and then a strobe light dance in my living room (without the 15 yr old girls). Spending the weekend with Crazy Larry was memorable to say the least. On Monday he set off from Jasper with a 50 lb backpack on his way to Banff with a random lady from Australia. They were hoping to make it there by Tuesday morning. Haven't heard from them yet but I'm sure they made it or are out there swinging off a bridge somewhere along the way.

One of Crazy Larrys many dreams is to be able to bike to races across the province to announce at them. If anyone has any ideas to how we can get him a decent bike to do this let me know as he is a great guy with a heart of gold and the ability to make a chess match between two 85 yr old blind men more exciting then any superbowl or world series game. Crazy Larry will be at next yr's event as we hope to fill the weekend with a xc race, night crit, marathon race, midnight game of glow in the dark ultimate frizzbie and dancing Costa Rican girls!

XC Provincials

2009-08-29T10:28:00.001-07:00

This weekend is the Alberta XC Provincials in Hinton. Nathan Froehler (Hinton race organizer from 2002) came up a few days ago and we've been sprucing up the trails he built over a decade ago into what is becoming a kick ass xc course. People will suffer tommorow on the relentless course, especially in the 30 degree heat. If your sitting at home this weekend not sure what to do you can still show up tommorow morning and sign up on race day and transform a non eventful weekend into a biker riders ecstasy. Go to www.albertabicycle.ab.ca for more info.
Rumour has it Crazy Larry will be on site heckling riders as they ride through in pain.

The 9.5 km course is wild and rugged with a super sweet 7 min technical decent followed by a cruisy 18 minute climb back up to the start all of this taking place in the middle of the wilderness with moose and grizzlys around as we saw both yesterday. We will be putting out jars of honey along the course to insure more Grizzlies are out to watch the race tommorow. Tune into TSN or CTV Sportsnet TV tommorow night for full race coverage or if they don't make it out you'll be able to check out the post race report on www.pedalmag.com.

TR3

2009-08-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

Chalk one up for the treeplanting legs. After having a rougher start to the season the legs caught on fire for the Solo version of the TransRockies and I came across the line after 3 days of epic riding as the first TR3 winner. Roddi Lega and Colin Kerr kept it close but I was pretty at home in my first ever stage race in Canada and was able to ride away on the last couple days. The Transrockies is a super pro stage race, the best organized one I've ever been at and definatly one I'll be headed back too. For now the body and mind are wrecked so its off for a 4 day horse trip with Dad into the backcountry.

TransRockies

2009-08-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

The Tour de Bowness road races went like this:

1 km Hill Climb- Blew lungs apart trying to keep up to Jamie Sparling, finished 11th

1 hr Criterium- Sketchy 7 corner circuit with 45 elite riders, being use to riding with mountain goats in the mtns I was sketched riding with a large pack so hung off back until end and finished 22nd.

80 km circuit race- learned road racers are crazy bastards and dont know how to relax. super fast pace, attacked off the front with Sparling, blew up like Iraq and finished in chase pack.

After the little journey into the warped road racing world its back home to the mtns to take on the 3 day solo version of the Trans Rockies. Tommorow is day one which starts with a 1200 m vertical climb up Panorama ski hill.

Throughout the event I will be posting daily reports on www.sleepmonsters.com

24 Overload

2009-07-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

Coming in 5th at last yr World 24 hr Solo's I had been waiting patiently to get back to cause some suffering this yr but things unfolded quickly and I was the one suffering like a pot of overcooked soggy pasta starting to fry along the edges. Coming into the event pretty exausted from the previous two weeks of racing in Colorado and bike touring on the island I knew things were on the edge of a wholesale explosion but being hopeful I figured things would work out. Arriving in Canmore on friday the system overload signs were popping up as I tried pre-riding the course but had ot cut it short as WW3 was occuring in my stomach along with a system overheat due to the heat and some internal combustion. No pre-race meal and a sleepless, feverish night later I got out of bed at 8 am on saturday, ate some seeds, napped for an hour and at 10 got up and made the way to the start line. Being on sight boosted the system into adrenaline mode and at 11:45 we were off with the Kiwi's and Aussies setting the early tone. Things rolled along all right for a couple laps before I peeled over on the side of the course and tride giving birth to whatever was hurling javelin poles into the side of my guts. After a couple dry heeves and a few self inflicted punches to the stomach I made it around the lap and back into the pit area and figured the day was done after just 4 hrs. A little rest and a zantac pill later things were going again and all of a sudden I felt like a bike racer and raced around for 8 hrs getting up to 6th spot before everything went into the blender of distruction and after a lap of being bent over the bike I crawled back into the pit area and slept off the rest of the race.
Not quite the 24 hrs I was hoping for but gongshows happen. What was cool on the night was 2 Canadians made the top 5 this yr. Leighton Poidevin from Canmore had a wicked race, finishing 4th overall and Dallas Morris came in a solid 5th proving he is probablly the steadiest biker out there and pretty much unfaisable.

Huge thanks to everyone who came out and supported me in the event:
-Freewheel Cycle and all the boys and girls cheering out there.
- Dave Mcdowell and his pit crew who came by and made sure things were online
-Doug Eastcott, for his support in the pit
and Mom and Dad for everything you did to help in what is in no way a Solo race as I believe the Solo's is more of a team effort than the team event itself due to the fact that after 10 hrs of racing us solo bikers begin functioning like overgrown 3yr olds on adrenaline rushes.

After a week of rest and some time out at my buddies cabin 60 km in the middle of the woods the body's system failure lights have switched off and the Road bike is getting dusted off for the Tour of Bowness in Calgary this weekend. Not really a road racer or a sprinter I'm not sure how a 4 minute hill climb or a 50 minute criterium are going to go after the last race lasted 15hr but theres only one way to figure that out.

24

2009-07-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

Summer of 2009 has been a wild one and this weekend its gonna get a little wilder down in Canmore. Having done a 24 hr solo event last yr I am pretty stoked to get back there for a epic ride in the mtns with a bunch of crazy guys from around the world.

Thanks Summer for the last minute training and the great week of riding around Vancouver Island!

Congrats Jana and Kent on your wedding!

The 24 hr race can be followed live starting saturday at noon on:

http://24wsc.com/

and

http://twitter.com/WSC24

Crazy Days

2009-07-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

Racing in Colorado has been quite the journey with results going from 9th, 40th, 4th, 24th and then 4th again. Like many of the racers down here we are at the mercy of our bodies as we can;t seem to figure out what makes them tick up here in the altitude. Apart from the racing we have been chasing down our tents as they've blown all over the baseball field, putting rocks on the sprinkler heads to prevent the confusion of how our tents keep getting drenched on sunny days and fixing flat tires as the rocks down here are hungry. Having various results has been pretty cool as you get a chance to ride with different people everyday. I must admit though when a single speed dude caught me on day 2 I was getting ready to take up a new sport but then riding behing Bishop and Brown the next day lifted my spirits. After tommorows final stage it will be time for some smooth riding as this event has tossed us all on quite the roller coaster ride.

Colorado

2009-07-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

The voyage down to Kananaskis and back was pretty wicked. The icefields parkway is great for riding as there are slow moving motorhomes all over the place to draft behind and pretty wicked mtns all along the way not to mention the 5 hostals which allows a biker to travel pretty light. The race in k- country went alright but 170 lbs is too much for a mtn biker to climb up hills with when there's flying dutchmen (Tim Heemskerk) on the start line.

In another effort to jump start the season I hopped a plane to Colorado to take on the 6 day Breck Epic SR (http://www.breckepic.com/). Stage 1 was a 5 mile prologue which blew my lungs apart. Stage 2 was a smooth 40 mile loop up to 12 00o ft. Going out hard with the 6 leaders up the first 7 km climb I soon blew up like the fireworks down here on the 4th of july and began pedaling backwards. 20 minutes later I started pedaling forwards again but then my wheels started mimicking the 4th of july and 3 blown flats later I slowly crawled across the finish line in a millionth place. Riding down here is not easy as the whole course is above 9 800 ft and when there's aclimatized racers like Jeremiah Bishop and Travis Brown leading the way the pace is not slow. My lungs are blown, the legs are still warped from planting and the pain threshold is growing through each pedal stroke. I have never raced before in the USA but I must say some of the singletrack is alright although the green money is lame and being forced to carry a rain jacket in a race is a good sign your not up in Canada with the lumberjacks.

Throughout the Breckepic I will be doing reports for sleepmonsters at www.sleepmonsters.com.

Hungover

2009-06-26T10:51:00.001-07:00

I had big plans after planting of a coastal tour down to the Test of Metal and BC Bike Race but I forgot about the post planting hangover which can last from 7-10 days. The problem is that the body is working on turbo mode for 6 weeks during the planting season and its all good until a guy takes enough time off to let the body shut down. This occured as the planting season ended and for 8 days I suffered as my body functioned like that of a 85 yr old 400 lb drug abused chain smoker from downtown vancouver. I would bike a couple days but when I had to walk up hills I had been able to ride since I was 11 yrs old I decided to let the planting hangover take its course and I huddled down and rested, and ate, and rested, and ate until one day I woke up and wanted to ride again. That day is today as I will attempt to get the engine going again with a 2 day blitz as I will try to ride 400 km down to a xc race in Kananaskis this weekend. Not sure if I will make it 6 km or 400 km but the sun is shining, the bike is clean and its feeling like a good time to roll on.

New Sponsor

2009-06-17T09:48:00.001-07:00

Thank You Rudy Project for the Helmet and Glasses!

