The No Trail Left Behind Act...

thats IT, thats ALL

2011-06-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

I finally got a chance to sort through the thousands of pictures from our trip, and put together a little slide show of some of our favourites. Hope ya'll enjoy.

The Final Countdown

2011-05-09T08:50:00.000-07:00

… And it begins. Today as we left Cambodia for Thailand I couldn’t help think of it as the first step of the journey home. We will be spending the rest of the day traveling to Bangkok. Tomorrow will be filled with somehow fitting all our acquired goods in our packs, followed up with the first of two nights to be slept in an airport, oh joy!

I always find it funny how the end of a journey always comes with some reflection. The thoughts of: if I knew what I know now what would I have done differently, the excitement of seeing friends and family back home, and the uneasiness of returning to the ways of home are just a few of the thoughts racing through my head these days. As we approach Bangkok for the last time, I can’t help but think back to the four of us being dropped off on Khao San Road just a few months ago and think of how fast the time and places have flown by. Traveling this region of the world has been a humbling experience to say the least and it will be sad to have this trip come to an end. Although I can’t help but be a little excited to see what the next adventure brings (let’s hope for lots of single track).

Cambodia is amazing and has been one of our highlights for sure. The country is beautiful, and the people are warm and friendly despite the atrocities committed against them in the not so distant past. Not all the history here is disparaging though. Our last stop in Cambodia has been Siem Reap which is home to
the world heritage site of Angkor Wat. Approx. 2000 years ago the angkorian kings erected hundreds magnificent temples through out the country. The most famous of these temples are Angkor Wat and Angkor Throm.

We spent our days pedaling our way around these ancient temples and ruins. The architecture was absolutely amazing. The fact that its still standing today is a testament to that. Not to mention the attention to detail of the km’s of engravings or the 1000’s of stone carvings. The days were hot, the steps were way steep, but it was worth it to experience Angkor’s magnificent historical footprint.

We choose to bike to and around the temples, but the most popular method of seeing the temples is by tuk tuk, little carriages towed by motor bikes, and they meant business! First off I have never seen so many tuk tuks, they are everywhere and the drivers although more pleasant than in some other places we have been are constantly trying to get you to take a ride with them. The tuk tuks did differ slightly though from the others we have seen. In order to differentiate themselves from each other, most of them have pimp’d there rides. We saw many superheroes themed rides, as well as Ferrari, caterpillar (the insect not the company), and a Che Guevara inspired paint jobs. Who wouldn’t want batman to swoop them home safely after a night of parting…

The night markets and street BBQs were also spectacular. I bought more chop sticks and scarves than you can shake a stick at, as well as countless other useful… souvenirs. As for the BBQ, the chicken and beef kabobs have me stoked to get grilling this summer. The chicken breast massacre wasn’t bad either. At one restaurant I ordered the chicken and got 5 breasts along with the veggies and rice (beached as after that one). The most unique though had to be the cobra. My friend Penny once told me that Q’d rattler had been highly recommended in Utah… although if I had had to skin it and clean it, I’m sure we wouldn’t have eaten our snake either… but that’s another story. For those wondering what the meat was like, it had a unique but chickenish flavor and was extremely chewy. Chewy isn’t a quality I would look for in meat, but it worked in this instance. Overall I’d say I liked the snake meat better than the crocodile stake we tried in Sihanoukville. But, if the opportunity ever arises I wouldn’t shy away from either.

Welcome to Cambodia

2011-04-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

The last week has seen us on the move. After leaving Hoi An we visited Dailats’ bustling markets, were quizzed by locals in Saigon, learned of Cambodians brutal suffering under the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh, and are currently lazing on the beaches surrounding Sihanoukville.

After the relaxed atmosphere in Hoi An we were a little worried that Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city) would be as busy and overwhelming as Hanoi. A full time job of dodging scooters is only so enjoyable. Luckily Saigon, although busy, had a completely unique feel. We spent our few days there strolling around the markets trying on knock off North Face gear and getting our last fill of Vietnamese food. On our last afternoon we were sitting in a park when a large group of locals approached us and started asking questions. It turns out they were university students doing a tourism study for class and working on their English. After a good 2 hours of chatting I can saw we all learned a little something each others respective countries.

A nice and early 6 am bus was our transport across the Vietnam/Cambodia border. Although the border guards weren't concerned with the details of our visas, one Jenjamin Crook-Hanna made it through without incident. A few more hours on the bus and we arrived in Phnom Penh.

On of the first things we noticed about the city was how much more green space was incorporated into city layout than others in recent memory. Although a picturesque place, it is filled with a dark past. I won't go into great detail but basically between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge ruling party of Cambodia of the time performed radical ideological changes on it's citizens and killed anyone that opposed (suspected of opposing) the party.

We visited the infamous S-21 prison which housed/tortured many prisoners during it's 4 years of use. This museum was deeply affecting as the khmer rouge kept detailed records on all the prisoners that went through S-21. And a portrait of every prisoner who passed through these walls was on display in room after room. It was a heavy place and seeing the fear, contempt, and suffering in the eyes of those photos is something that will stay with me for a long time. Of the thousands of prisoner housed here none escaped, only one managed to commit suicide, and only 7 survived (who do you think took thousands of pictures).

We also visited the killing fields of cheug ek. It is located 15 km outside of town and is where the prisoners were taking from S-21 to be killed. The mass graves had been exhumed during the early nineties and on display along with information about the atrocities committed was a monument filled with all the skulls of the victims. It hit home especially hard to know that these belonged to victims in the photos at S-21. A sad reminder of what we as a species are truly capable of.

After moving about so much over the last week we headed south and have parked ourselves at the beaches around an area of Cambodia called Sihanoukville. It's crazy hot, with the warmest water yet. Most jelly fish I have ever seen though, and swims, more like quick dips, are rationed until we’re melting with sweat. It's nice to be living that beach life again before we head home. Our time is winding down fast.

Ps - I don't like to preach but with the election fast approaching please take the time to vote! If your not sure who to vote for this link may help.

...who wouldn't take up smoking after seeing this

To the good life in Hoi An

2011-04-22T00:23:00.000-07:00

Before leaving Hanoi we took a day trip to see Halong Bay, a famous Vietnamese national park which is known for its thousands of islands and limestone cliffs jetting up out of the ocean . The weather wasn’t ideal but the rain held off and although I don’t think many of the sightseers agreed with me, if it wasn’t going to be blue bird i think fog capped mountain are a close second best… maybe I have spent too much time in the misty mountain of the left coast. It was a long day, 3 hour drive each way, but the sights and the fresh seafood lunch more than made up for it. We got to go through a few caves on the tour, some on land and others that we floated through in small boats. The cave we walked through was huge and much different than the one I ventured in back in Vang Vieng. Although both massive, this cave was lighted with all different colored lights which accented all the rock formations(stalactites stalagmites) on the walls and ceilings of the cave. You could also see where you were going and that made it significantly less scary!

With our limited time in Vietnam we decided that our best way to travel from north to south was to get an open tour bus ticket. These tickets allow you work your way from Hanoi to Ho Chi Min City with multiple stops along the way with as much time as you want at each stop. After many glowing recommendations from other travelers we decided our next stop would be Hoi An.

After a long over night bus ride we arrived in Hoi An and that is where we have hung our caps for the last few days. We had high expectations for the place from all the recommendations and it more than lived up to them. The old quarter of town is located along both sides of a river with restaurants, tailors, and markets lining its banks. Especially beautiful at night when all lit up with colored lamps and lanterns.

The main tourist attraction in town is the tailors. There are literally hundreds of shops everywhere that will whip you up tailored suits, shoes, shirts, or anything else cloth related that you can find a picture of and they will have it sewn up within 24 hours. Marilyn and I both have some ball’n new threads to show off when we get home in a few weeks. Although amazing it gets one thinking at the same time. At one of the shops we had some clothing made, we were talking to the girls who ran the store and they were saying that it is standard in Vietnam to work 13 hour days with two days off a month!? It really puts things into perspective of how fortunate we are to have the luxuries and freedoms that we are afforded by living where we do.

On a positive note, we happened across a wonderful restaurant called Streets. The restaurant itself is used as a training facility to teach culinary skills to street kids and the proceeds are used to fund the program. The organization has restaurants in a few locations throughout Vietnam and also a restaurant in New York city. The food was delicious and workers were friendly and helpful. Here is a link to their website if anyone is interested in finding out more about this great organization.

Streets wasn’t the only great food in town. Local specialties included a dish called “White Rose” which was a shrimp rice paper dumpling, and red snapper BBQ’d in a banana leaf. We have been seeing these “whole” grilled fish all trip but we only recently worked up the nerve to try it. We have been missing out but better late than never. After getting passed the sight of it, the fish tasted amazing!

On our first day in town we awoke to pouring rain. After making it to the canal to score some breakfast in a lull from the rain, it started up more than ever and we realized we would have to embrace the rain. We bought some ponchos and put our Island roots to use. What do you do when you have time to kill and there is stormy weather afoot. Yes, that’s right we went bar hopping. With the local fresh draught beer running about 30 cents a glass we had a great day of sipping and shopping while splashing our way around town in our fool proof rain attire.

Mother nature must have approved of our pub crawl because the last few days have been beautiful. Bikes were rented and the 4 km ride to the beach was leisurely sauntered. The beach was lovely, palm trees lined the white sand, and there wasn’t a rock to been seen. Although we have been spoiled with bath water temperature swims during the previous months and realizing it had to be better than the water Andrew went surfing in last week on the north shore, we didn’t waste any time and jumped in and played in the waves. What a treat to be back in the ocean again. Oh yeah and did I mentioned that there were waves. Not very powerful but they did have long boards for rent. I got in a little soul surfing and caught heaps of fun little wave on a 9 foot wave catching machine.

