A dudeman emerges at the Olympics

I can't say enough about Vavra Hradilek's performance in the Olympic qualifer on Sunday morning.  Here's the play-by-play:

For his first run, he arrived at the start just a few seconds before he was scheduled to start, coming off the conveyor and directly onto the course.  He made a small mistake right away, in the first offset, then settled in, and was very solid all the way down on a run where everyone looked a little bit lame.  It was good enough for second.  He gave the brown claw at the finish.

So brown.

What the hell does that mean?  Here's some required reading.

Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Brown

The story of the brown claw

On his second run, he arrived at the start pool early and looked bored as he bided his time.   Then he absolutely smashed the course - he did a crossbow in a move that caused most of the women to spin yesterday - beating all of the first run times even after floating for ~5 seconds to the finish.  Hannes Aigner was more serious, went similarly well, and won the day.  

Bold.

Watch the runs here:


http://www.ctvolympics.ca/videos/channel/obs1/watch/slalom-heats.html

The kayaks have stepped up their game this year, in particular the young Germans, French, and Czechs.  Kauzer and Molmenti look flat by comparison and could easily end up outside the medals, despite having dominated in the last quad.


In other Olympic news, an expected showdown between Martikan and Estanguet lived up to its promise this morning.  Martikan went gold, silver, silver, gold at the last four; Estanguet won the other two.  No one makes it look better.  They are the best of a generation, if not all time, at any discipline.  


Estanguet took it.  Here's his last run (probably his last ever):  


Estanguet in the final, en francais.

The kayaks are only going to find 2-3 seconds on that tomorrow.


The German, Sideris, was just as good and was second, in maybe one of the best races of all time.

Gates at the weir, climbing, and riding bikes all the while

What's happening?  I've been in the mountains a lot.  

Last, last Saturday I went to Lake Louise with Vinnie and Jas and they made me climb up some rocks.  Lake Louise is beautiful and nowhere else can you climb in front of as many Japanese tourists.  I have to agree with Ricky here, though - climbing makes you feel like this.  It's worst if you don't really know what to do with your feet and invariably end up doing an endless series of pull-ups with your fingertips.  This is what I do.  Vinnie is getting good.  Jas walks up climbs that make lesser dudes sound like this - 

Here's Vin, on the hardest route he tried -  

On Sunday, Jas, Vin, Liza, and I put in a big day in k-country.  We started at Barrier, rode the Prairie View / Jewel Pass loop, had a snack at the car, then rode Baldy Pass.  

Baldy is one of my all-time favorites.  No one ever goes there.  It starts with a long climb, then a bomb back to the road.  The first part of the descent is loose, then it's bouldery and technical, then, about halfway down, you can just let go of the brakes and send it.  I got the hole shot and led it out.

Prairie View. 

Mike got permission to put temporary gates up at the weir on Tuesday and everyone went out to paddle for at least a few hours.  A bunch of media people showed up (and not in the usual way, which is to do a story about drowning). 

So good!  Gates at the weir.

If there were permanent gates at the weir, I don't think I'd do much else in the summer.  It's fast, it has good features, and it's right by my house.  The current plan (pending approval) is to put up at least some in the fall.  

Last weekend, I volunteered to do a few laps at 24 Hours of Adrenalin for a team Shane from Ascent Physiotherapy in Canmore put together.  

Dude, those tents are done.

Apparently, a storm blew through CNC on Friday night.  There were huge piles of mangled pop-up tent frames everywhere on Saturday morning and they had to delay the start as they set everything up again.

Mountain bike sprawl, redux.

Once it was going, it was good.  I rode five laps, a little faster than an hour during the day and a little slower at night.  I went for it on the second lap, burned out with a climb to go and lost back any time I gained.  Full coma at the finish line.  After that, I did a better job of pacing, went just as fast, and had way more fun on the course.  That solves that problem...

Everyone on the team - Liza, Shane, Grant, Erdem - was solid and we ended up on the podium.  It was Erdem's first race podium and he was elated.  Super fun!

Running the downtown brown

Let me start by acknowledging that Calgary is a cultural backwater that equates urban planning with more suburbs! and that is cold 8-9 months of the year.


But, BUT!


I live in Inglewood, which was originally downtown Calgary and is on the Bow and Elbow Rivers.  I can ride my bike to work in 10 minutes without crossing a road.  I can paddle to work in 30 minutes (and home in 10).  It's being rapidly gentrified, which means there are lots of home renos happening and new shops and restaurants popping up all the time.  Further, the city has decided that its new wealthy residents require things like stoplights, re-paved bike paths, regular lawn-mowing of the parks, etc... which former residents lived without for decades.

Paddle to work.

It's also home to the weir, now known as Harvie Passage.  The weir used to be a drowning machine, but, over the last few years, they've backfilled behind it and made a whitewater park.  

Harvie Passage, the new weir and my backyard

The last month has brought high water to the Bow in Calgary, so I've been paddling there a lot.  The usual routine is to drive down and run home, then paddle down and go surfing.  Maya swims down to the site, then I ferry her out to the island, which has no other access and serves as a self-declared one-dog off-leash park.