Bushed

2009-06-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

6 weeks of Treeplanting = 50 000 trees planted, 4 stuck trucks, 1 wrecked quad, 12- 15hr days, millions of bugs, living with the dreadlocked society, 4000 calorie meals, and one pretty bushed biker. The planting season went from my crew in PG for 5 weeks then back to the Robson Valley for a few days of bike planting. Bike planting was the best job ever as I pedalled between burn piles on deactivated roads through willows with 500-700 trees in my backpack at a time. Trying to cross road deactivations with this much weight in a pack was the cause for one major endo which nearly ended my planting/biking days for a while but instead all I got was a face full of mud and a brused cheack bone. A couple bear encounters were another story as a Grizzly and her 2 cubs prevented one set of burn piles from getting trees in it and then there was the large black bear which stood on the road between me and home. Without mace or anything else I opted for tossing a huge log at the bear as a decoy as I sprinted 6 ft from the bear on my bike. The bear was pretty stunned and did nothing which was alright by me as I was stoked on not being dinner. Probably could of petted the beast if I wanted too. Now I rest here at home with bushed legs as I prepare to transform them back into pedal mashers for the rest of the season. The logging course I keep trying to get into was to start today again but is pushed back till further notice which was good news as the bikes are getting restless.

Treeplanting & Bikes

2009-05-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

I use to think of work as something for people that had nothing better to do but after a new tranny for the pickup, 5 months wandering around central america, bike parts, food, gas etc I have come to realize that work can be alright once in a while. Tommorow its off to the crime capital of Canada, Prince George, to pick up the work truck and 5 planters for my crew as we head out into the woods to plant trees for a month. The bike is coming along for some early morning interval sessions as I will be testing out a new training theory involving planting 6-8hrs a day for the endurance and sprint work on the bike for the high end. Should be pretty much perfect.

Back from the woods

2009-04-19T20:41:00.001-07:00

After a couple weeks out in the boonies around Mcbride I found my Canadian ways again and made it back to Jasper in time to meet up with Dik (Kona Rep). Between Dik at Kona and Wendy and Chris at Freewheel Cycle I have been set up with 3 rippin bikes for the season. Kona Kula Supreme (hardtail), Kona Hei Hei Supreme (Dualie), and a Kona King Zing (road). Thank you!!! These are bikes I only ever dreamed of.

This past week I was testing out the new machines in the cycling capital of Canada (Jasper) as the roads are free of vehicles and the trails are within a couple days of being dry. These bikes are solid! On top of it I may be scene in some new racing clothes this season, the 10 yr old jerseys I have been using are now in the vintage collection.

Next week I was to become a lumberjack as I was headed to Nanaimo for a 2 month lumberjack course but due to the low wood prices the course is postponed. Now its back to the drawing table to figure out another plan. Thinking of growing a field of marijuana and selling it as hay bails to music festivals across Canada. I figure instead of everyone smoking a little joint they should light one giant hay bail in the middle of the festival and get everyone done at the sametime. Entrapreneurship.

Return to the North

2009-03-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Isla Mujeres is a lost paradise. I was the flip of a coin from being stuck there forever. Beach front hostel, blue caribean ocean, white sand beaches, travelers from around the world and a 20 km paved highway looping the island for the bike. I pulled myself away from the place before it was too late and on Sunday morning I found myself driving through Canmore in a snowstorm. I figured I had heldout long enough down south to have avoided such a thing but mother nature was waiting for me. So were the cops. 2 hrs after getting off the plane I found myself with a $150 speeding ticket. When the cop asked how fast I was going or what the speed limit was I came up blank. After being in the freedom of central america where virtually nobody is liable for anything they do I was brought back to Canadian reality in a hurry. I am now off to visit my Dad in the mountains to chop firewood and drive tractors until I can figure out how to function in such a proper country again.

Hippie Van

2009-03-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

Out on my $70 rental bike for a second ride I began to cirucmnavigate the 70 km of Cozumel island. About 10 km in a old hippie van (aka volkswagon) blew by, only to have its rear left wheel fall off about 100 ft past me. Watching the van skid along the highway on 3 wheels was pretty amusing but even better was watching the free wheel roll down the highway for 300 metres and into the other lane causing a old pickup to nearly swerve off the highway. As I rode past the hippie van now resting along the highway I pointed out to the driver that he was missing a wheel, he gave me the middle finger. The rest of the ride around the island was spent trying to draft off random tourists on there rented scooters. Done with Cozumel I headed back to Cancun for another night of spring break and then the next day headed to the Island of Mujeres to relax for the day. Last nights bonfire party on the beach was a much nicer pace then the out of control chaos back on the mainland. Tommorow may be the final day in paradise so I am soaking in whatever heat I can to take back with me to the frigid north.

Mexican Yucatan

2009-03-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

Spring Break in Cancun is the gongshow of gongshows. After two days of hanging out in the chaos I determined that there are three ways to enjoy it there:
1. 8 beers,
2. 8 shots of tequila, or
3. 4 beers and 4 shots of tequila

On day three I headed south to the more civilized resort city of Playa del Carmen. Day 4, was spent with 2 other Canadians and an Aussie as we rented a car and headed south to the seaside Mayan ruins in Tulum. Tulum was a welcome break as its much cheaper and more relaxed place to visit then the northen resorts. Day 5 was back in Playa del Carmen for a beach day. Day 6 I woke up with the need to bike after 5 days off so I hopped a ferry to Cozumel and rented a bike for the afternoon to cruise the island. Riding a $70 wal mart bike is sketchy as the bike was ready to fall apart at any moment but it heald togethar for the day. Resting in the Mexican Yucatan has been a welcome break although on some occasions rest is difficult to come by a.k.a: Cancun. Tommorow I will head back to Cancun for another round before I start preparing for my return to the Northern Lands.

Less Bike, More Beach

2009-03-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

Riding with Fernando turned into another epic 7 hr ride as we road on singletrack and jeep roads up to 4000 m then across a frigid plateau for 2 hrs before decending down dusty off camber singletrack back into the city. Half way down we stopped at a trout farm and we each took care of a 2lb trout. Once back in the city we played dodge the rush hour traffic for 1 hr as we returned home. On saturday I hopped in with Julio and Sos (friends from TransMexican) and we headed to the National XC race in Leon to join 800 other bike junkies. The track was technical, rough and flat, as it wound around a lake and up through dry, cactus filled mexican terrain. Having not done a National level event in almost 2 yrs I didn`t know what to expect but I knew if I stuck close to Lupillo that I would have a good day. This plan worked for the first 2 km as I road with the leaders before I tried launching a drop on a decent and wrecked my rear wheel. DNF. After the race I sold whatever was left of my bike and bought a plane ticket to Cancun to become a Spring Breaker. After 4.5 months of riding up and down Central America my former bike and I are pretty trashed and in need of beaches.

Mexico City

2009-03-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

The acrcheology museum we went to was pretty wicked for the first two hours but after that our heads were full with enough info to last a lifetime so we raced through the last 5 rooms setting a new museum speed record. My head still hurts from all the history but it was worth it. On Sunday Simon took off back to Canada and I headed down with my Mexican counterparts to catch the last stage of the Vuelta de Mexico. Fellow Canadian Andrew Pinfold won in front of tens of thousands screaming Mexicans. Later on we would head out to a Cantina for Enchiladas with mole sauce (aka best food ever). Training down in Mexico is dangerous for two reasons, 1. Mexican Food and 2. Mexican Pollution. I have had a smoggers cough ever since I got to Mexico city and am starting to wonder how long it will take till I have the lungs of an Italian chain smoker. On the other hand is the food which is not biker food. It is the food of the second fattest nation in the world and for good reason. Chiliquilis, tacos, tortas, fried bananas.... Mexicans have a perfectly good excuse for being a large nation as the food is top notch although sketchy for reasons previously stated in the TransMexicana. After todays training ride and coughing up more Mexican pollution my mouth is starting to feel like an exhaust pipe but lucky for me a good Enchilada cures everything down here. I am stoked for tommorow as Fernando, one of Lupillos racing buddies is going take me on a ride on Mexican singletrack outside the city. My lungs cant wait for the fresh air.

Post Race

2009-03-04T17:10:00.000-08:00

The Transmexicana is over but not forgotten. After an amazing race experience last yr, this yrs version of the race was a little different. Day 0 started with the racers each getting to let an Iguana loose into the forests around Huatulco. Simons Iguana was over anxious to get going and squirmed out of Simons hands leaving behind its tail. Apparantly Iguana tails are pretty fragile and when removed from the body they keep twitching for a couple minutes. This turned out to be a bad oman for Simon as his race didn´t end up going as planned between broken bikes, getting lost and bathroom runs. I managed to keep the tail on my Iguana but I couldnt keep the flu away as day 2 severely limited my chances of ending up on top of the podium.

Simon and I arrived to Mexico city on Sunday night and have been staying with the TransMexicana race photographer Edgardo ever since. After 4 days we have figured out that Mexico city is pretty big. Last night after a 6 hr ride up a 3800 m mtn with fellow racer Julio, Simon and I tried to find out way back to Edgardos house but ended up biking around like a couple headless chickens for 1.5 hrs. At one point we tried calling Edgardo with my new mexican cell phone but the battery died along with our hopes of finding our home. After another good pedalling session we finally recognized a local coffee shop and later found our digs pretty exhausted and feeling a little dumb. We now wrote down the address as it could probably help in the future. Today we went for another pretty epic ride through the city and up to a mtn bike park hanging at 3000 m above the city. Riding through the 2nd biggest city in the world is pretty crazy as we are constantly weaving through a maze of vehicles and trying to hit holes in the traffic. Simon hit one hole today but I was cut off by a taxi and soon caught in the middle of the Mexican freeway. Getting to the safety along the edge I kept going but I missed Simon who was waiting a little further ahead as I was probably passing a bus at the time. After ripping down the highway aways thinking Simon was ahead of me I opted for a u-turn as I was getting lost again and Simon had the apartment keys. Luckily I ran into Simon who was still waiting along the edge of the road and we continued on our way this time finding our home like a couple heat seeking missiles. Tommorow is tourist time as we will grab our cameras and head to a couple 0ld castles and some sort of archelogoy museum people keep telling us about.