And what might you ask have solidified my love of Hoi An? While out for a bike ride one afternoon, I heard someone call out to us “would you like a trim?” Upon further inspection the shirtless man happened to be a Barbour and had noticed my lovely beard blowing in the breeze and figured I’d like to cool down. It didn’t take much for me to oblige although my response was “take it all off!” For those of you who don’t know, a few of use called every Barbour shop in town before prom trying to find straight razor shaves back in the day. Although glorious and a true bonding experience when you have a perfect stranger hold a razor blade over your face and neck., I don’t think I could work this into my weekly routine. I can assure you that our friend was a true professional and my face was as smooth as the day I was born.

After finishing my face he moved right on the my ears… it hadn’t been discussed as part of the deal but I figured the man knew what he was doing. He popped on his headlamp, grabbed his tools and went deep, and kept showing me any wax he pull out as if to impress me. If anything I was impressed at how little he pulled out… After the ears he went for the comb and we all laughed and decided it wouldn’t be in anyone’s interest for that to happen to my tangled locks.

Dodging Scooters in Hanoi!

2011-04-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Our last non traveling days in Lao were spent in the little town of Nong Khiaw. It was a great place to relax for a few days and we enjoyed some great local food and wonder around the town.

We knew that the Lao and Thai new year was on the 13th but didn't realize that celebrations started early when we rented bikes that fateful morning... water fights are the preferred mode of celebration and in no time we had been soaked from head to toe! Little children were waiting at ever turn with water guns and buckets and took pride in unleashing everything they had at any passages by, especially at tourists. We even supplied the enemy, cute little children, with some weapons and then got out of there before they could put them to use on us.

After putting in some serious time getting to the Vietnam boarder we crossed through with no troubles and didn't have to pay any bribe (everyone we asked about the over land boarders kept mentioning bribes). We spent 3 long days on buses, boats, tuk tuks, and our asses waiting for said transportation devices.

Along our journey we saw a lot of cute puppies, Porno wall tiles I'm a guest room bathroom (decided against that guest house for obvious reasons), and a river side truck/scooter washing party. We were eating lunch on a balcony ogled looking the boarder when we see a guy drive his truck straight into the river. Next thing you know he's stripped down to his undies and is using a bowl to splash water all over his vehicle. A while later our attention was perked up by the sounds of a scooter engine wearing at full blast from the same direction. Now his buddy had his scooter in the action and was spraying water everywhere where while the truck guy was floating downs stream while trying the get his spare tire clean. It was a sight to be seen and kept us entertained while we had lunch. Got to give to give the man credit for using the resources he had on hand though.

Our first stop in Vietnam has been the city of Hanoi and as Dan warned "the traffic is fucking insane" wasn't an under statement! Scooters, cars, and trucks fly by from all directions keeping pedestrians on there toes. The sidewalks are unusable because they are clogged with parked scooters. As there are no complete gaps in traffic the recommended method of crossing the road is to walk slowly across so that traffic can avoid hitting you. Which surprisingly they don't even while refusing to slow down.

There is no shortage of things to do in Hanoi and we have kept busy taking in the sights. Spent an evening walking around the lake taking in all the monuments. We also found a poster shop selling old communist propaganda posters from the war.

We took in a water puppet show at the theatre, which was developed centuries ago by northern Vietnamese rice farmers who would use flooded rice fields as their stages. Then we stumbled across the best ice cream shop. They have tons of sweet combos and flavones and even a sushi ice-cream platter.

We ran into ran into some friends we met from our cooking class and enjoyed some beers at these awesome street stands. The vendors have little stands on the side walks and tiny plastic chairs litter the surrounding sidewalk and street were you can site with a hundred others and drink 13 cent draft beers. Not hooo bad of a way to spend an evening trading travel stories.

Lao Lao circus!

2011-04-09T06:34:00.000-07:00

After leaving Luang Prabang we went south the Vang Vieng, which is a major tourist destination in Laos for mostly the wrong reasons… although one of the most fun stops it’s definitely hard to see the benefits of tourism that exists only because our own countries would never allow it. The draw is tubing 4 km down the river in old tractor tubes, but its the booze, drugs, and music make it just one big crazy party. Picture the pool crawl but with unlimited exhibition rides minus the safety standards(someone supposedly died a few weeks ago on one of the slides). Locals were waiting at the starting bridge handing out shots, and with bars lining both sides of the river every 40 ft or so for the majority of the journey. It’s not hard to see how things can go wrong if you’re not careful. Every bar has rope swings, zip lines, slides, and all sorts of other fun ways off cooling off while waiting for your next drink. Can’t say we have any pictures or videos as I figured getting drunk and tubing all day would be the end of my camera, but I can assure you that the rope swings were intense and I don’t think I have ever bruised my ass before from so many elevated water landings.

Although the town was a zoo, its location was picturesque with the sun setting everyday behind the lime stone cliffs lining the far side of the river. After our day of tubing we decided to rent bicycles to explore the surrounding country side. Only a few minutes from the town you were immersed back into a rural Lao country side with beautiful scenery and plenty of caves and swimming holes to explore.

Marilyn and I attempted to venture into a cave but “the fear” got the better of us and we only made it a few meters into the darkness. Although I did go into a missive cave with some other friends we had met the day before tubing and it was scary but fun. We ended up going for about 20 minutes into an enormous caver before deciding to turn back, couldn’t even venture a guess as to how far back it went.

Another day we hiked up one of the surrounding mountains and were treated with spectacular views of the surrounding country side and surrounding mountains. They didn’t mess around when they cut the trail up the mountain, it went straight up the side and was definitely a good work out, especially in the heat. “the guide book says it takes 30 minutes to the summit, well we’ll take 5 minutes off that…” that quote came to mind after talking to another tourist who had climbed the route, bonus points for anyone who can name what movie that is from.

We are heading north now making our way to the boarder to enter Vietnam. We arrived in Nong Khiaw today and are staying in a little bungalow over looking the river. A change of pace from Vang Vieng to say the least.

We see these things every where and I get such a kick out of them, just trotting along on my mechanical horse…

I guess we’ll never know what the Lao have against the French horn.

Loving Lao!

2011-04-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

We spent two days floating down the Mekong river from the Lao/Thai boarder town of Huay Xai To Luang Prabang. Northern Laos has proven to be absolutely beautiful, as has the town of Luang Prabang. Although a long few days, the boat ride was great. As we had read, if you prepare for 2 long slow days of sitting, watching, and reading you’ll be fine. The weather was nice but much cooler in the north. Pants and sweaters were needed in order to stay warm.

During the boat ride, we met a family from Montreal who have been on the road for 7 months. A mother and father with there 3 children aged 5 -10. There plan is to spend a year traveling around the world. So far they have spend time in Africa, India, and the Middle East. At one point during the trip workers from the boat were boiling water on an open stove a few feet of the children (not to mention the rest of us)… but me and the mother got talking about safety standards and how much of a cultural thing it is. The mother was saying that while they were in India with a particularly aggressive driver, she was trying to get the kids to put there seat belts on. The kids all responded “but mommy, were in India, no one wears seatbelts here!” We were both laughing about how interesting her parenting job will when they back to Canada in few months.

The biggest challenge in Laos so far has been figuring out the currency (kip) as they will generally accept kip, baht, and dollars. Converting between 3 very different money systems is hard on the head to say the least ( $1 ~ 30 BT ~ 8000 kip). Although, it is pretty sweet taking a million dollars out at the ATM.

The top three reasons why Luang Prabang wins are as follows: all the cats we have seen so far still have full tails, they drive on the “right” side of the road, and there is no road side hassling from the street venders! The town is also filled with tons of cool little restaurants, bars, and cafes. We rented bikes and toured around the city. Now that we’re down from the mountains, the days have been scorchers and we found a flyer for a pool/bar in the basket of one of our bikes so that’s where we headed.

The pool was great, with ice cold water and plenty of decks for lounging. Plus they had hammocks and you may or may not know that I have a great affection for hammocks. Not mention the sweet murals and home water slide! The water slide was formed with concrete then lined with tiles to be slippery… it wasn’t that slippery but they get points for ingenuity. All in all a great afternoon of pool side lounging!

The next afternoons bike adventure led us to sketchy market where the piles upon piles of raw meat, flies, and the stench of death left us wanting more… so we hopped back on the bikes and pedaled until we found a bamboo bridge and a swimming hole. Being another hot afternoon we ventured over and took a dip. While across the river we noticed a sign for a bar and decided to grab a drink. And what an interesting drink that turned out to be.

First we followed the path through the neatest garden tunnel, which led to the bar. The place itself was built into a hill and started at the top and stretched out into the tree canopy. It was nice and peaceful and we enjoyed some beers, jenga, battle ships, and Lao fondue. You may assume Lao fondue would be similar to fondue at home as we did and be completely wrong as we were.

The waiter first brought a plate of thinly shaved chicken, basket full of fresh veggies, and a kettle. That’s when we knew we were in for something different. After a few puzzled glances exchanged between Marilyn and I he reappeared with a bucket of coals, a strange looking grill, and some helpful pointers on what we should do. The grill was raised in the center and had a trough all around the bottom (see picture below). First we poured broth around the trough, as it turned out we were making soup! Then we put some pork far at the top of the grill melt so the chicken wouldn’t stick as we cooked it on the grill. Once all the chicken was cooked we started to add the vegetables, garlic, chilies, and eggs. Let that fester for few minutes and then enjoyed a most flavorful and delicious soup!

