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!