Ground Zero

2009-02-21T17:31:00.000-08:00

Simon and I are now in the small coastal village of Huatulco, ground zero for the 2nd version of the 6 day, 765 km TransMexicana mtb race. The gun is ready to go off in just over 12 hours and the Mexicans are looking scared.

Throughout the race I will be doing daily reports for Sleepmonsters which can be viewed at www.sleepmonsters.com

Time to roll.......

Guate Gongshow part 2

2009-02-19T13:53:00.001-08:00

From ChiChicastagongshow Simon and I figured the excitement would wind down a little as we planned on putting the bikes away for the long bus trip back to Guatemala city and then onward to Mexico. Too leave ChiChi we found a mini bus, paid $5 each extra for our bikes and handed them to the driver who tied them ontop of the bus. We hopped in the bus and it took off and the driver drive our bikes straight into a cement overhang leading out of the bus station. A little concerned I jumped out the window and crawled up on the bus to access the damage. My $ 500 front wheel was mangled and bent beyond repair but luckily that was all the damage. The bus driver got out and tried explaining it wasnt his fault but rather the cement walls fault for being in the way. Not reallty caring too much about whos fault it was I tried getting some information so I could make an insurance claim but all the driver could tell me was that he worked for a guy named Juan. After a lenghty conversation it became apparant that Guatemala is a free system where liability doesn´t exist. Later on we caught another bus in which the driver tossed our $ 5000 bikes on top like a couple of rag dolls. Still a little rattled from the previous incident Simon and I climbed on top of the bus to rearrange the bikes so they wouldnt be smashing togethar for rough cobblestone ride out of Antigua. The bus driver lost it, pulled Simon of the bus then proceeded to shut the window which was used as a step so I couldnt get down. I continued to re arrange the bikes and tie them down while the bus driver started pulling his hair out and trying to get the tourist agency to take our tickets away. After I finished with the bikes I sat down on top of the bus and waited as I wasnt to crazy about trying to make the 14 ft jump down. After a few minutes Simon managed to get in the bus to re open the window so I could get back to solid ground. The proceeding trip to Guatemala city was rather fast as the bus driver let loose his rage on the gas pedal. The next day was spent driving to all 8 bikeshops around Guatemala city with our friend Oscar trying to find a new front wheel for my bike which proved rather difficult but in the end we found something we could work with. Too repair, Simons bike took 3 hrs and mine took a little over 9 as the mechanics were still finding La Ruta mud in my shox and bearings. $ 300 later I had new bushings for my shox, a new front wheel, tubless tires, clean bottom bracket and pretty much a brand spanking new looking bike. Later that afternoon Simon and I hopped on a bus for the 20 hr ride to Mexico. A day later we are still feeling hungover from the trip but we are where we want to be and our bikes are ready to roll.

ChiChicastaGongshow

2009-02-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

For the past week my buddy Simon and I have been riding all over Guatemala training for next weeks race in Mexico. For the first 3 days were were joined by the Race Organizer of Guatemalas 3 day mtb SR El Reto del Quetzal. He toured us across the 300 km course on countless miles of singletrack and up thousands of meters of climbs. Having a Guatemalan guide was pretty sweet as we got an inside look into the country and taken to some places we never wouldve found ourselves. After our friend returned to his home in Guate city, Simon and I headed out with a change of clothes in are packs and headed up to the highlands for 3 days were we road across a 3000 m plateau from the town of Nebaj over to HueHuetenango. The dirt track we were on was freshly made and didnt mess around as it headed straight up for 4 hrs of riding. Up top the sceneray was amazing as the landscape was barren and full of small huts with people running around the hillsides. After touring around for the last 7 days, riding over 36 hrs, we are pretty worked over and now sitting in Chichicastenango on market day. After walking the markets for an hour we have optly renamed the town ChichicastaGongshow. Everywhere we look people are decending out of the mtns to the small town transforming the streets into a carnival setting as they try to sell everything from axe heads to chickens. We are accompanied by gringos all over the place as tour buses have acended into the town to join the chaos. Later today we will try to make our way over to Guatemala city to get our bikes repaired and pick up the rest of our luggage before we head out to Mexico for some restful days of surfing in Puerto Escondido before the TransMexicana race starts on the 22nd.

Wild Ride

2009-02-05T17:06:00.000-08:00

After a 7 day bought with stomach bug 2 I headed out into the Honduran mtns for the best bike touring ever. 5 days on rough dirt roads through Indeginous villages in the highland country with more stares then Pamela Anderson gets when her shirt falls off. One drunk nearly ran me off the road but my lucky penny from Canada is still holding its charm. In between the rides I hoofed it 8 hrs up into the cloudforests of Mtn Celaque and almost ended up staying. The forests were surreal as I saw dwarfs, peter pan and tinkerbell. I may have been hallucinating from lack of water and food but Im sure they were there as the place had a mystical aura. Monkeys, crazy raccoons and all sorts of birds were all over the place. Returning to basecamp in the colonial town of Gracias in the evening I prepared for a 7 hr 145 km ride to Copan Ruins the next day. The ride started out at 6:30 am with my panniers falling into my rear wheel as I hit a hard spot on the cobblestone streets leading out of town. Slightly dissapointed but I new this was coming as I had the pannier rack duck taped for the past 2 weeks as the metal kept breaking in different places. Finally the last piece broke and nearly took my rear wheel with it. Luckily I was close to my hotel so I went back and spent the next 1.5 hrs rearanging my luggage and finding a new system of carrying my supplies which involved wearing my backpack and tying my two pannier bags on top of the rack which no longer had its pannier supporting sides. Heading out for the second time I soon flatted 5 minutes down the road, fixed it, continued on for an hr then hit some glass and flatted again. Using my last tube and using my last two patches to fix the tire I fixed the problem but a new problem was arising as I had only gone 20 km and it was nearly 11 am. Knowing there was a dirt road shortcut across the mtns which would save 45 km I nervously opted for this option knowing if I flatted again I was walking. The shortcut started out smoothly as I road through forests and coffee plantations but soon it started to downpour and the road went to mud. Passing over the first mtn range I decended into the village of San Augustin and was soon getting an uneasy feeling as everyone and there chickens came out to look at me. I asked a man in government clothes where a place to eat was in town and pretty soon I was eating with 20 or so spectators watching my everybite and looking at my bike trying to figure out what planet it was from. When I finished eating one man came up to me and started yelling and waving his finger in my face. For the first time in the trip I was getting pretty sketched out as this guy was getting pretty worked up. Thankfully another local pulled the guy away and I was soon informed that I had been dealing with the towns character who was short a few sandwiches in his picnic basket. Riding away in the rain with the friendly locals waving there hats I headed up a 1 hr climb over the second mtn range. On top the problems started again as I was now cold for the first time in the trip, the fog and rain limited my visibility to 30ft and I came to a junction in the small dirt road. Both junctons looked equally used. I didn't hesitate to take the left fork as I use to play left wing in hockey and had always been treated well with the left side. Soon decending down the steep mtn side into another valley I began to get worried as the road I had chosen was becoming more and more faint. After a long decent I came to the valley bottom and began criscrossing a creek multiple times which kept getting bigger and bigger as I went downvalley. It was getting late int he day and I was now up to my waste in rushing muddy water whenever I crossed the now river. I knew if I had to cross the raging muddy water again that I would probably have to turn around as it was getting dangerously high and I am sure I would never see my bike again if I lost my footing and went for a swim. Not to excited about the prospect of turning around and climbing back up over the mtn to see the crazy guy in San Augustin again I continued on. Thankfully I came to a small village another 5 km down the valley and after that the road was maintaned and had bridges. Riding another 20 km on mud roads I finally rolled out onto the highway and cruised in the touristy village of Copan Ruins about 20 minutes after dark and nearly 12 hrs after I had left my hotel early that morning. In hindsight the right junction was probably the better choice up on the mtn but this way I got a couple extra hours of training in. The last two days have been spent checking out old mayan ruins and preparing for the next part of the journey which will lead me into Guatemala. I will meet up with my friend Simon who is flying into Guatemala city on saturday for a couple weeks of training before we head out to Mexico for the TransMexicana race starting near the end of Feburary. As for now I am hobbling around as my legs are still trying to recover from the hike up Celaque. Apparantly being an alright biker doesn't make you much of a hiker.

Tegucigalpa

2009-01-28T07:29:00.000-08:00

After two days battling my second stomach bug of the trip in Ocotal I tried biking 140 km through the mtns to the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa. The ride lasted 70km until I was dizzy and dead tired beside the road and having to catch the first bus of the trip the last 70 km to the capital. Training tip; not eating for two days and still half sick is not a good time to try a 7 hr, 3000 m vertical ride. I have been in this chaos of 1.2 million for 3 days now still trying to recover. Went for a 3 hr ride downtown and up to a lookout over the city yesterday and have decided that riding in large central america cities is the perfect training for any type of biker. For one it teaches you to be 100% focused throughout the whole ride as if you phase out for a second you will be taken out by a vehicle and become a hood ornament. Two, it is great for bike handling skills as your constantly weaving between vehicles, jumping curves and dodging pedestrians. Three, it is great practice for race starts as every light is a new 20 second interval as you sprint to keep your place in the traffic. Four, its probably the quickest most efficient way of getting to see the sights of a city while at the sametime getting a decent workout. I now have a new respect for bicycle couriers.