Our evenings in this idyllic little town have been spent bar hoping along the river side restaurants and browsing around the night market. This market unlike the one mentioned above is filled with beautiful woven clothing, teas, and all sorts of crafty odds and ends. Our bags are once again becoming heavier…

Lastly, we ventured to one of the local attractions today, the Kuang Si water fall which lies about 30 km away from the town. We split a tuk tuk with some other friendly tourist and spent the afternoon enjoying the views and playing in the pools.

Watch out Leo, there are some new Thai chef's in town!

2011-03-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

After our few nights in Bangkok arranging for our Vietnam visas, we headed to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is located in northern Thailand and perfectly located for when we decide to head to Laos. As expected Bangkok kept the senses on over drive with different and exciting sights, smells, and sounds. We visited some cool markets and ate some great food!

Speaking of food, Marilyn and I took a Thai cooking class during our time in change Mai. It was amazingly fun and delicious! We got to make 7 dishes each, and go on a tour of a local market to buy/learn about getting the best/fresh vegetables for the different meals we would be cooking later in the day.

It was amazing to see how a few simple ingredients when used together could produce such amazing flavors! Some of the dishes we cooked were fried rice, panang curry (curry paste was made from scratch), fried banana with coconut toffee, and spring rolls with dipping sauce. The instructors were all great and so were the rest people taking the class (except for the one westerner who thought she knew more about Thai recipes than the instructors...fail) overall a very fun and relaxing environment. Classes ended with a toast, a shot of rice whiskey, and a cook book so some epic Thai feasts may be in order when we get home.

Marilyn and I also spent a day pedaling around the town on some cruiser bikes. We are staying in the old quarters of town which is surrounded by a moat. It was used in the past to protect the villagers from attacks by the Burmese. The moat still remains today as tourist attraction with brick lookouts at each corner. Biking around the old city made for a fun afternoon of exploring.

I know what your all thinking, how could Chiang Mai get any better, its not like they have downhill mountain biking... or wait they do! And after 25 km of steep rocky jungle single track you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. The ride started on top of mount Doi Suthep and ended back in Chiang May with local food and cold drinks waiting at the bottom. Not even a broken chain on our guide Thew’s bike could put a damper on the day. Perdro, another rider, Thew, and myself hooted, hollered, and shredded our way down the mountain. Only stopping to session some fun lines Tew pointed out along the way down the trail.

It sure felt good being back on a DH bike. My last big bike ride ended with a torn rotator cuff and dysfunction thumb. The shoulder felt 100% which is a good sign. I think all the swimming we have been doing the last few months paid off as it was still slightly bothering me before we left. Put me in the game coach, I'm ready for biking season!

Don’t Let Your Guard Down in Thailand!

2011-03-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

So the last 24hr hours of travel haven’t been the best… that’s for true! Upon arriving back in Bangkok at 6 a.m after hours of travel only to realized that you have been robbed is hard to accept when your sleep deprived. Yet, after catching up on sleep we had to accept it wasn’t just a some bad dream. The journey started off many hours before while hectically waiting to board a ferry in the pouring rain along with hundreds of other tourists leaving Ko Pha-Ngan. Along with most of my stuff we got soaked, and sitting in wet denim for the next 4 hours was less than enjoyable! Upon getting off the boat hundreds of tourist were being herded like sheep on to waiting buses. We witnesses one girl ask a question only to have an irrelevant reply yelled at her from a bull horn from less than 2 feet from away. Once on the bus our driver proceeded to drive erratically and make a pit stop to grab himself some a coke. He also didn’t mind keeping the stereo at full blast.

That is until he got pulled over by the cops, then the beats were turned off for the full hour we sat waiting on the side of the road. After seemingly nothing happening we were back on the road. A few more hours of waiting and confusion at another bus stop we finally got on a bus headed to Bangkok. With a nice and early 6 a.m arrival in Bangkok our fist order of business was to find a guesthouse to get some rest. With the kicker being it wasn’t until we went to pay for our room that we realized that some time during the over night bus ride Marilyn and I had all our money stolen. Its been the first time one the trip that I’ve just felt utterly helpless when faced with a situation. I can’t say that just wanting to be home at that moment didn’t cross our minds.

When looking back at it I guess we got to comfortable in Bali and let our guard down a little too much (although our bags were never more that 6 in away for us) for a Thailand bus journey. All in all, it could have been a lot worse as they only took cash. They were kind enough to leave passports, electronics, and a few 1 and 5 dollar US bills that I guess weren’t worth their time. As they say...

After getting that rant of my chest, I get write about the good times we had leading up to that terrible journey from Ko Pha-Ngan. Upon arriving in Phuket, from Bali, last week we managed to travel from the air port to Ko Pha-Ngan in a little over 24 hours. Although long, this trip was much better when you consider the lack of rain and theft involved. We were heading to Ko Pha-Ngan for the full moon party that took place on the 19th. It was definitely a wild few days! We were on the reserved plan and mostly just observed the ridiculously alcohol fueled circus that took place leading up to and during the party. The darwin award would have had to have gone to the guys trying to skip rope a flaming 20 ft span of rope… lots of people covered in bandages the next day… if they made if off the beach.

The moon did not disappoint and was full and beautiful. Alice brought to my attention the fact that it was a “super moon” larger than usual and very rare. Although not beautiful itself, dancing until dawn with thousands of other people was a fun time! What also made for a great time was catching up with Devin and Peter from home who are traveling around this part of the world and we managed to meet up with. Was great to see you boys and hope we get to meet up on the road again.

One last sad bit of news is that we parted ways with Rob and Kate as Marilyn and I needed to get our Visas for Vietnam. The crew has officially been split, although we hope to meet up for a day in Chain Mai. We just wanted to say that it was a pleasure to travel with you guys and we look forward to sharing these memories for a life time!

ps - I have been sucking with carrying my camera lately so all the images are borrowed from Peaty, Marilyn, Kate, and Rob.

till we meet again, Bali!

2011-03-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

This is a sad post as it will be the last on Bali. We are currently on a plane heading back to Thailand. Since the last post we spent some time on the Gili Islands, as well as back in Kuta. The Gili Islands, there are three, are a small group of islands just of the coast of Bali’s neighbor Lombok. And, as seems to be tradition with any of the islands we have been (live on…) it was beautiful. Not as quiet as Nusa Lembongan, but the beaches were beautiful and plentiful. We stayed on Gili T which is the biggest… takes about a half hour to bike around the whole island. There are no cars or scooters which was a treat that wasn’t as apparent until we arrived back in Kuta where the side walk acts as scooter lane for drivers wanting to go the wrong way on one ways streets. Foot, horse, and the trusty bicycle are only form of transportation on these tiny islands. We took in some great snorkeling, became experts at avoiding drug dealers, “rent bicycle?” followed up with “smoke weed, magic mushrooms?”, and became fans of the free range beach goats.

After a bumpy boat ride back to Bali (think being on poox’s dingy on a wavy day for 2.5 hours), my first stop in Kuta was to hit up Warung Indonesia for some nasi goring (fried rice). I have eaten it daily during our month in Indo and although I enjoyed them all, Warung Indonesia was the tastiest by a long shot! While in Kuta we spent time working on our sunburns and I got in one great surf session in! I learned that duck diving a short board actually works. Although once out the back its much harder to surf in… may have done a face grind along the nose of the board on multiple occasions. We also got to brush up on our bartering skills doing some shopping, my bag is way to heavy at the moment filled with gifts for ya‘ll!

The highlight of recent times was the guided mountain bike trip that Rob and I signed up for. The day started with a 2 hour shuttle from our hotel up into the mountains. Followed by one of my strangest rides to date. Not that is wasn’t great, truly amazing, if I had to sum it up it would be half adventure race, with ¼ frogger style chicken, dogs, goats, and children dodging, and ¼ river dancing. Although the lead guide was a bit of a punter, he would slow down on some of the fun sections of trail or if couldn't ride a section he would just stop in the middle of the trail assuming on one else could ride it. The tail guide on the hand was sweet. He would just chill at the back of the group with a big smile, and on some of the pavement sections we got to chat. He has only been riding for about a year but you could tell that he was hooked on riding, which was awesome to see. Along on the ride with us was two other riders, Andrus from Germany and Matt from Australia.

Some of the terrain we covered in the 40 km ride is as follows: pavement, fireroads, sand, concrete single track, perfect single track, shoulder deep trenches, rocks, roots, streams, and some hike-a-bike thrown in for good measure. It down poured on and off during the ride and sections of the trail turned into rivers. Although not a fan of getting wet, once its over with riding in the rain is one of my favorites. All in all it was a great day on the bicycles and one I will never forget. When talking about the ride after rob and I both figured that Bill Duces would have loved it... a jungle version of the ride we did in north Conway where had to wade through a beaver pond.

One other highlight of the ride was all the children in the villages waving and shouting “hello, hello” as we passed by.

Lastly, our thoughts go out to all those affected by the ongoing tragedy unfolding in Japan!

Happy Nyepi Day, to you!

2011-03-09T05:33:00.000-08:00

The last few days have been spent on the Island of Nusa Lembongan. This island has been the highlight of the trip for sure this far! Quiet and peaceful villages are located throughout the islands (there’s another tiny island attached by is bridge). We spent our days biking, scootering, swimming, and snorkeling around the beautiful white sand cove beaches of the islands.

Although not surf season there were still strong swell and currents pounding into the rocky coastline and reefs dotting the island.