From the picture above, you can see there are two channels.  The river-right (and photo-left) channel has small, flushy drops and big pools between them.  It's great for slalom and for learning to paddle and, at current flows, it has a few really good play features where you can do tricks like this.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=943447338015

There is a pretty big crew out on most weeknights now.

The river-left channel has great surfing waves in the first two drops.  The third drop is not very friendly, especially at high water.  I've run it occasionally in the last month, cleanly until the last time...  

Jon Allen and Jazmyne Denhollander came out a few weeks ago, on their way to Junior Worlds in Wausau, and I offered up a tour of the new site and floorspace to crash on.  Jon and I took a good look at the last drop and I decided to run it.  I ran over a boil on my approach and lost some, speed and when I hit the hole, I stopped like I hit a brick wall.  I cartwheeled fruitlessly for a minute and eventually got out the wet way.  Scheisse.  

The obligatory bootie shoot.

We are all between swims.

Unbeknownst to us, a rafter drowned in the same hole a few hours prior.  As a result, we got some not-so-positive press.

Jon makes the news.

I don't want to rant about this, but use your head.  Water is dangerous.  By dangerous, I mean it can kill you.  In a bathtub or a swimming pool even.  So, before you go swimming, you should learn how to swim.  Don't try to swim across the lake on the same day as the first time you get your toes wet.

The same goes for paddling whitewater and for everything else.  


If your first experience is this

you're liable to break your back.

Dude Man Lube.

Now I've spent a ton of my life riding bikes and one thing that always boggled my mind was the price of chain oil.  A shop will charge like 8-10 dollars for a tiny bottle of this bike-specific lube.  Now I drive a beaut of a car that I have to put oil in from time to time.  So, when I ran out of the real bike lube, I decided to put some motor oil on my bike chain, and it worked just as good, if not better.  Plus it costs like $5 for a liter.  And cheaper just means you have to work less and play more, and that's really what we all want.  Thank you Pennzoil for making such a great product.  A liter of this stuff will last you forever.  Boss!  Dude man don't care.

Summer Time

Well its been a busy last month with a lot going on but not really. so here is some photos from the good times.

After the Red Bull Divide and Conquer Toby stayed for a bit. We wanted to get in some spring skiing it was good but not ideal. on the monday we went for Mt Cheam in Chilliwack and we ended up doing more road building then skiing but what can you do, "if the road ahead is not paved you need to build a new one" and we did thanks to our G3 shovels. My car is the bomb by the way, we drove her right to the snow line.

I'm a pro at shoveling chicken poo and I was very surprised at how well my chicken poo shoveling fitness transferred over.

This is the chute down to spoon lake, great vis, happy June.

Wednesday the sky opened up and we got a great weather window to ski Mt Baker.  Early start and lots of Crowsnest Coffee Company brew were very much needed.

We had to hike for about 45min up the Heliotrope trail but then we hit the goods.

We made it to 9200ft then the wind gusts turned for the worst and we chose to turn around and slay some corn. Awesome day.

Then Melanie and I went to Hood River Oregon to hit up outlet mall and get our shop on......... We shopped for epic singletrack, and we got the goods for sure. Post Canyon is an unreal place to ride, really nice buff trails and tons of flow, there was also a ton of gap huck your meat or what ever you want, oh the good times.

Melanie sporting her Nimby 50 race winners jersey. with the epic view of mt Hood in the background. I think hood river is a very cool place, you could set up shop and do some awesome spring skiing, hood, Adams, and St Helens are all within sight. Crazy.

I Like.

Then last weekend Melanie, Etsell, and I went for the baker again. It way the first sunny weekend in a while and we counted over 50people to reached the summit. We did not. The wind was once again kinda crazy at 9200 and its just not fun, I hate the wind. Im out! so we just skied down and loved life.

Etsell with one of the massive groups going down.

Melanie getting her sun burn on. It was so bright up there, I wore sun glasses and still my eyes were burning.

this is about where we turned around. so cool.

the dream.

One by ten

I haven't used my big chainring yet this year.  And, now that I think about it, I haven't used my little one either.  So, today, I took them off.

One degree of freedom

It's better because it's simpler and cleaner, it's lighter, and it gives you more clearance.  It takes half an hour and it's free.
  
Both of the fastest bike riders I know (and all-around full dudemen) Ricky Federau and Neal Kindree, have been set up this way for quite a while now.  Neal crushed everyone at the Test a few weeks ago and Ricky can tango with the professionals and he's a professional chicken farmer.  That's not to say it's faster - Ricky and Neal (and not their bikes) are faster - but it is sufficient to say it isn't slower.


And there's no downside.  If you're going fast enough to use your big ring, you're probably coasting.  If you're going slow enough to use your little ring, you might as well walk.  


If you use your little ring all the time, I suggest taking up nordic walking or STOP READING RIGHT NOW and just go ride your bike.  Riding your bike will solve all of your bike-related problems and likely some other ones too.


On the other hand, if you don't use it, you don't need it and you'll be better off without.