Currently the UNCAF Futbol Cup is taking place as the 7 Central American Nations battle it out for a spot in next years World Cup. Last night myself and an American companion went to the Panama, Guatemala match and were probably the only two gringos in the building. Some drunks started a gringo chant for a minute before the Policia shut them down. Panama won 1-0 which was too bad as they were a bunch of divers. 3 players got carried off on stretchers, each one was back in the game within 5 minutes. The fans here are great hecklers though and let them have it. I learned some new spanish words to heckle the Calgary Flames next time they head to Edmonton. Off for more rice and beans. Chow

The Real Nicaragua

2009-01-22T18:15:00.000-08:00

After over a week in the toursity side of Nicaragua I headed up into the highlands and spent three days riding over mtn passes and through forest reserves. It was like being in a different country as the people up here weren´t affected by the tourist dollar yet so there were no scams, no begging kids and no crazy raxi drivers. Life seemed pretty simple, people hung out alot, drank alot of cokes and ate lot´s of rice and beans. The dogs were pretty relaxed as well as I figure they´re either to hot or to hungry to give chase to a biker. Im beggining to think that the economy of a country could be judged solely by sending a single biker to bike through the country and count the number of dog chases to total loose dogs. Fairly simple formula as I figure the richer the country the more vicous the dogs as they are better nourished and taken cared of. I will write a book on this theory once I return to Canada. Todays ride started with the plan of riding 40 km over rough roads back to the pan am highway and then to head north up to the Nicaraguan boarder town of Ocotal. 4km into the ride the plan changed as there was another road heading up a 900 m vertical acent into a plateau at 1400 m and the cloudforest reserve of Miraflor. Having only enough food and water to last the 3 hr ride I planned to the pan am highway and not for a 6 hr detour I stopped into the next house I came across and asked to buy some food. The family was pretty stoked and served up a plate of tortillas, cheese, beans and coffee, filled my water bottles and then refused my money. Not sure how to thank my generous host family of 9, who lived in a single room house, I gave them a slideshow of Canada including pics of biking in the snow and Mtn Robson which impressed them to say the least. Afterwards it was onto another ride through the heat of another scorching Nicaraguan day. Tommorow its off to the unknown land of Honduras.

Land of Nicas

2009-01-19T19:05:00.000-08:00

After some epic rides coming into Nicaragua and dealing with the low ballers around the boarder crossing I finally set foot into the land of Volcanos and lakes and put myself and the bike down to rest for 4 days. I studied spanish, my bike collected dust but soon enough it was game time again and we were off to the colonial city of Granada. Riding around Nica land is alot different from Costa Rica as this is the 2nd poorest country in the western hemisphere and over half the population lives well below poverty. In Costa Rica people generally live like we do in Canada, working to improve there social status and increase there ease of living. In Nicaragua the people work to live, often earning around one dollar a day for 10 hrs of back breaking work in the sweltering sun or trying to work there marketing skills down in the mercado central. People struggle to live here, the kids are constantly begging for money and food, garbage is everywhere and urine flows down the streets as bathrooms are hard to come by. Nicaragua also has some spectacular sites though and is slowly becoming a tourist haven as the cheap prices (1.5 meals, 4 dollar beds), dozens of volcanos, colonial churches and natural reserves is slowly making tourism the second greatest contributor to the economy. Riding a full suspension carbon bike down here gets some looks to say the least and somedays I figure Im in hollywood with all the attention. Today though my ego was taken down a level as a taxi driver swerved in front of me then slammed on his breaks as he tried to make a right hand turn. With no time to react I road into him pretty hard but still managing to stay up right. Pretty choked I went up to the window and said a few words till I realized the guy was over 250 lbs and undoing his seatbelt getting ready to get out. Being a better biker then Sumo wrestler I hopped back on my bike and began riding up the shoulder against the traffic to a more peaceful setting while the large taxi man yelled some unknown spanish words in my direction. Apparently not everyone is friendly in this country and I must try to remeber to and roll within the path of least resistance if I want to stay safe. As for the rest of the ride it was the best ever in Nicaragua. Leaving Granada at 7am I climbed slightly up an old volcano and then decended into the crater lake of Lago Apoyo where I spent the afternoon floating around on tubes and jumping off docks at the Monkey Hut lodge. In the evening I hopped back on the bike and road up Volcan Masaya in the dusk to look into the depths of hell as smoke plummed from its crater. After a false eruption a few years back in which one rock shot out of the Volcano and landed on an Italians car it is now mandatory to back into the parking spaces so people are ready to roll if things heat up. Decending back into Masaya for a nights rest I am preparing for whatever tommorow might bring.

Argentinians and shortcuts

2009-01-14T17:40:00.000-08:00

Riding up the pacific coast of Costa Rica is perfect for a mountain biker with dirt roads, few cars and lots of beach riding and surf towns all over the place. After a few good days in the saddle I came to Tamarindo, Costa Rica's premier beach resort which probably has 7 tourists to each local. After surfing and biking my sunday away I headed to bed at 8 as the next day I had a 10 hr ride to Nicaragua and was hoping to get an early start. All packed and in bed my plan was going well until 9 ramped up Argentinian girls checked into the hostal. Soon enough myself, 2 Swedes and a couple Kiwis were accompanying our new guests down the strip to the local dance club. Being saturday night all the clubs had 3 to 5 $ cover charges and none of us were to keen on bucking up so we hung around outside with the 9 Argentinians dancing on the street to the blaring music. One of the Kiwis must of been a bussinesman as he figured that the clubs should be paying us to go in with our dancing team and soon enough he had coaxed one of the bigger clubs in waiving the cover for our group. Inside the problems started as none of us guys were to great at dancing and next to the Argentinians we probably looked like a bunch of pee wee girls trying to play hockey with the Oilers of the 80's. After about 3 minutes all us guys were dizzy, out of breath and tangled up in our feet but to our relief the music stopped and the light opened up on the stage. Not sure what was coming we were stoked until we realized we were in the drag queen bar. Not cool. None the less the night went on and after 4 hrs of sleep I was on my voyage to Nicaragua. A little behind schedule and not quite 100% I started looking for shortcuts. My National Geographic map showed a couple dirt roads cutting across the Guanacaste land of Costa Rica and linking onto the Panam Highway. The first road ended up being a longcut and probably doubled the time the original route wouldve taken as it climbed up and down steep dirt rutted roads and after 3 hrs I had gone just over 25 km. The second shortcut was about 4 times worse as first I ended up in a remote government camp being told to turn around but after some negotiations one of the members said I could continue on my tour through the Guanacaste agriculture land but the fact he was smiling shouldve been anough to warn me of what was to come in the next 4 hrs. Travelling 24 km across cattle pastures, through 4 locked steal gates and 9 barb wire fences and past one very sketchy house with a dead cow and a broken car outside and one kid running inside I was pretty sketched as it reminded of a scene from Texas chainsaw massacre. Putting whatever power was left in my legs I continued on with two barking dogs putting chase, one with a very bad limp and the other looking drunk and probably full of rabies. They were poor chasers though and I continued on my lost journey eventually coming to a thick clump of trees with a large river. Emerging from the brush onto the riverbank I startled the 40 to 50 costa ricans who were trying to relax there day away. One old man asked with a crazed look across his face "what the heck are you doing kid and where are you going?" Not sure of either answer I put a smirk on my face, saluted the rest of the onlookers and continued on my way to the next town where I found the closest restaurant and then a spot to relax my aching body for the night. Ending up nowhere near Nicaragua and probably having only travelled 70 or 80 km on the day I prayed for no more shortcuts and for at least one night no more Argentinians.

Becoming more Tico

2009-01-06T05:01:00.000-08:00

After a pretty lackluster Christmas the rest of the holidays were top notch as I spent over a week with Ronald and his family in there two homes, one near San Jose city and the other out in the countryside near the pacific ocean. Being fed gourmet Costa Rican cuisine, learning some spanish while speaking to his parents and girlfriend, eating sushi and gelato down at the Super Mall and going on 5 hr rides up into the mtns and down XXX downhills made for a pretty wicked time. Staying with there family was like being home and was the perfect place to stop and rest for a while and prepare for the second half of my journey as I head towards the Transmexicana bike race. On January 4th I bid farewell to my Tico family and left at 9:15 am to catch the 11am ferry in Punta Arenas to crossover to the Nicoya Peninsula. The ride was over 55 km away so time was a factor but Ronald set a nasty pace and took us on a few short cuts through the forest and we arrived at the ferry at 11:00 where I hopped on the boat as it was pulling away. The next two days were spent in the surf village of Mal Pais which is the coolest place in all of Costa Rica. Sweet waves, long beachs, waterfall jumping, tarzan swings, ample food, beach bonfires and the best hostal in the country makes for a pretty wicked set up. After a day of R&R its back on the bike as I head north up the coastal dirt road through a handful of Costa Rican surf towns and onwards to the more primitive Nicaragua.