After a foiled attempt to book a snorkeling tour with a local who had began hassling since dawn (tried to take us on a shady boat without lifejackets). We decided to take matters into our own hands and rented scooters to explore the islands. Marilyn and I headed to mangrove point and hired a boat to take us to the reef for a great snorkel. The tour driver also showed me a tip for keeping my goggles from fogging up. What is it you may ask, well it was Johnson & Johnson’s baby shampoo rubbed on the lens's.

After the snorkeling we headed over to the other island and while looking at our map were befriended by Donnie who as it was Sunday said he had nothing better to do and showed us some amazing view points of the islands beaches and neighboring islands. We ate lunch with our new friend then headed to dream beach for a swim and some sun. All in all a great day!

Another highlight of our time there was that we happened to be on the island for Nyepi (Hindu New Year). As Lembogan is considered part of Bali where Hinduism is the major religion, major celebrations were had. March 4th is celebrated with a parade of floats of demons and gods along with music and chanting. It was truly a sight to been seen and all the tourist were welcomed by the locals to watch and enjoy the festivities.

March the 5th on he other hand is a day of rest and tourists are not aloud to leave their hotel for the entire day. We had to stock up on food as our guest house didn't have a restaurant. A neighboring lady took pity on us and feed us some fried rice which was a nice change of pace from the oreos and chips we had stockpiled. What we didn’t know was that the power was also turned off for 24 hours. The hotel was nice enough to drop off some candles before dark. The parade was worth it, and it was nice to give our sun burnt bodies a rest from the sun for a day.

We are off to the Gili Islands next and have heard nothing but great things.

On the road again

2011-03-04T01:19:00.000-08:00

We have discovered that the best way to travel around Bali is to hire a driver for a day trip to places around where we want to go next. Then get the driver to drop us off at that town at the end of the tour. It has been great and is usually almost the same price as just transportation to said town and you get to see a bunch of local temples or other great/not so great sights. The last few days have been around Ubud/Lovina and these are some of the highlights.

The rice terraces are absolutely amazing! They are everywhere and are the most gorges different shades of green. We spent some time getting to walk through one and it was like following a maze along each terrace. You had to be always looking ahead for the best line if you want to get anywhere.

One surprise stop was to a small coffee plantation. We got to see it grown, roasted, and grinded. They let us try a bunch of the different types. I’m no coffee person, but they were all great. I picked up some of to take back home with me, maybe some lucky readers will get to try some. This particular plantation specialized in Luwak coffee. Which is where an animal eats the beans then shits them out, then the poop is collected and its processed into what they say is the most expensive coffee on the market. Didn’t try any but did get to learn all about their poop.

We rented bikes one day and biked around Ubud. We found a designated monkey forest and saw monkeys doing all kinds of things! Ubud is also known for its artistic scene and there are galleries for all types of art and artists ever where you look. While they all seemed nice it was the Art Zoo that stood out. This place was mixture of modern art in all mediums. There were paintings, wood carvings, and metal works all mixed and matched and filled an entire warehouse/studio.

We traveled to Lovina with promises of dolphins and snorkeling... On the drive we stopped at a beautiful temple/garden at Lake Burtan. We made one more stop at a ancient hot springs. The volcano heated water flowed out from stone carved fountains. It was the perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Lovina itself was a nice quiet place. Not much going on, but a beautiful swimming pool all to ourselves and delicious fresh sea food with live music (a blink 182 cover was heard) more than made up for the lack of entertainment.

Another highlight was when rob and I found ourselves in the middle of a soccer match with a group of locals. This kind friendly group more than made up for the few hassling you at every moment to take a dolphin tour...

When we eventually relented and signed up for a trip, we were told to meet at the dock for 6 am. After sitting around for close to an hour we got on the boat. As we were making our way through the beach brake the engine kept cutting out, sending water from the breaking waves all over us and the boat. The drivers rutter was broken and he had to steer with a paddle I was instructed it was my job to bail water out the boat since he was busy steering. While seeing a few fins and jumps from the water was nice, baling water from the sketchiest boat I have ever been on is not an ideal way to start the day. The only thing that salvaged my morning was a delicious banana pancake and Ginger tea with coconut milk.

We are currently on our way to Sanur to catch a ferry to Nusa Lambogan. So far the driver hasn't spoken to us and has been smoking like a chimney. All while coughing up a lung and blasting the club beats. Although I can't judge him to much because I'm listening to Prety Lights... it's just that I like my taste in electronic music better.

Its a bird, its a plane, its Mozza!

2011-02-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

“it didn’t look this high from down there…”

2011-02-24T22:56:00.000-08:00

We have been in Bali for about the last week now and I can’t get enough of this place. It is just one of those places that feels right… ahem Whistler cough cough. When have spent all our time so far in Kuta, and weren't sure what to expect as a few people we met in Thailand didn't have the best things to say about the place. Nothing is perfect though,and the downsides include the visible poverty and garbage all over the beach and ocean. But, you can just feel something unique about the place and the people that is refreshing. The town is thriving with people but around every corner is beautiful architecture and cultural traditions.

The food is also delectable! Hands down the best fired rice I have ever eaten… and it comes in a pyramid shape. How ball’n is that?

The posts haven’t been flowing because up until today the only thing I have been doing is surfing. And, although it is great, writing about getting owned by the Indian Ocean can only be described in so many ways. We are heading to the northern part of the island tomorrow and today Marilyn and I managed to check something off the list we were hoping to do before leaving town. What was it you may ask? The following pictures should fill you in.

The bungee jumping was amazing! I had perma-smile for the rest of the day. Marilyn did two jumps and I did three. We were both in agreement that the first was our favorite. Simply freefalling by your ankles was scary as, but it felt unlike anything else I have ever felt. The other jumps were fun too! Thanks to rob and Kate for the pics.

As for the surfing, it has been perfect for me this last week. 2 to 4 ft set waves at high tide each day. It's been nice to get some consistent surfing in as I usually only get out a few times a season. I have already noticed I have gotten a lot stronger at paddling. Although it hasn’t been all fun and games, sand on the board wax did a number on my chest. When I asked Lully for advise as he has experience surfing in boardies this is the response I got "as for the nipple chafe, keep your tits off the board mate! arch that back, tighten up your ass and quit being a pussy" thanks for the advise buddy, you’ll be glad to know I just used a rashgaurd...

I wasn't the only one getting my surf on. The rest of the crew took lessons and all caught some sweet rides. Rob stood up on his first wave!

Marilyns instructor bobby was quite a unit. A true soul surfer, in his sixties with long silver locks halfway down his back. If she was having trouble, usually because of the size of the waves he was taking her in, he would say control your emotions and then take her in to shore to stretch. Nice enough guy, but he won't be getting a teacher of the year award any time soon.

and back to some Mountain Bike related content!

2011-02-17T08:09:00.000-08:00

This post comes to you from the uneventful sleepless boredom of the Phuket airport. Its almost 2 am and I have about 4 more hours to kill before our flight leaves for Bali. I have a strange habit that I have developed over the last few years of staying up all night before any early morning flights so that I pass out once I’m on the plane. Also, I usually fly alone and don’t trust myself to wake up if left to my own devices. During my random roamings of airports I always find myself amused by the fact during times of travel basic survival instincts kick in and people just make due with what surroundings they have available to them. It’s not uncommon to see people of any age curled up with all the their belongings on the nearest bench, chair, or floor. There are currently 11 people within eye sight doing just that, and as you can see below my travel partners are no exceptions. And, other than the one ass-hat who was playing acoustic guitar and singing out loud until a half hour ago, I find people are generally very respectful of the other travelers around them.

Enough late night philosophical ramblings and onto the enjoyable times that have been had in Phuket Town. We have spent the last few days in the area venturing out to the surrounding malls and beaches during the days and strolling through the various stores, restaurants, and markets in the town during the evenings. One evening while out strolling around Rob mentioned that he had seen a nice mountain bike sitting in a shop near our guest house. Rob showed me his shop and with my non-existent Thai and the shop owners limited English we established that it was his bike and he was a mountain biker. I decided to go get my laptop and show him some sections from the Life Cycles, bike video, film. He called over another guy and they watched some of the movie. They were clearly stoked on the movie and tried to ask me a bunch of questions about biking. It was established that I was to meet back at this store at 5 pm the next day to go for a ride. Upon arriving at the shop I was lent a sweet titanium Airbourn bike to use and Sethup, Nue, and myself headed off to the trail head. It was about a 15 min ride out of the city to get to the trails. The trails were super fun which consisted of short climbs and steep little descents on a mixture of rolling single track and double track. The most technical section of the ride was probably the roadways to and from the trails, weaving in and around cars and scooters as we were going just as fast in the thick congestion of city traffic… doesn’t help that they drive on the wrong side of the road (to us that is, as it is right to them…).

I ended up going on two rides with these guys and had a blast. They had a sweet riding scene and from what I gathered about 10 to 15 guys ride at the local trails every evening. It was a pretty surreal experience to be sighting on the hill overlooking the town with a bunch of guys all speaking a different language, with the sun setting in the background, and everyone smiling ear to ear from a great evening of riding. Seeing how excited these guys were about riding reminds me of why I love riding so much. It doesn’t matter if you have world class trails, the newest/nicest bikes available (bikes ranged from ancient to top of line), or even speak the same language, just to share the riding experience with a group of riders so happy to be out riding their bikes reminds me of why I will be riding a bike as long as my body is able. Another amazing journey the bicycles has taken me on.

