Rockland Bicycles

Bike to work week is done, and my office managed 100% participation for the whole week. I think that is pretty good for a crew of 13 people. Over the week I modified my route to and from work looking for a more optimal route. I managed to find some good ones out there. Rockland is a fun road to cycle on.

My distance totals are:
Mon: 16 Km
Tues: 17.5 Km
Weds: 18.5 Km
Thurs: 19 Km
Fri: 22 Km
Total: 93 Km

As Jen pointed out newbie cyclists can be a bit of a hazard for vehicles. I know I saw many scary scenarios out there. Things that scared me while riding this week were:

  1. People on those electric bikes that are technically bicycles, but look more like scooters. Most people I have seen drive these things erratically so that nobody knows how to deal with them. I hate these things and think they should be banned from existance.
  2. People opening car doors. This happend at least three times this week where someone was getting into their vehicle and looked down the street to check for traffic, then opened their door right in front of me. Hello? Maybe wait the extra .5 seconds for me to pass safely?
  3. motorcycles. I had at least 2 motorcycles come up right beside me then roar off from the light. Yeah, thanks! Also, to the guy who tried to peel off the line, but actually stalled instead: you rock! 🙂 I hope that your restart followed by mashing the gas and nearly hitting me made up for how inadewuate you are.
  4. 4 way stoppers not following the rules. I know people are trying to be nice to cyclists, but come one. Make eye contact and don’t sit there waiting for me to go. I won’t.
  5. pedestrians not looking for cars or cyclists when crossing side streets. I saw one lady almost get clipped by a car turning right because she didn’t look and practically stepped out in front of it.
  6. trying to overtake me on a sharp downhill corner. To the fucker this morning that tried to pass me as we were approaching the train overpass before the Johnson St bridge: you are a complete moron. The speed limit is 30 Km/H. I was doing 40 Km/H, and you were trying to pass me? What for? So you can get in line on the bridge? Use your head.

Participation Week

Bike to Work Week is upon us again, and there is more pressure than ever to ride every day this week. The office I work in has had 100% participation several years in a row, and has won many prizes because of this.

Sox and I have juggled our daycare drop offs for Sprout to allow me to ride every day. For this week only, while I ride, Sox drives to daycare and does the drop off. She then grabs her bike that was conveniently stashed there on the weekend, and rides to work, so that she can get in her Bike to Work Week ride. Very ingenious of us. It just takes longer to get to work for Sox.

Thanks babe. I appreciate your help in this. The ride this morning was quite pleasant too. Warm weather has descended on Victoria making riding in shorts the standard.

Canmore Bail

Another thing I should mention is that last weekend I decided to not do that Canmore 24 Hours of Adrenaline. There are lots of factors involved in that decision. I haven’t really felt like doing the race for the past few months, so getting myself out to ride always involved guilting myself. That isn’t fun.

A couple of my teammates also had to bail (for other reasons), and they were part of the reason I signed up in the first place. Without them I would have been racing with a bunch of relative strangers, and that is not why I signed up.

I have other vacation plans around the race timeframe, so by not going I can free up more time for camping.

Lastly, by not going I will save probably close to $500 for travel, camping, and racing expenses.

I feel crappy for bailing, but in my heart I know I wasn’t committed to doing the race. I did get out for rides recently though, and that is a good thing.

Life Release

When life gets busy, my hobbies seem to take a back seat. Pretty normal I guess.

Lots has happened in the last couple weeks.

The truck was in for regular maintenance, and to check out a couple noises. One noise cost $800 to repair. The catalytic converter was shot. I had decided to try out Victoria Car Clinic too. As a first experience I was less than thrilled since they didn’t remember I dropped off the truck in the morning, and when I called to see if it would be ready, they panicked and I ended up leaving it with them for another day.

I upgraded this site to the latest Drupal release. Very cool. I worked on the theme today to get it more to my liking.

I’ve ridden to work a few times.

Last weekend some good friends of ours got married. It was a very, very fun wedding, and it also marked the first time I have been hired as a photographer. It was fun being the wedding photog, but I don’t think I want to do that full time.

I also finished with my probation period at my new company. I am now a fully fledged Kodak employee!

Life. Nutshell. That’s it.

Guards Great

I took the Bullit for a spin at the dump today, and it was awesome.

I wore my new leg armour that I ordered after Christmas and that just arrived recently. I got some Troy Lee Designs Combat Guards, and they are so much better than my older TLD leg armour.

It was a bit of a quick burn on the trails, yet it was still a blast. I still have my technical edge, and my fitness is pretty good, so I had quite a bit of confidence on the ride. I did a couple rock faces, and a few small jumps along the way. The sun on my back felt great too.

Movie Choice

Sox and I got out to see a movie last night. Gramma was in town and looked after Sprout while we took off. It is nice to have the freedom to do that.

We saw Spidey 3, and I enjoyed it. Action flick, good effects, characters that I am somewhat familiar with. Downsides were tackyness (gratuitous american flag), bad casting choice with Topher Grace, and overall cheesiness.

As we were leaving I realized my leg was stuck to my seat. Someone before me had stuck their gum to the bottom of the seat, and my jeans stuck to it. I was pretty angry and disgusted with that. Now I have to figure out how to get gum off my pants.