Merry X Mas

2008-12-28T11:52:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all. My Christmas wish is for none of you to ever drink the tap water in a costal town in Costa Rica. After travelling for over a month in Panama where the tap water is ok to drink I arrived to the beach town of Dominical in Costa Rica on the 22nd and kept drinking the tap water until on the 24th I took the time to look at the water I was drinking and it was full of black floating particles and some other UFO´s (unidentifed floating objects). For Christmas eve and all night I practiced running between my bed and the toilet. Christmas Day was spent in a hammock eating yogurt. Boxing day I woke up feeling much better so I headed for the waves only to come back 2 hours later beat up and probably feeling worse then the previous 2 days as I learned 12 ft waves are lot funner to look at then to play around in. Paddling out through these waves is a task on its own and when you end up on top of one of them, looking down at the sea below you before being pile drived into the bottom I gurantee your heart will skip a beat. After a few surf outings this trip I am starting to think it might be the ultimate cross training for mountain bike racing as it is great excercise for your upper body and it works on your balance and core strength. The layed back relaxed atomosphere is also pretty chill. More then anything though I figure its the perfect way to practice crashing uncontrollably. I think that after getting tossed around in the ocean with a surfboard tide to your leg that crashing on a bike is pretty tame as once you crash thats it, you dont have wave after wave pounding on top of you reminding you that your hurt and a surf board bouncing off your head. Crashing also makes you more flexible and bend in ways you never though possible. After a few days of this I had enough and road up to Quepos and world famous Manual Antonio National Park to meet my good tico friend Ronald who rode from his home in Sant Ana. Arriving in late afternoon was pretty scenic to see the cars lined up along the rode for over a mile and the beach jam packed full of tourists and vactioning Ticos. The national park has 5km of hiking trails through virgin jungle clinging to the cliffs overhanging the ocean and is full of monkeys and other crazy animals. We were up at 5:30am today to beat the rush into the park and we sccidently walked in the exit and had the park to ourselves for over an hour before the tourists hoards arrived at the park opening time of 7. We met a ranger at around 6:55 am who was a little moody and wanted to deport us out of the park but after some negotiations I think we confused him as I spoke in english and Ronald joked around with him in spanish and he decided to let us continue on our journey through the park. After a quick bite to eat it was on the bikes were we are now headed north towards his parents beach home near Orotina.

Sunday Funday

2008-12-21T16:28:00.000-08:00

Disc golf
Waterfall adventure
Shoot papa`s
Tubing
Strawberry splits
Ping pong tourney
Fire
Cheap fireworks

Good bye Map

2008-12-18T08:41:00.000-08:00

The trip up to visit Kat, a young peace corps volunteer from North Carolina got delayed a day as the ride over from Santa Catalina proved to much for a gringo biker and his map. Getting late in the day and not super stoked about biking on the Pan American highway again at night I pulled over to check my map. To my suprise there was a shortcut just 2 km ahead, a nice 23 km paved highway to my destination of Cerro Iglesia. Heading straight up hill I biked for 40 minutes into the night before coming to the small town of Nancito and the end of the road. I looked everywhere only to find deadends, exhausted I finally asked a local and he varified that the highway on my map didnt exist. Almost 2 hrs after dark now, my local friend invited me in for the night and the next day fed me a large breakfast and sent me the right way to Cerro Iglesia. ¡
Spending some time with Kat and seeing the life of a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama was pretty cool. I have met lots of these volunteers but I never imagined they were living in Bamboo huts in the middle of the junlge. The Panamians love there volunteers as they are constantly being helped in various ways whether it be developing new agriculture methods or building a shelter for the rainy season. Yesterday with directions from my friend I headed up into the mountains to a small indeginous village at 6 000 feet where my map showed the road ended, but behind town I noticed one kept going so I rode up it for 4 hrs, over a mtn and then started decending down to the caribean but the day was getting short and I could see the road didnt end anytime soon so I reluctanly turned around. After exploring these mtn roads in the highlands of Panama for the last couple weeks I have come to the conclusion that camping supplies, a GPS and a weeks worth of food would be necessary to explore this frontier properly. As for my map it is now in the hands of a young boy on the side of the highway as it is apparent it will make a better fire starter then the directions in was giving.

Heat

2008-12-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

Panama is somewhat like Costa Rica was before the tourists bombarded the country a few yrs back. Life is laid back here and the tourist scene is just starting to develope in some areas and for now things are the way I imagine they have been for decades. A few days ago I took my bike down a small jeep path over the continental divide and decended into a wild caribean valley. Things were peacful and untouched, the jungle was in once piece, the jeep path was the only contact with the outside world and after 24 kms it turned into a knee deep pile of mud. After hiking with my bike for a 1km I left it and trudged on deeper into the heart of Panama. The locals I saw all stared, most the kids were scared of me and the adults I tried to talk didnt speak a word I knew back to me. At first I figured my spanish had gone to hell and I was getting pretty frustrated but once I made it back to civilization I found out the people I was talking to spoke an indigenous language and only the young kids were taught spanish in school. Returning to the spanish speaking world late in the evening I devoured 6 000 calories of food to get ready for the 150 km ride the next day to the fisherman town of Santa Catalina on the pacific coast. Having seen Santa Catalina on the Panama version of Monopoly I figured I was going to someplace devloped but what I found was a one store town which used a payphone to communicate to the outside world. Throughout the day people would call the payphone form around Panama and whoever was closest would answer the phone and then run around town calling out the persons name for who the call was for. Hardly a Monopoly worthy town, but soon I found out the real reason for the towns popularity was its enormous surf which is famous for being some of the best in Central America. While I was there the swell was small though and the surfers were going snorkeling not surfing. Today I am in the middle of a ride back into the interior to a small mountain town with nothing more than a few thatched houses where I will meet up with an American Peace corps volunteer to tour the area for a day and see more into the primitive lifestyle of the Panamanians. For now its plus 34 and Im off for a little siesta in the shade until the weather is a little better so Im not found melted into the pavement somewhere down the road.

Directions

2008-12-09T06:49:00.000-08:00

After some beach time and working on a nice sunburn for a couple hours yesterday morning I set off riding to the city of Santiago around 1 pm. One thing about rides down in central america is that you can never be sure how long they will take and were they may take you. One of these reasons is there are next to no distance signs on the highways, and the other problem is that people will tell you what they think you want to here instead of the truth, especially when it comes to distances. When its really 30 km to some place, they will tell you 15 km because they want to see you smile. This causes problems for a gringo biker. Around 6 pm last night it was starting to get dark and Santiago city was nowhere in sight. I began asking locals and they suggested it was just 1 hr away. Doable, after another hr of riding it was now completely dark and still no city so I asked again. This time the city was just 30 min away. Alright I though I might as well put my headlamp on and keep going as there was a pretty well known and cheap hostal just outside of Santiago. After another hr of biking, still no city so I asked again. Now it was 45 mins to Santiago. Confused, running out of food and getting tired I started looking for an alternate accomodation for the night but there was nothing but jungle and swamplands so I kept riding. Finally at 10 pm, bonking and half in a coma I rolled into the hostal and passed out in a bed swearing to never listen to local directions again. Today its back into the mountains around Sante Fe to get out of the sweltering heat and more Canadian temps. First off I will buy a map and then start biking with my headphones on so I can no longer listen to local directions.

Mud & Rain

2008-12-05T09:33:00.000-08:00

The ride over the mudslides started a little late as 95% of the boats stopped running between Bocas and the mainland as they were running out of gas. One last boat company still had a bit of fuel so they were running 4 or 5 times a day, whenever they had a full boatload os passengers. Hitting the mainland at 10 am I started the journey and it was smooth for the first 65 km with only 4 or 5 mudslides but after that the road was a disaster. For 15 km acending up to the divide there were streams running across the road, 40-50 mudslides, no road in 3 places and only half a road haning on over the steep mountainside in 2 other places. Lucky for me there were probably over 50 large machinery working on the mudslides and all but the last 2 mudslides had been cleared just wide enough so small 4x4 supply pickups could get through to the desperate civilians on the caribean coast. Three times during the ride, convoys of 20-30 pickups full of supplys would pass by with a polica car escorting them on either end. Being the only other person on the road I received some odd looks. At the end of the day I pulled into the Lost and Found Jungle hostal, a small treehouse type structure in the middle of a cloud forest with feeding stations all over to attract wild animals.

The next 6 days it has rained and I made my way to Boquete a small village of 4000 residents up in the Panamanian mtns. Here is a great place to xc ride through the jungles but I´m starting to morph into an amphibian after being wet for days on end. Usually in central american countries the rural folks hike around with machetes in there hands, but now everyone is packing an umbrella. Another traveller at the hostal I´m staying at has bought 3 of them, but they are a hot commodity and keep vanishing. As a result from the rains, most trails and side roads have been closed due to slides and being washed out. I tried one 12 km trail called the quetzal which passes over a small pass into another village but after the first 4 km I travelled about 350 meters over a jungle mess in the next 1 hr, saw a snake, got scared and peeled back to Boquete. On the way back to town I was chased by a few dogs which is nothing new in central america but these dogs were pretty aggresive. Overtime I have started to notice a trend that the wealthier a country is, the more vicious the dogs get as they are fed regular meals to stay strong. In countries like Nicaragua and Guatemala there are stray dogs everywhere but they´re undernourished and seldom a problem. Not here in Panama or Costa Rica. After many trials and errors I have found the best way to deal with these suckers is to stop, turn around and chase them with my water bottle back into there yard. Works 90% of the time. The other 10% of the dogs are a bit braver and pose more of a problem. Tommorow its off towards a small surf town on the pacific coast for a little warmer weather.

Survivor Panama

2008-11-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

After MIA for 9 months, ctwally.blogspot.com has been found and will stay around for the forseen future.

After racing La Ruta I headed straight to the small caribean village of Puerto Viejo to rest in the comforts of Costa Rica. 4 days later it was off to the islands of Bocas Del Toro Panama where the rains started to come and stuck around for 7 days, causing flooding and chaos which the locals say they have never experienced ever. Bye day 3 both the highways leading to Bocas were shutdown, the main one for 1-3 months after 40 or more mudslides swept over the mountain road, and the other leading to Costa Rica flooded heavy and is down as well. To boot the planes were unable to fly and the internet and phone lines went down leaving the visitors and locals of Bocas stranded. US helicopters have been flying supplies into the more remote regions and a Barge full of diesel is on its way to fuel the towns electricity which is down to its final 3 days of fuel. Not having internet may sound like a minor detail but when the only way to get money out on the island is through 2 internet connected bank machines there is a problem. One Canadian girl had to sell her $350 ipod to a local for $100 so she could pay for a bed to sleep on and some food. When the locals started taking taxis to the grocery stores to load up on food and supplies us visitors started to get a little worried. Yesterday the weather began to improve and now it is only raining 8-10 hrs a day, down from the 23-24 hrs as before.