A slightly more random journey began after our second ride. Nue told me to meet him that night at 11 to show me something about a mountain bike race that had happened in the region over the weekend. Rob and I show up at 11. He points to a moped parked at the curb and gestures towards it. Rob and I looked at each other as if too say “can all 3 of us fit on this think without dieing?” He just jumps on an fires it up. Hesitantly we climbed aboard. Although the drive was short, the real surprise was when we when we walked through the back entry of our destination. He had mentioned that we would be going to his work… what he didn’t mention was that he worked at the Pink Lady Café. There are skimpily dressed thai girls on stage singing karaoke and walking around serving drinks. Another quick mind meld with Rob and I know we were both thinking the same thing, what the hell have we gotten ourselves into! Once we reached his office away from all the hubbub and were just chilling looking at bike videos and looking at race pictures it was easy to forget that it was all taking place in one of strangest places I have ever been.

As Phuket is known for its beaches you may be asking yourself, “what about the boat times?”, they were swell to say the least. Marilyn and I spent one day at Surin beach where I went wakeboarding and we both went tubing. They were both spectacular! With the driver doing his best to ensure maximum wipeout carnage. Great times were had, with one of use skimming across the water at all times.

While tubing we noticed much less crowed beach one cove over from where we were set up and made a mental note to visit it the next day. Lets just say that our journey to this beach was not by the most direct route. After an hour of climbing over rocky coastline, and escaping the hour hike back out by sneaking into a luxury resort, we got to enjoy their pristine private beach… somewhat salvaging our lengthy journey to find it.

In Phuket Town I also had the pleasure of meeting up with a friend of mine, who I got to know during my trip to Brasil a few months ago for my cousins wedding. He happened to be traveling though this area and we managed to meet up for a few beers and it was great to catch up in such an unsuspecting place. Safe travels and hope you and Steph have a blast in CR.

So I have managed to kill about 2 hours and 2 rounds of the new Arcade Fire album “the suburbs”. Now for a few more rounds of “the suburbs” and back to the book that kept this blog from being written yesterday…

Lemonchiken tell ya!

2011-02-08T21:18:00.000-08:00

We have been keeping ourselves busy on Phi Phi Island as of late. The other day we rented kayaks and paddled to two different beaches. As most of the cove beaches can only be reached by boat they tend to be much less crowded. The first beach we arrived at was called monkey beach, and had the most beautiful white sand I have ever seen. After a rest and a quick dip to cool off, we all got cooked by the sun in our kayaks, we made our way to a private beach a little ways up the coast. This place was truly amazing! White sand, crystal blue water, rock islands, live reefs, loads of tropical fish, and best of all only a handful of other people to share it with. That brings me to the snorkeling, my father has always been a big proponent of the snorkeling while I never paid much attention. I picked up a cheap snorkel back in Ao Nang to see if I liked it or not. The mask leaked like a sieve and didn’t inspire confidence but being in that cove you could see the reef just waiting to be explored. That evening I picked up some proper gear, and plan to head back to that place in the next few days. All I have to say is that Mr. Paul was right all along… first for everything.

For those avid kayakers out there, the paddling was really awesome. The water was always some beautiful shade of blue and we were paddling beside these huge lime stone cliffs. The cliffs look like walls of rock that just climb into the sky. At the water level there were all kinds of over hanging sections and cave/inlets which were cool to see. Although the setting was perfect, the boats did leave a little to be desired. They were the open seated and would get quite heavy as the water splashed in with our inexperienced paddling skills. All in all, a great day out on the water.

Everyone we talked to has mentioned that Maya Beach was a must see. Not only is it amazingly beautiful, it is the bay where the movie “the beach” was filmed. Although crowded, you could tell this place was special. A small opening between massif lime stone cliffs leads into a big crystal clear bay with cliffs on 3 sides and a white sand beach on the other. Although still considered to be part of Phi Phi Island, it is a satellite island just south of where we are staying that is a national park and is uninhabited. It was also the first time I got to try out my new snorkeling gear. A five minute walk away took you to another much smaller cove that was filled with reef and all kinds of fish. If felt surreal, Marilyn and I floated within schools of fish, just like watching blue planet.

Back home a “chicken-man” would refer to chicken burger. We I think I have found the “Thailand chicken-man”. Although the open pit BBQ chicken satays are to die for! The true hero of our story is the specific street vender himself. The first time I went to his stand I didn’t even get anything because he ignored me. On another visit, which was successful I might add, while he was grilling my meat these two ladies were enquiring about his corn on the cob. “Do you heat these up on the grill,” she asked. He looks right at her, looks back at me and hands me my chicken-man. He then proceeds to take my 20 baht and walks across the street and buys a beer, still without responding this woman’s question. I have to say, I like this guys style, he’s not rude per say, he just lets you know your on his time and lets his Q’in do the talking. Once you try it, you will be back(usually has a big line up). I would get a picture of his stand but he is way to intimidating. Long live delicious street meat!

Drew whip'n his way to the win

The last few nights have been late ones, but not for the usual reasons. A buddy of ours from Turo, Drew Bezanson was competing in a BMX competition, Simpel Sessions, in Estonia. It’s an international competition and is streamed live over the internet. As it is the first major pro contest every season, riders from all over the world go to show what they learned in the off season. Drew won this comp last year so Rob and I weren’t about to miss out on the live action. We managed to watch the first few finals heats at a café but because of the time zones the place was closed before the last two heats. We managed to pick up a internet connection in some allay and watched the finals in the entryway of a random guest house. The riding was amazing just check out the highlight footage below. Just wanted to congratulate Drew for the repeat win, you are truly an animal!

Drew Edit

Drew Finals Runs

Buckets of Jungle Fever

2011-02-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Koh Phi Phi a few days ago and I’m still not sure how I feel about this place. It has some of the most beautiful beach/views I have ever seen, but once in the water rocks and coral cut your feet and stub your toes. Not to mention the never ending frat party in the middle of town. Partying seems to be what most people on this island are looking for. Every evening all the shop keepers set up their buckets stands, while all the bars have people passing out flyers advertising their 2 or 3 for 1 buckets. A bucket consists of a sand castle pail, a pint of vodka or whisky, a can of coke, and a red bull… as you can probably guess these things are bad news. A few of these buckets got the better of me the other night and I can assure you it wasn’t Marilyn who puked all over our guest house room. I had been warned about these buckets by friends who had been to this region before, but what can I say guess I just had to learn the hard way.

Now after a day of recovery, Rob and I decided to go do a little exploring around the island this morning. We hiked up to some view points overlooking the town and out over both bays. It was a nice sunny day and made for killer views. The only downside was the liters of sweat pouring off us as we walked. After eventually reaching the highest view point we spotted a little path heading into the jungle. This eventually lead to an amazing unmarked lookout over the ocean. After some major bush whacking we managed to come out at a beach resort on the opposite side of the island. We were very relieved to notice that there was a marked path back to our town. As there are no cars on the island there are path ways every where. These vary from single lane coble stone or cement to single file dirt paths. It makes for fun exploring. We were both pretty cooked after our adventure and figured from the few marked signs that we did see that we coved close to 8 km. We spotted some more paths that we plan to explore in the coming days.

(photo credit to one R. Wickstrom)

We have been eating a ton of Thai food and I have to say that my new favorite dish is Panang curry. It’s a peanut flavored sauce with a hint of coconut and has a decent amount of spice to it. Next time anyone is looking for their Thai food fix look for this item on leo’s menu.

The other night we had our first room incident. After battling a 3in cockroach in the bathroom we got some tape to seal off the bathroom door while we slept… it apparently wasn’t needed as only a few minutes after going to bed I felt something crawling on me. I managed to knock it off and flicked on the light to see a strange red spider on the floor. Luckily he had met his maker on the fall to the ground. Needless to say we didn’t have most peaceful sleep for the rest of that night. First thing the next morning we found a new guest house which is much nicer for about a 1$ more a night. Can you guess which picture is of the insect petting zoo room…

We have also booked the next leg of our journey. We are flying out of Phuket to Bali on the 16th of this month. I’m getting super excited as Bali comes highly recommended from several friends, and they have surf. Can’t wait to get my surf on without being wrapped head to toe in 6 mm of neoprene.

Beach Bums?

2011-01-30T02:07:00.000-08:00

Looking back through our pictures I was reminded of this cool little bar Marilyn and I went to on our last night in Krabi town named FU Bar II. It had a very chill vibe which wasn’t surprising as it had the reggae beats pumping. The bar itself seeded to be build out of drift wood and had plants and art work everywhere, a very rustic feel. We grabbed some beers and headed for a section of the bar that had these little tables and mats so you would sit on the floor. Each table had different games or puzzles to play with. We played some jenga which was followed by a few rounds of connect 4. Marilyn prevailed in the best of 3 series in connect 4 and may or may not have been the one to toppled the jenga tower…it was at level 30 so we were both winners in my books.

We have spent the last few days in the little tourist beach town of Ao Nang. We managed to quickly snag a guest house as we were all keen to hit the beach. The main beach is only a 5 minute walk down the main street. On the short walk you pass all the shops, selling their knock off ray ban sunglasses and quick silver surf shorts, as well as many restaurants and other guest houses. The main beach is nice enough but there are lot of boats always coming and going and quite a few people around. The water is amazing and feels like bath water! After working on our tans, aka getting burnt, we headed back to our room. We were quite tired from the sun so we had a pretty low key evening. Upon waking up in the morning my travel companions were certain we wouldn’t be staying another night in that guest house. Although the sink leaked, there was a hole in the ceiling, the beds bent your spine, and the widow had been blacked out as it faced a brick wall less then a foot away… but I’m grouchy and lazy in the morning and didn’t feel a move was necessary. Yet as I type this from the comfort of our new room I assure you how wrong I was!

Rob had spotted a path at the end of the lagoon the previous day so we decided we would go for a hike and see where it led. Before you got on the path you had to go over a little boardwalk where all these wild monkeys would come because people would feed them and take pictures. Although they were cute I won’t be letting wild monkeys climb all over me… I guess most people didn’t get that memo. The path was a relatively short but steep path up, over, and down a lime stone bluff to a beautiful beach that had a few luxury hotels located on it. This was a much more isolated as anyone staying there would have had to take a boat or hike a jungle path to reach this area.

The next morning we loaded up with food and water and hit the jungle path to have some white sand and clear blue water to ourselves. We swam, sunbathed, built some sand bike trails, and swam some more. Just as we were getting ready to leave the storm clouds rolled in so we quickly hid our stuff under some over hanging rocks and headed for the water as the rain began to fall. Swimming in the rain is amazing and even better when the water warm. It just poured and we were in the water for about half an hour just playing around. Me being an idiot though it would be funny to go skinny dipping, while I was swimming around Rob managed to get my shorts without me noticing… needles to say when I went to grab them I was thinking “oh shit, how am I gonna get my towel” after letting me search frantically for a few minute Rob started laughing and tossed the shorts in my direction. Phew!

We took it easy today since we are all burnt as, and Rob has got the traveling shit’s. The plan is to head to a new beach tomorrow but we will have to wait to see how Rob feels.

Good Bye Snow, Hello Sunshine!

2011-01-26T02:21:00.000-08:00

For the last few years I have used this blog to follow along on my bike adventures. At first, it was used as a way for my friends and family to keep tabs as we rode our bikes across the continent. I have to admit that after the first summer the blog has become a much greedier pursuit. I have never kept a diary but every so often I will go back and re-read sections of the blog. Although I remember all the rides and stories it is the little details or inside jokes that allow me to truly re-live those experiences and that’s the beauty of this blog. I explain this because I'm currently on a new adventure and although I don't have a mountain bike with me (I do have a beautiful new bike waiting at home), I will be using this same blog to follow along on this new trail with me.

Now on to the adventure at hand. For the next few months 3 friends and I will be backpacking around south east Asia. The plan is to spend most of our time in Thailand, but we also intend to visit Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos.

We have been livin that Thai life for almost a week now and all I can say is that it has been an experience for sure. We spent a few days in Bangkok and it was truly crazy, just a total culture shock. Although that was kind of what I was looking for, it still took some getting used to. Within minutes of getting dropped off on Khao San Road (referred to as the backpacker ghetto) you are being bombarded with noise, smells, and people. Backpackers are everywhere and taxis and tuk tuk (3 wheeled motorized carts) drivers are shouting at you, "hey you, where you go?". It was quickly learned that any sign of acknowledgement what-so-ever would result in being followed and hassled to take their tour, that although the same as the other 100 guys doing the exact same thing was much better. Very annoying but you could usually pick up a good piece of advise through the scam they were selling. The classic scam is that they tell you the place you want to go is closed and suggest something else that is similar and just as amazing... but you go with them and it is their friends place which ends up costing you time and hidden fees.

We managed to find a decent place to stay, The Khaosan Palace. While in Bangkok we got to see some great sights and eat some great/not so great food. We saw the giant Buddha and The Kings Palace, both were amazing! The time and attention to detail, along with the respect shown to the Buddha and the Monks was wonderful to see. It was great to learn some of the countries history through the pamphlets and placks which mostly had english translations.

We spent two days in the city and then went on a tour we had booked while there. We got picked up from our hotel by a mini bus. After a few hours of driving we arrived at a world war two museum. This museum was beside the bridge over the river kwai. Which has a ton of interesting world war 2 history... and was referenced in the disturbingly hilarious "unforgivable" web series… Jared you know what I‘m talking about. Then we took a beautiful train ride over said bridge and continued along the death railway. Named because of the large number of POWs and other forced labour which was used the create the railway during the second world war. After the railway, we ate a delicious homemade Thai meal on a floating restaurant where our tour was held. After lunch we went bamboo rafting followed by elephant riding. While I really enjoyed the elephant riding, I do feel guilty about seeing these beautiful and smart animals in captivity (My sun glasses fell off while I was climbing on the elephant and he picked them up with his trunk and passed them to me). They seemed to be treated fine and had plenty of room to wonder around, but would never compare to being in the wild.... but as long as people like me pay to use them it's not going to stop. The lovely grey areas of life.

Then back to the floating restaurant for another lovely home cooked meal. After a short long tail boat ride we arrived at a floating guest house. This is where we would be spending the night. After setting up our rooms we drank beers and shared travel tips with some of the other people on the tours... mostly received info on our end. We meet a group of 6 other Canadians, 2 Brits, and 1 guy from France. It was great to meet some new people and hopefully we will run into some of them later on the trip.

We were up early the next day to drive to a Erawon National Park to see a 7 level waterfalls. This was the highlight of the trip for me so far. Each level was beautiful and different in its own right, I'll let the pictures do the talking. It was a good hike to get up to the 7th falls, a 4.5 km round trip in flip flops. Our feet were feeling it the next day for sure. One of the falls had natural water slides down the rocks which were a super fun. Another you could get behind the falling water, such an amazing feeling looking back out from behind the curtain of falling water. Because the water was so clear you could see hundreds of fish swimming in the water. This took a little while to get used to as they would bump into you while swimming. It freaked me out at first but was fine after one got used to it. One thing I found cool about the park was that in order to cut down on people leaving trash on the mountain, you had to pay a deposit to take a water bottle with you on the climb. It would be returned once you turned in your empty bottles on the way down.

After leaving the waterfall we began a 24 hour journey down south to Krabi Town. This journey involved mini buses, over night trains, walking, waiting at train stations, and pick up truck beds. It all went smoothly until the last half hour. We knew we had a ticket to Krabi but didn’t know exactly where. On the drive we met two nice ladies from Quebec who were getting dropped off at the main backpacker area of the town. We decided it would be the place to go as well... this was until we started to unload our gear with them. Although the driver let these ladies off, he freaked out at us for trying to get off and wouldn't let us unload our bags. One of the French ladies managed to give us a card of the nearby hostel before this clown dropped us off at some tour booking company just trying to make money off us. We then proceeded to take a cab right back to where we were before. Overall not a huge deal but just frustrating having your time and money wasted. On the positive note this is a great little town and we are staying in a nice guest house. There are great shops and great restaurants everywhere, nice to finally be in chill relaxed town! We went on a boat and saw some caves and beach huts.

That about brings us up to date with the longest blog post ever... Also a happy birthday to Mr. Roosh!

And to anyone only interested in the bike content do not worry, I can assure you that this blog will revert back to biking come summer. As I assured JF when booking his ticket to visit, the only way I won't be in whistler is if I'm dead.

Summer Slide Show

2011-01-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

Chambon ya'll! here is a slide show I put together from last summer. Happy New Year to all, and my your wheels find glorious single track in 2011!

Summer Slide Show from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

Zombie Land

2010-09-14T07:32:00.001-07:00

I feel like I just escaped the plot of a horror movie. Or as Kimberly appropriately said lets get out of zombie land! A closed gas station, with no others for 30 miles in either direction was the location. To truly get a feel for the sketchiness of this place, gas was priced a dollar more per gallon than anywhere else we have seen in the US, and upon peering in the window a sign said local calls only was placed above a string tied to a can with a cow skull sitting next to it. Lastly today’s business hours were 8:00 to 12:30 then 3:30 to 5, this is a gas station right off the interstate with exit sings saying gas and food… someone needs to get better.

The Cast included Marilyn and Myself, Jonny from Chicago who like us had his gas light on, Kimberly from Sun Valley who had luckily just stopped to clean her windshield, and last but certainly not least the group milling about a decrepit RV with the plan to wait till morning for the gas station to reopen. That plan wasn’t sitting well with Jonny or us and luckily Kimberly didn’t feel like letting us make the local news with the latest triple homicide. So she suggested we all pin it back down the high way 30 miles to the nearest gas station. Needles to say I didn’t think we were going to make it! On the drive out to BC my car barely got 400 km to a tank, and after a new air filter I was luckily to get 500 km. Now with my car fully loaded, gas light on, and the odometer reading 560ish… lets just say I was a little nervous but with Kim following in case either of us ran out of gas we all barreled down the highway. Now, I know that you all are saying why would you be barreling down the highway when your are trying to conserve gas... all I can say is we were just sticking to the plan, pin it to win it.

Finally with the gas station exit in site we see Jonny pulling some questionable maneuvers around an RV. At this point I could feel my car starting to sputter, the exit came just in time and upon reaching the gas station Jonny informed us he was coasting on fumes since the highway explaining his shoddy driving. We all rejoiced and thanked Kim. If around Sun Valley Idaho visit Kimberly’s B&B The Spruce Inn, located in downtown Hailey. The final odometer reading was 612 Km; good old green peace green didn’t let me down. We have had some kinks so far in our courtship but I feel we are starting to understand each other’s limits.

I I know Robby is going to blame it all on me… but I don’t want to get type cast as a guy who runs out of gas. All I can say is for close to 50,000 kms of road trips in the last two summers two close calls isn’t too bad.
Note to everyone no matter how good the book your reading is, never let your tank go below ¼ of a tank. This is an unspoken rule I have learned from the master of all things car related, Mr. Pickard.