One thing which this weather has been good for is the surf. The waves have been huge and the locals have been soaking it up. My American friend Reed and I have been out 3 times now and have been pounded like a couple of ptarmigans sitting on an avalanche slope. All the surf spots in Bocas are only reachable by boats, where you will get dropped off in the middle of the ocean and try to arrange a time with the boat captain to pick you up again. A little sketchy when your spanish skills are that of a 2 yr old. Yesterday a large swell came through and I got raggdolled into a reef and eventually washed up on shore where the only way back was a 4 mile hike to town with bloodied feet from the stinging coral. Possibly a sign my surf skills are being overmatched.

Planes are flying again but are backlogged for days due to this being the only acces off the island... unless you have a bike. After a good rest following La Ruta I am getting anxious to get back on the bike as training for next yr will commence Dec 1. Tommorow is the preview, a 140 km ride across mudslides as I will try to reach the pacific via a trek over the abandoned mtn highway.

Trans Mexicana Finale

2008-02-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

The final two stages of the Trans Mexicana were a great challange for all the riders. Stage 5 was highlighted by a huge climb to open the stage, then a 21 km (2200m vertical) downhill and then finally a 5 km hike a bike section down a river canyon. Lupillo and myself went into this section around 10 minutes ahead of 3rd place Travis Macey before quickly being overcome by the Adventure Racer. At the start of the day the race organizers suggested we send a set of running shoes with them to change into at the start of this river section. Lupillo and I figured wed save the effort of chanign shoes and try to travers this section in our carbon fiber cycling shoes which turned out to be funniest home video worthy as we slipped and slid down the canyon while Macey trotted ahead in his hikers. At the highpoint, I was up on the shore tangled up in thorns and jungle vines as I tried to avoid the river and when I looked back i saw Lupillo sliding on his back getting swept downstream with his bike floating ahead of him. Meanwhile Macey was hopping rocks and running like an Indian towards the finish line. Bloodied, cut and completely soaked, Lupillo and I finally crossed the finish line, 7 hrs after we started, with myself coming in 2nd 1:30 behind Macey and Lupillo another 3:30 minutes further behind.

Stage 6

Going into the final stage of the race Lupillo was leading the overall GC by 5:03 over myself and 43:02 over Macey in third. My plan was to use the 1200 m net elvevation loss of the day to my advantage and try and gap Lupillo on the decent and hopefully make up the 5:03 I trailed on him. Quickly gaining a minute advantage just over 2 km into the decent I was ripping until I came around a corner to see a pickup full of Mexicans headed my way. Having not seen a vehicle in the last 30 km of decents in the last couple of days I was a little suprised by this and slammed on my breaks. The truck also slammed on his and drove his front end into the ditch leaving his back end hanging out which I bounced off of and somehow managed to stay upright. Pretty stoked on not becoming a Mexican hood ornament I continued on my decent a little rattled but still determined to make up some more time on Lupillo. Deciding it would be wiser not to cut the switchbacks as sharply I crashed hard on the next corner as I tried to adjust my decending techniques to allow for the possibilty of more trucks. Bloodied and now implanted with gravel I was soon rejoined by Lupillo and Travis at the bottom of the hill with around 23 km to the finish. At 17 km to go I put in a last ditch effort to break away from my two riding partners and quickly managed to gap both of them on a small incline. Riding full tilt with the help of some dog chases I came across the finish line in 2 hrs 47 minutes and then began waiting for the other riders. Lupillo riding with a hole in his knee from a crash on Day 4 was determined to save his overall GC lead and came across the line 4:41 behind myself meening he had saved his race lead by just 22 seconds, enough to claim the $ 2000 first prize and $ 4000 BMW mountain bike. Pretty tired from trashing each other over the last week of riding, Travis and myself tore out of racing clothes and headed for the pacific oceann just 50 m away. Meanwhile Lupillo was being shipped off to the hospital to patch up the hole in his knee and to be told not to touch a bike for at least 3 weeks. With the first version of the Trans Mexicana coming to a close, the 30 riders and 62 support staff celebrated with a Mexican feast and race videos and then we all parted ways to our homes across the globe.

Trans Mexicana Stage 4

2008-02-25T13:27:00.000-08:00

Back online...... After spending the last few days in remote Mexican towns, one of them with just one telephone for the whole town, let alone internet, I am now sitting in Mexico City with my feet high up in the air catching some R & R.

The last 3 days of the TransMexican bike race were full of spectacular crashes, epic climbs and lots of stray dogs along the way to cheer us on.

Stage 4 was a 135 km ride across the Mexican dessert and proved to be an epic adventure as 20 of the 30 competitiors finished after nightfall. Lupillo, Travis and myself pulled away early on in the stage and road strongly until our water bottels became dry in which we then road not so strongly and at one point had to stop for a cry before riding on for a little bit longer to eventually a feed station for 8 gallons of water each. Overall the day was pretty much a full on episode of a looney tunes cartoon show as riders would go in an out of hallucination, some getting dizzy and hiking 1 hr up dead end canyons and others crashing hard (Lupillo) into outcropping rocks and loosing a half pound of flesh. After setting the pace for much of the opening 75 km, Travis Macey would eventually lose contact with Lupillo and myself on one of the long sketchy downhills. We knew wed have to keep up the effort to stay away as Macey an internationally experienced adventure racer is something like the enrgizer bunny and after spending the last week racing across Mexico with him its apparent he doesnt get tired. At km 90 Lupillo put in a strong effort on a steep accent and would gap me by 3 minutes before succumbing to the + 37 c temps and slowing down enough allowing me to pass him and put 5 minutes on him until I became sun fried and crashed into a cacti, flatting my front wheel. After a 5 minute repair i was back on my bike, riding togethar with Lupillo as we headed the last 30 km to the finish were I would gap him by 19 seconds for the stage win. Macey would come in 30 minutes behind, and then Alexy Sokolov (Ukraine) another 45 minutes behind him. After that it was an episode of survior as racers would crawl acroos the line for the the next 7 hrs, well into the Mexican night.

Trans Mexicana Stage 3

2008-02-20T15:35:00.000-08:00

After a puke filled 6 hr bus ride across the Mexican Jungle we arrived in an Eco camp where we spent the night in an auditorium and the 30 racers and 30 support staff had a Mexican snore off. The racers were clearly winning before I vacated the premises to find a small tree to sleep under out in the forest. Today we arrose early for a typical Mexican breakfast of corn tortillas and beans before heading out on the hilly 72 km stage 3 of the race. Lupillo was anxious to trounce the competition over the 2000 m climbing of the day and Travis Macey took off behind him. I was left alone to sweat like a small eskimo in a wood burning pepporini pizza oven as the 35 celsius temps were not being kind to the Canadian. As the day went on my pace slowly picked up as first a pack of dogs put the chase on me then a hoard of turkeys gobbled ferociously as I passed by. By this time we`d been racing for 2 hrs and getting close to the top of the 2970 m pass where the temperature showed some remorse and started to feel a little Canadian. Givin a second chance at life for the day I started biking like a cool Canadian biker and road past Travis at the pass and started down a singletrack decent and then climbed another pass up to 2700 m. Then came the cow dodging part of the day as the road decended 18 km through a farmers pasture and into a desert north of Oaxaca to the finish line where I came in 2nd, 7 minutes behind Lupillo and 10 minutes ahead of Travis. Next came stage 3 part deux, the 30 minute (turn into 1.5 hr) van ride into our hotel in Oaxaca in which our driver weeved between semis going 140 km/hr then playing chicken with a OCC bus before wisley backing off at the last second. My heart rate was maxxing out at 190 bpm and the ride had just started. Next up was the traffic system in the Oaxaca city which goes from normal right hand side of the road driving before switching off to left side British style driving then back and forth and back and forth and pretty soon our driver was stunned like a small child peeing on an electric fence on the farm and drove us out the other side of town before remembering the reason he was driving the van was to take us to a hotel. Next came the part of the game in which we tested out how many crazy Mexican drivers we could cut off at once with a wheel screeching u turn and then spending the next 30 minues working the streets of Oaxaco like a jigsaw puzzle and finally arriving at our hotel for some much needed R&R. Tommorow we start all over again with 120 km ride through the Cactus stands of the Oaxaca desert to our next Camp in San Cristobal Amatlan.

Mexicana Racing

2008-02-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

The last couple weeks through Guatemala was full of swimming through caves, ripping down guatemalan single track, floating through jungle on rubber tubes and finally a 23 hr bus ride to Vera Cruz Mexico. Leaving Guatemala was tough as theres enough adventure there to last a person a lifetime but even tougher to leave behind were the Choco Banonos. Frozen bananas dipped in milk chocolate then rolled in peanuts all for 12 cents. We lived off these, corn tortillas, beans and avocados for the last month. Our spanish was getting pretty good too. Dougs is probably at a 2 yr old level while mine is all the way up to a 3 yr old. Getting to Mexico was quite a drastic change after travelling in the real 3rd world for the last few months. It was alot like getting back to Canada with shopping malls, Costcos, Walmarts and paved streets. We headed straight to the Costco and loaded up on supplies for the real reason we came to Mexico which was to race in the 7 day, 750 km Trans Mexicana mountain bike race from the caribean to the pacific ocean. After biking around with backpacks and panniers for the last 3 500 km it was like having turbo jets on our bikes to not be hauling around all the luggage. On the first stage of the race, 101 km, Doug finished first in the Master category and I came in tied for second in the elites with Travis Macey (Merrel Team racing) behind a homegrown Mexican racer Lupillo Cruz. On stage 2, the longest day of the race (160 km) Doug had some flat dificulties and came in 8th and I was lucky enough to hang onto Travis and the Lupillo (2 time Mexican XC national champion) through the final steep climbs to out sprint them across the soccer field for the win. The small seculded town we finished in probably isnt too use to seeing white boys as Travis, Doug and I had a hoard of kids following us around for the duration of the day. Somehow they coaxed us into a late night soccer game and we got beaten 14 to -2. Not too bad considering they were 12 yr olds. We tried challenging them to a hockey game afterwards but they were scared. As for now we wait for our luggage truck to show up which didnt do so well with gas in its diesel engine. Tommorow was planned to be a 115 km stage through dense jungle but there been some troubles with wild pigs and rutting jaguars so the organizers decided to give us the day off and put us on busses through to the other side.