Finally Starting to Get Caught Up

2010-09-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

So much to tell since our Chilcotin adventure! After getting back to Whistler late Sunday night I had a message from T bag that Tyler and I both worked Monday morning at 8:30, ouch! That week Tyler, Matt, and myself hit the bike park hard to let our legs a rest from the pedal fest incurred in the Chilcotins. The big bike highlight had to be the full day of bike park laps, followed by an evening loop of RDS we scored after some rain making for perfect conditions (soft, slick, and steep), followed by burgers and beers a Dustys Pub. It was Matts first time down RDS and in his own words “there is no way you can be prepared for what your getting yourself into”, said with a huge smile on his face!

As much fun as the riding was my body took a beating. As they say when it rains it pours, I had done well with injury’s all season and I guess it was just my time. Crash 1 involved a dust cloud and me blowing a berm, resulting in a shredded upper left side. The next days crash had me heading over the bars into a pile of rocks… again with the left side but the lower body taking most of the damage this time (I also had two flats and ruined a new tire on this ride, not a happy camper!). After one day of managing to keep the bike upright, I was hit with the third and final blow, after a few laps of a rebuild to Dirt Merchant I came up short on the new creek gap and went down hard ripping ligaments in my right rotator cuff and left thumb. Lets just say I looked in rough shape with a sling on one side and splint on the left. Although not ideal, if I was going to get injured that was the time to do it, with Marilyn arriving in a few days and me heading home in about a week.

The day finaly arrived to pick Marilyn up from the airport and after a short but nice visit with my Aunt Tiny in Vancouver I arrived just in time to greet her in the terminal. We spent a lovely afternoon cruising around Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium. Later we meet my Aunt Lois where she treated us to a delicious diner at the Fish House. If ever in Vancouver I recommend this place to anyone who enjoys seafood. Other highlights of our time in BC include beautiful day sightseeing on the peak of Whistler, and a picnic at the train wreck.

The drive home has been amazing so far with sight seeing in Seattle, the stunning coastline of Oregon (words cannot describe it, you need to see it for yourself!!!!), and a quick dip in some natural hot springs in Idaho. More to come on the drive home once I sort through the hundreds of photos accumulating on my camera.

I have mixed feelings about leaving but I know I will be back so that has been a big help. I have already heard of one epic ride I missed and it wasn’t even 24 hours after leaving... whether or not my shoulder would have allowed it is another story. Tyler and some buddies from work biked up the ski hill and camped out overnight on the peak then descended back to the village at the crack of dawn before the mountain opened for the day. Tyler is truly living the good life… “My life is your vacation” is the saying that comes to mind when I think of him these days. It was a great summer of riding buddy and I can’t wait till our next adventure! Have a fun and safe winter in Whistler. Although a recent late night phone call (4 am PEI time) tells me I have looking forward to getting schooled at Brookvale in my near future. I won’t name names but this is a direct quote “I have been hammering out some B vale laps lately, and I’m gonna beat you at your own game benny!” is what was said and I say even with my gimp arm to bring it on!

I’m in no position to complain as I had an amazing summer, although my recent injuries keep me from bagging a few rides on my to do list: yummy nummy, hey bud, the new kyber pass entrance, comfortable numb (I know that one is pathetic), and lastly tanquil lake… I guess that means I know what I’m doing next summer. It was great to reunite with some old friends this summer and great to make some new ones. A huge thanks to the crew at Summit Sports for taking us under their wing, you know where to go if ever in Whistler and in need of anything bike or ski related.

So MUCH to tell..... so little time!

2010-09-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

Sitting at a truck stop in Oregon. Haven't updated in forever as I have been exploring the west coast with Marilyn, am/was broken (video was all shot the day prior, but I plan to ride fisher creek tomorrow), and am lazy. Will update soon with a full account of the last little while!

Whistler Edit from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

... till next time

Chilcotin Adventure

2010-08-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

The Chilcotins never disappoint! Guaranteed are lung busting climbs, beautiful views, and unexpected adventures. Tyler, Matt, and I recently spent 3 days riding and camping at spruce lake aka paradise. The plan was to leave Whistler Thursday morning and return Saturday evening. Everyone knows I always try to pack too much into my days and Wednesday was no exception. It was Caleb from works birthday so we headed to Pemberton to ride a trail named wild bill. Bill was wild and oh so sweet. Classic pemby, the trail was steep and deep. I planed to pack for the trip after the ride and before work… but the ride was longer than expected and a delicious feast at Sushi Village ate up more time than I had. It wasn’t until later that we found out we were to meet at Tyax resort with our gear to load up the floatplane for 8 Thursday morning. This made for a late night of packing in order to make our 5 am Whistler departure a reality.

Surprisingly enough the hurly road (rough logging road) didn’t murder green peace green. But, Matts bike took a beating. The road was so rough that his fork adaptor snapped off the bike rack causing his bike to fall onto the roof of the car. Luckily the bike was unscathed and we continued on our merry way. Upon arriving at Tyax we began to meet the rest of our riding group and unload the gear. With the gear now ready at the floatplane it was time to begin the ride up to Spruce Lake where we would be camping for the next 2 nights. My main focus on the 2-hour climb was to keep my eyes from wondering off trail to the beautiful meadows, steams, and mountains, causing my bike to follow me off trail on more than one occasion. After summiting windy pass (as the name suggests it was very windy) we were treated to fast smooth single track all the to the camp. Once the camp was set up, trail stories were swapped and the next days rides were planned. I also put my new fishing rod to the test… catching nothing, penny thinks I fail and shouldn’t be able to call myself an Islander now. On the other hand the Douger taught Tyler well as he managed to catch a little pinner on the catch and release program.

Day two proved to be a little too adventurous and stressful for all of us as you will come to read Matts account of getting lost at night in the middle of nowhere, seeing bears, and spending 13 hours on the bike… We did a loop, which involved summiting Dear Pass. The views were amazing, the stream crossings were cold, and the hikers we ran into from Vancouver were whiners. After crossing one of the streams one of the guys said to me “try doing that with a 30 lb pack on your back” as I look back at him wondering what he thinks the 15 lb pack and 30 lb bike I’m carrying weigh… not the sharpest tool in the shed that’s for true!

We had two options for our day 3 ride back to the cars at Tyax resort. Half went out by way of a trail named Jewl , and the rest of us rode out by way of Lick. Lick is the trail we rode last year and it was every bit as good the second time around. It was funny when we started the decent, it was like I had ridden the trail a hundred times as I knew every root and rock, when in reality I had just watched our helmet cam video a way too many times haha. Although this was the perfect ride to end our trip with Dunken was the only one to make it through the ride unscathed. I fell in a stream, Tyler fell in a swamp, and Penny fell in a ditch.

The Circus Came To Town

2010-08-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

Working all day and staying up all night has made me happy that crankworx is finally over. One of the most memorable moments over the last week of festivities had to be the Saint Deep Mountain Photo Challenge. This contest is modelled after the Arc'teryx Deep Winter Challenge which has been around for a few years now. 6 photographers are given 3 days to shot around Whistler with whomever they please and create a slideshow capturing each sport and the corresponding lifestyle. I have to say that I was completely blown away by the quality, creativity, and diversity of all the slideshows, but in my mind Jordan Manley (http://ww.jordanmanley.com/) was clearly the winner and the judges agreed awarding him first place. His show focused on the dedication of the whistler bike park trail crew and their tireless efforts to keep the worlds most ridden trails running day in and day out all season long. It was truly moving and perfectly captured the soul of what mountain biking means to me. I will post a link to the slide show when it becomes available. We were also able to catch the best trick and air DH competitions.

This guy got back up and tried whatever this was supposed to be again! But just ended up with the same result... oh the pain.

On the riding front I haven't touched my DH bike since it ate my shin last week, although I went on a sweet adventure the other morning. We are leaving for a 3 day camping trip in the Chilcotins Thursday morning, so in order to get some major vertical climbing on the legs I decided to re-ride The Khyber Pass. The only difference this time was instead of taking the 2 lifts most of the way up, I climbed from our front door. As one is not allowed to climb up the access roads through the park, I got an early 7 am start. It was a damp morning with fog engulfing the mountain. I made it all the way to the park boundary before a truck emerged from the fog telling me I wasn't allowed to be up there, although he wasn't going to make me go back down the mountain…. like I was going to ride down the fire road after hours of climbing! The fog was thick with at best 10 m of visibility. As I made my way out of the bike park, I started singing out loud along with my Ipod to alert the bear who frequents the area to my presence as I climbed. By the time I reached the trailhead the fog had burnt off and the visibility was much better. After a PB and J sandwich (with Island strawberry jam thanks to Alice and Emily) at the "The Stu Inn" I began the decent. The trail was in perfect shape with the damp dirt providing limitless traction. I proceeded to flow downhill with a big shit eating grin for the next 2 hours. I don't often go for solo rides but there is something special to be said for just being alone far off in the forest.

Matt recently got the new HD gopro helmet cam and here is a video we put together of us playing on the lost lake trails. In the video I'm riding a demo 2011 giant anthem 29er, i have to say that although those wagon wheels took a little getting used to on the corners. Once you got them up to speed it just devoured whatever the trail through at it. Was nice to finally get a chance to try out a 29er.

loSt lake loop from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

The list of injuries is in no way slowing down with Tyler being the unsuspecting victim this time. I think I mentioned Tyler had crashed about a week back and had hurt his hand. Well it turns out he broke a bone in it so make sure you send all your healing vibes his way as the Chilcotin trip is fast approaching. I had a customer at the shop today baffled that everywhere she went you see people in casts and slings. Its getting late in the season and the dry conditions have claimed many a tired rider. A quick walk through the village is a good reminder to remain on your a game when out on the trials.