Guatemalan hippies, lost bikers, and broken bikes

2008-02-04T15:36:00.001-08:00

Doug and I decided to take a day off in the small village of San Marcos along the shores of Lago Atitlan. This day off was weird to say the least as everywhere we looked there were hippies walking around like zombies, no one doing anything that involved moving fast. Pretty much the perfect place to lay low and rest for a day.... we thought. Bored out of our minds by the end of the day we decided to retire to our hotel at 8 pm for a good sleep so we could get out of town asap the next morning to a place that had a pulse. Turns out 8 pm is just the start of the action as a propagandah speech came blaring out of some large speakers somewhere up on the mountainside. For the next hr we lay wide eyed in our beds listening to this blaring noise, then a couple spanish songs were played and finally the racket died down. About 5 minutes later the dogs started barking and didnt stop till morning. And this wasnt just a few dogs, we figure every dog in town got into the action, at somepoints it sounded like there were 30-40 dogs going at it. No sleep that night. Nest morning at daylight we biked 80 km over the highest point on the pan-american highway (3670 m) to the large town of Xela. In this town we found sóme chocobananos for 15 cents. Pretty much the best food Id ever eaten. A semi frozen banana double dipped into milk chocolate. So good we decided to hang around Xela for an extra day so we could eat some more. On our day in Xela we awoke to a deep fog covering the entire town and plus 3 temperatures. Felt alot like Canada for the first time in months. Biking out of the fog we headed 5 kn out of town and climbed Volcan Santa Maria (3860 m). Pretty cool climb and there were around 20 Indigenous Mayans praying on top which added to the ambience. The next day Doug and I left Xela towards the highland village of Nebaj which is situated deep in the highlan mountains far from much anything else. At our meeting point 12 km out of town we missed each other at the crowded intersection which was full of people, cars, markets and dogs. Nonetheless we each ended up biking down opposite roads towards Nebaj. Dougs day was going alright till his bike wheel blew out and my day was going well till my back pannier broke off and jammed into my new wheel. Leaving all my food some clothes and other supplies I couldnt carry with me I packed what I could in my small pack and continued on, falling short of Nebaj by 60 km. The next day I climbed up to Nebaj where I now await for the energy stores to recover enough for the next move. Doug is currently trying to extend his vacation time and change his plane ticket or else hes off to Canada on the 7th.

Guatemala

2008-01-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

A week ago today I left El Salvador in grande style. Crusing along through a small town 5km from the Guatemalan border, enjoying the plus 35 weather, then BANG! Everyone on the street took cover and I came to a screeching halt onto the sidewalk as my rear wheel capsized. The rim must of punctured the tire and as it did punctured the 70 psi in my tire creating something a little louder then a gunshot. Pretty sad for my wheel, but still a little on edge as everyone on the street stared my way I quickly waved down a taxi and got out of town where I then hopscotched three buses and a pickup to Guatemaal city. The next day i met my good friend Doug Hammell who was flying down for a couple weeks of riding, and thankfully had a full supplies of bike equipment including a new wheel. After some recovery time for my bike off we headed for Antigua Guatemala, well known for its spanish schools and for having probably as many gringos as locals. Too us though Antigua was a place to ride our bikes on the hundreds of kms of mountainside trails which the locals use to get to and from there small villages. As far as single track xc riding goes this is probably some of the best on earth although the getting lost factor is fairly substantial as these trails go every which way and sometimes into packs of rabid dogs and into steep dead end gullies. Nonetheless after a few great days of riding it was off to Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano in which people can walk across the open lava fields and cook hot dogs if your American, marshmallows if your Swedish or triple AAA sirloin steaks if you Canadian on the open Lava. The marshmallows burnt the hotdogs were black and our steaks were well done as none of us up there seemed to have a clue how to cook on open lava and for the most part underestimated the heat. The fact our shoes were melting below us probably should have been a good clue. After the lava BBQ we headed back into town were our overcrowded tour bus broke down just outside of town but wouldn{t allow us to get out to walk the last few minutes. Some of the Americans crammed in the back seat began to question the logic of our tour guides who felt it was safe to let us walk across open Lava field not safe to walk on lighted sidewalks 5 minutes to town. Once back in town, Doug and I packed up and left early the next morning for 3 days of touring across the country side through open corn fields, through volcano passes and now we sit on the shores of Lago Atitlan were we rest for tommorow.

El Salvador part deux

2008-01-17T06:04:00.001-08:00

The surfing in El Salvador is unreal. The waves in El Tunco were over 100 yds long and could be ridden for over 25 seconds. I got up on a good one and was feeling pretty good about myself before crashing hard into another gringo surfer. She came out of knowhere and I flipped over her back with my leash clothes lining her neck and then we tumbled into the wave with our leashes and boards entangled in a great mess. A real beautiful scene. It reminded me alot of a hard body check in hockey. The cool thing about El Salvador is that its pretty much unknown on the tourist trail. Here there are 90% locals and 10% tourists surfing while in a place like Costa Rica those numbers are easily flipped. Being a minority in this country also gives us gringo travellers alot of attention and I must say the El Salvadorians treat us like royalty for the most part as they know we are the keys to there future tourist industry. Even the little kids are pretty smart as they always try to hit us whities up for a dollar or two. In the grocery store one kid was being very consistent with his needs for a dollar but he kept asking in spanish so I kept giving him different yogurt containers. Eventually after about a 1 minute and refusing almost every type of yogurt they had on the shelf the little boy finally got annoyed and left me alone. Chalk one up for the gringo! Another thing about El Salvador that makes it alot different from Canada is that all the old folks have machettes here, while in Canada they got canes. In fact I´m pretty sure every kid gets a machette here when he/she graduates from kindergarten instead of the laim little pieces of paper we get back home. Safety wise El Salvador has seemed pretty good. There are two major gangs which cause most the trouble in the country but they generally fight amongst themselves and leave the tourists alone. Opportunisitc crime is definatly an issue though and a guide or police escort is needed to climb most any of the volcanos. As for today there are cloudforests awaiting. Adios

El Salvador

2008-01-11T16:28:00.001-08:00

Francois and I had a great climb up Volcan San Cristobal with a local guide who took us into the the active crater which was spewing sulphur gases from its bottomless pit. The view from the top was alarming to see that everywhere was agriculture and barely any remaing natural forests. Not at all what I imagined of central america. The next day Francois and I split ways and I headed towards El Salavador. biking into one of the largest citys in el salavador at dusk in the wild eastern side of the country where people are not use to seeing gringos was an experience. There were gangs of kids walking around with machettes and pistols, sketchy older dudes yelling gringo and the hotel i was trying to find from my lonely planet book didnt exist. With night falling quickly, and remebering the words of everyone about eastern El Salvador, ¨don´t go out after dark¨ I headed back towards the pan am highway in an effort to find a place for the night. Luckily there were no shortage of hotels near the highway and I checked into a beauty with ac, cable tv, and room service. Today I awoke early and headed 175 km west to a small beach village just past La Libertad in western El Salvador. Here it is much more scenic, less sketchy as there are other gringos around and thers also one of the best surf waves in central america called Punta Roca. Definatly a place to relax for a day or two.

Nicaragua

2008-01-08T11:10:00.000-08:00

As I had a few extra days on the Isle de Ometteppe I took one day to climb Volcan Maderas. This was a pretty intense climb through dense cloudforests with some steep climbing from branch to branch near the top. I decided to hike it alone without a guide and got in some trouble with the local authorities but luckily managed to stay out of jail for now. The next day I cycled the 78 km circumferance of the island and biked through some very remote areas in which everyone stopped and stared as I pedalled by. Everyone greeted me with a large smile and lots wanted to talk so I used my spanish which kinda goes like this, ola (hi), no hable espanol (i dont speak spanish). In the next town, Granada, I picked up some spanish lesson books to try and figure out a few more words. After a couple days in Granada, a colonial city from the 1500´s which is one of the oldest cities in the American continent, I pedalled up to Leon, another colonial city. From here I met Francois, a fellow Canadian and we are now here in Chinandenga waiting to climb Volcan San Cristobal tommorow, the tallest volcano in the country. Nicaragua is a pretty cool country and parts of there citys along the main highways are very similar to citys in Canada with modern malls, movie theaters and mcdonalds. Out in the country is another story though and close to 50% of the population lives below the internationl poverty line. The highways down here showcase the gap between modern and colonial nicaragua perfectly as large semis commonly blow by the native nicaraguan on his horse powered wagon. Adios!

Costa Rica

2008-01-04T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well here I am, not in panama anymore but in nicaragua. I spent the last month and a bit touring around Costa Rica and found it to be one of the most hospitable laid back countries yet. The people live by the slogan "pura vida" which means pure life and no worries. Probably the most carefree people ever, which can cause them to make interesting decisions especially on there windy pot hole highways in which you wonder if these people really care about life when you see cars passing each other on crests of hills and around tight corners. Nonetheless these people truly love each moment of there stress free lives and it shows as they have a longer life expectancy then both Canada and the USA where we have much better knowledge about health and sre much more technologically advanced in our treatments but I guesse this shows just what our typically poor North american diet and stressfull lives do to the vast majority of the population. As for transportation ive been biking from town to town and in most cases this is faster then the buses which stop every 3 ft to pick up passengers and they must be constantly swerve from the numerous ruts and bumps on the road. The biking is great, amazing views, nice weather and its a great way to get in touch with the local people. For anyone thinking about a holiday to Costa Rica is in my mind is one of the worlds greatest vacation destinations. Theres volcanos shooting lava, zip lines throught he cloud forests, endless beaches and great surfing. When my family was down to visit for the holidays my bro and I did some surfing and by the last day we thought we were pretty good so we went to the larger waves which ended in me showing off and doing a great faceplant on my board then getting pounded along the bottom of the ocean and finally coming to the surface bloody and concussed. Two days later was new years in Nicaragua were they had fireworks shooting off from 8 pm till dawn and 10$ all you can drink beach parties. Needless to say I had a pretty good headache for a few days. As for Nicaragua they say this place is like what Costa Rica was in the 80's. Still very cheap, limited tourist infrastructure but with endless potential. The people here are much poorer as well but even with this poverty they say Nicaragua is the safest place in the western hemisphere outside of Canada. As for today I'm with a bunch of stranded travellers on the Isle de Omettepp in the middle of lk Nicaragua as the waves are too large for the boats so I figured i'd let you all know this Wallace is still alive and kicking.

Panama

2007-11-24T18:44:00.000-08:00

Well La ruta 2007 has concluded for this yr so I hit the road and biked down to puerto viejo costa rica to relax for a few days. Found a hostal, rocking J´s, which had 50 tents set up in a barn type structure and another 80 hammocks in another barn along the ocean. Pretty wicked. Spent 5 days there, surfing and eating then hopped on the bike and pedalled down to borcas del torroa island, panama. The biggest difference I notice between canada and panama is that they have banana crossings down here instead of moose crossings. Yah for real, no lie, it scared me at first to see bananas crossing the highway but I guesse its common. My first impression of panama is that its people are mischievous alot like mexicans but at the same time pretty good people. There are also alot of americans down here investing in cheap land. The biking is pretty good, few cars on the highways, although the monkeys have started throughing things at me out of the trees and some crazy sounds come out of the jungle, something like a sasquatch slash rutting elk cross. Food is cheap, i eat bananas. They are all over the road. I ate 14 of them during a 4 hr ride. I am now swinging across pànama on vines. Well I got bananas to eat so until next time.....

La Ruta La Finito

2007-11-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

The fourth and final day of la ruta had a net elevation loss of 1500 m and a 70 km flat section to end the stage. pretty easy right. haha hahha ahh, nope. pretty hard. to start the day we road up a 6 km climb in which i was sitting around 20th near the top. after the first decent i made it into a paceline with 3 other riders (andreas hestler, jason sager, a tico). riding with other riders was key for the day as most the day was on flat gravel roads in which drafting helps alot. after an hour or two of riding in the paceline we hit a railroad track which we had to bike on for 12 km, hiking across trestles with rivers and crocodiles 50 ft below us. pretty sketchy. coming onto the first trestle, the rider ahead of me had a tie break loose from below him, luckily his ass hit the tie behind him, while is feet dangled in the air. we all got scared and quit the race. haha. nope. we actually kept going but i didnt go as fast and got left behind. for the next 25 km i chased hard as the 3 riders ahead of me kept catching up to other riders and soon they had a paceline of 6 riders. the highlight of the day was watching the wheel vehicle that was following the 6 riders ahead of me gettting swept downstream at one of the many river crossings of the day. i got to watch as the water came up to his doors and slowly drifted the crazy tico downstream. lucky for him he got wedged up on a sandbar and was able to back up and reroute to a bridge like the rest of the vehicles. seeing this entertainment put a smile on my face and a bit of extra juice in my legs and soon after this i was able to latch onto the paceline which had 7th-12th place in it and cruise with them for a good hr before coming to the second railroad section of the day. this time on one of the trestle bridges we came across the lead motorbike which had driven straight into a 3 ft gap were one of the ties was missing. 4 ticos were trying to pull his wedged bike out of the hole while the rider looked pretty stunned sitting beside the tracks. unfortunately none of us saw the crash but rumuor has it that it could challange for TSN highlight of the night. right after this i lost contact with the paceline as my bodywent offline an had to put pretty much all my power in making the bike go straight as i was getting dazed, my muscles were scraping whatever fuel was left for them and my mind was on the caribean beach beside us. After riding another 15 km on the tracks we got rerouted into the bush were were biked through countless washouts in the road, some which were 3 ft deep and our bikes were up the the top of the tires in water. with 15 km to go my body came back online and i was able to catch one tico before the finish as I rode in for an 11th place for the day which gave me a 13th overall gc for the 4 days. the finishline was on playa bonita beach, 50 ft from the ocean where i did the only thing i could think of and hopped off my bike and dove straight into the first wave a saw. the greatest finish to a race ever. period.

For the next 5 hours a bunch of us sat around, mowing down the food and watching other riders crawl across the line. I must say that as hard as this race is, it must be 5 times harder for the slower riders that take 10 hrs to finish the stages as they donèt get a chance to relax or eat food all afternoon like some of us. instead they finish at dark, get clean, get one meal in them and then bed before waking up at 4am for the next stage. From what i saw this isènt only the toughest mtn bike race in the world but it is also probably the one with the greatest diversity as we road across every kind of terrain which costa rica could possibly offer us. For anyone interested in an adventure they should check this race out!

La Ruta Days 2 & 3

2007-11-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

Day two began with a small 3 km climb to warm the riders legs up for the 3600 m of climbing, 75 km stage 2. Throughout the day riders rode up on ridges above the sweet costa rican landscape and through small villages were the school kids went crazy. To end the day the organizers put us down a 4 km mud shoot singletrack which was nearly the end of a couple riders. Half way down the decent I slid out on a side hill and fell face first about 1 ft from a 25 ft drop into a gully which was hidden by the dense jungle. Later on in the day another rider wasn´t so lucky and tumbled head first into the drainage. Somehow unhurt, the american rider spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to find a way back onto the trail. After stage 1 this a breeze although my day started with a flat 3 km in which a nail pierced my rear tire. Spending the next 10 minutes fixing the hole, i soon found myself at the complete back of the 550 rider pack. After passing a couple hundred riders, i flatted again, this time having better luck fixing it and then spending the next 4 hours riding my way through the field to finish in 28th.

Stage 3 was a 35 km climb up a volcano before a 30 km decent down the back side. Coming to the top of the climb in 19th i hit the dh which was full of softball size rocks and 1 ft deep mud which proved to scare the living sh*t out of most riders. Canadians have been well known to dominate this dh in the pastt and i figured i better let my breaks go for a while and pretty soon i had blown by 8 riders in less then the first 5 km. Feeling pretty good about myself i soon came around a bend to find 3 cows in the middle of the trail. Pretty sure that the cow would win in a head on collision i head for a mud slide beside the path and somehwat controlably bailed. Now pretty scared sh*tless myself i decided i better slow it down a notch before i became implanted in the next cow. For the next 1 hr i decened solo down to the finish for an 11th place. The highlight of the day came with the chance to pose with the two Clarita water girls and the finish line for a sponsor shoot. Tommorow is the final day of this yrs La Ruta, a 120km coast down to the caribean ocean.

La Ruta de Suffer

2007-11-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

Arriving in san jose costa rica monday afternoon i managed to catch a ride 2 hrs to the small town of Jaco, the start of the 4 day, 360 km, 13 000 m of climbing, La Ruta de Conquistator mtb race. On tuesday I met up with some other riders from alberta and pre rode the first 10 kn of the course..... wow did i ever feel magnificent in the 30 degree, 100 percent humidity. a bit of a change from work last week hiking around in a foot and a half of snow chasing around pine beetles in northern bc. Nonethless the start of the real suffering was less then 24 hrs away so we did the best we could to get some sleep before the 3am arrising and 5 am start today.

4:50 am, the organizers put on a huge firework show before firing the gun and sending the 600 racers from 30 countries into the dawn of another costa rican day. The first 5 km was great, flat, fast gravel and then the suffering began with the first 1000 m climb of the day. This was just a warmup for the 3 900 m of climbing of the day, some on hike a bike donkey paths and not to mention the dozen or so large creek crossings. After crashing hard early on in the race I managed to get in a a decent rythym and passed a few riders before riding solo for the last 3:30 hrs of the day without ever seeing another rider. Between the 4 feed zones I drank 11 bottles of water on the day and probably consumed around 7000 calories. This I found out was not enough as with 10 km to go the legs went to autopilot and my head went to foodland. the legs went there speed and only there speed, which probably wasnt all that fast as a young boy on his grandmas bike pulled up beside me and started smiling. He then got a goofy smirk on his face and took off on his bike ahead of me leaving me in the dust. The fact the boy was 12 yrs old and on a 3 speed bike with a basket made me feel good. On the last decent of the day i started cruising to make up lost time for my legs, all was going well till I lost my back brake and started gaining speed much faster then I would ever want too. With a large switch back coming up i had no choice but to make my own run away lane into the jungle. probably the scariest moment of my life as I tore into the thick vegetation expecting to run into a log and supermaning across into the costa rican jungle, instead though i hit a marsh and gradually came to a hault.... crawling out of the bush and back on the decent i tired to keep speed down with the front breaks and then used what was left of my legs to climb the final 2 km to the finish line where i found out I ended up 17th overall. Today was the hardest day I have ever had on a bike but I guesse that is what marathon biking is all about. Well off to get some eats and small sleep before cracking into stage 2 tommorow.....

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