Slaving away for the MAN

2010-08-10T11:10:00.000-07:00

The system was in shock sunday after putting in a 10 hour day at the new job. I had grown very accustomed to waking up around noon, hitting the trails, then lazing around for the rest of the day. Although I have to admit its great to have a little structure back in my life. If you haven't heard Tyler and I have began working for Summit Skis and Bikes. Its a sweet shop located right beside the chairlift in upper village. It didn't take long to get into the swing of things, lots of rentals and just chatting to customers. The customer base is a little different than I'm used too coming from the Island. The big trend this years in the bike park are Leatt braces ( a $500 neck brace), it seems quite common for a family to come in and buy their kids a brace and why not toss in a new Troy Lee D3 helmet they are only $600... At least its for safely equipment.

In the riding department, things have been great! Got to rip ride don't slide again and over post ride beers it was decided we would head up to ride a trail called The Khyber Pass (named after a famous mountain pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan). After taking the lifts to the top of the mountain it was about an hour bike/hike to the trailhead.... then a few thousand vertical ft down! On our way to the trail we stopped at The Stu Inn, a memorial ski hut built for a skier who was killed in an avalanche quite a few years back. His friends built all the walls in the village then carried them up the hill using a groomer... a neat little piece of whistler ski history.

The last two days in the bike park have also been amazing! It rained a bunch more and conditions are prime. The upper mountain trails are blanketed in a thick fog, giving it that classic wet, slick, and misty BC feel. The lower mountain trails have just sucked up the moister leaving perfect tacky tails behind. Been bagging as many laps as possible, although gonna take the day off today as I ripped open my shin yesterday... and should really clean DH bike after ridding in all that mud.

The village has been in crazy mode ever since Crankworxs began last saturday. Crankworxs is a week long mtb festival and one of the biggest in the world. The village is swarming with company tents, live demo shows, and people. We caught the dual slalom event the other night. Gee Atherton took the pro mens win, while local favourite Micayla Gatto won the womans side. I'm off to watch the Canadian Open enduro so cheers for now.

DH Days of Summer

2010-08-01T23:43:00.000-07:00

Tylers cross-country bike is still out of commission so the DH bikes have been in heavy rotation. Although we have been loving/killing the bike park on a daily basis, the park is hurting. Summer is in full swing with no rain for weeks (more on this later) crank works bike festival courses are getting most of the trail crews attention these days so the park is rutted and dusty. One of our many chair lift conversations turned to “so when are we gonna get these DH bikes on some fresh single track”. Not even 2 runs later we met up with the boys from summit bike shop and a 45 minute push off the beaten path later we were having beers at the entrance to ride don’t slide. The trail was incredible there were about 12 of us just flying down the mountain with bodies flying everywhere, we figured everyone had a least 2 crashes on the ride down. Didn’t mater one bit as the trail was just loamy single track with the odd steep shoot. Picture Kents Kamikazi freshly cut but 30 minutes long! The only downfall to this ride would have to be the 10 km ride back to the village on a 40 lb dh bike, but oh so worth it.

Other than that the only productive thing going on around here is that I finally managed to get an ok video put together of some riding in the bike park. Just a few clips from a run we did the other day, hope you enjoy and we will try to get some better videos together before too long.

Whistler Edit 1.0 from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

As for it being so dry and such… It finally rained, and Matt on his first major ride got caught half way up a mountain in a hail/thunder and lightning storm. According to him it was not an enjoyable experience.

Yesterdays rain made for a dark/damp day here in Whistler and I couldn’t let it go to waste. Poor Tylers xc bike is still sick so I meet up with Dave from summit bike shop and he took me to a trail called train wreck, as it runs through an old wreck site complete with abandoned box cars. It was so cool! all the box cars are covered with amazing graffiti. Although not super long it was extremely fun and beautiful. The forest was alive, with the recent rain the forest was just radiating with lush green moss, floating steam in the trees, and the wonderful smell of damp cedar!

Quick trip to the island

2010-07-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

Took a little break from riding over the weekend and ended up going to Victoria. But before I get into that adventure I have some great news. Green peace green (my car) has been fixed! One of the rear springs blew up on the drive out, although not surprising as we had the car loaded to over double the weight capacity. What made the $400 dent in my wallet a little easier to swallow was the bike ride I took while waiting for it to get fixed.

After arriving at canadian tire friday morning for my car appointment, the kind folks at the Tantalas bike shop let me stash my non-riding gear while I hit the trails. The sun was out and I meet lots of folks climbing up the fire road to access the beautiful single track that Squamish has to offers. I hadn't been on the xc bike for close to a week so the legs were fresh as daisies as I hammered out a solid 3 hour ride. I got the helmet cam on the go the other day as I have been slacking on making some riding videos but the footage I have gotten so far isn't the greatest. The trails are so rough around here the camera just gets shaken all over the place. I'll go through the footage and try to piece something together and get it up over the next day or so.

I spotted some lupines and I know how much Alice loves her lupines

Once back in Whistler Tyler and I hit up the bike for a few laps before meeting up with A friend of Tylers who was visiting the area. Sabrina and her friend Lyndsey are driving across the country. They were planning on heading to victoria sunday and we made the last minute decision to join them. On a side note I will never complain about paying the pei ferry toll again. The ferry to vancouver island not only charges a flat rate for the car it also charges an additional fee per person, and they also charge you going both ways! All in all it cost $230 just in ferry charges...no good. The only plus from the ferry ride was the marine wildlife we got to see. On the ride over we spotted some orcas and seals. So very cool to see out in the wild. We spent the day wondering around Victoria until we found a nice little beach to cool off from the heat. Then we began the trek back home. I have to say there is something that just feels right about driving back to Whistler, watching the silhouettes of the mountains rising up from the ocean is so peaceful.

Living that slow life

2010-07-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

Things have slowed down a little over the last few days. Tyler and I were out for a ride on saturday and my body was not having it. So after taking a few days off to let the body to recover we headed out for a fun little ride. This was after Tyler finished playing doctor and pulled 9 stitches out of his leg. Then it was off to the mountain, it was raining a little which was nice as the mountain was getting very dusty. Here are a few shots from our ride.

Think I'm gonna try out the weekly DH race series this evening. It seems like a cool series, you pay $2 and get to race plus two beer tickets. Sounds like a good deal to me!

Good Bye Queens, Hello Chilcotins!

2010-07-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

Been lazy the last few days so much to tell. The four queens finished up Sunday with probably the hardest ride of my life! We climbed in single track for hours only to ride down the steepest trail I have ever seen. It was craziness. Here is a brief exert from the blog mentioned below.

"Gravitron is a near mystical beast of a trail. Renown throughout the Sea-To-Sky Corridor as one of the most awesomely obnoxious creations of a diseased mind. Starting somewhere near the Sun it plummets like a broken elevator straight to the basement of hell. Imagine a f-ing steep ski line in the trees, but instead of soft fluffy powder snow, imagine dust, rock, roots, and a one way ticket to a soiled pair of underpants." - Seb Kemp

Overall, Tyler and I were very happy with how we did. We finished 31 and 15 respectively in the GC. We hadn’t rode most of the trails before so it was all new to us as we raced which adds and extra element of difficulty. Here is a link another racers blog for anyone interested in reading more about the stages, he has a great description of each days rides. Another link with some 4 queens pics and info.

That’s all old news now…. The current news is that I had an amazing adventure yesterday! I got a call from Penny asking if I wanted to join a group for a day trip into the Chilcotins. For those who don’t know of the chilcotins, it is a mountain range about 2 hours north of whistler in the middle of nowhere with the nicest alpine singletrack ever! Anywho, after a much to early 5:30 am wake up call we were on our way. Upon arriving we were told that our originally planned route still had snow covering all the mountain passes. Our only option was to take a float plane and get dropped off on the south facing side of the mountains. Riding in the float plane was really cool… landing was also scary as, but oh so smooth. All in all, it was an amazing day with great friends, unreal riding, float planes, and an icy cold lake swim and beer after the ride. I’ll let the pictures due the rest of the talking.

Ps – Matt is on the road to recovery and has rented an electric guitar, he has been sarinading us with sweet riffs since the minute he got it. Here is a shot of his new zipper!

Too many Queens on the dance floor...

2010-07-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hello all in cyber space. Things around here have been quite the last few days. Some rest was in order as Tyler and I signed up for the Four Queens bike race that started last night. I know I have mentioned a bit about the race so here is a link if anyone wants to find out more about it. On a side note we built the worlds ghettoest bike stand. $11 dollars and few recycled pallets later this is the finished product. By the way it actually works!

Before the race Tyler and I were trying to figure out when the last time either of us were in a MTB race. Well let just say its been a while (I had santa cruz at the time)… I have to admit that I had a blast last night. There is something about racing that just makes you push it that much harder. This and downieville classic are the only races that have gotten me excited since longer than I can remember. I thinks its more the personal/mental challenge of a race like this vs. the standard one day competition. Anyway, last nights race was a 10km point-to-point time trail. Tyler and I were both happy with our rides (results can be found here), Tyler may have won this battle but the war is far from over. Oh yeah… last nights stage was the dedicated to Feddie Murcury so in order to start the race you had to have a mustache. In reality it seemed more like a mustache convention than a bike race.

Tonight’s race is the downhill section so the xc bikes are going to take a beating today. We pre rode the course on Monday with DH bikes and it was wet as, but the heat wave has hit so here is to hoping it as somewhat dried up.

todays elevation profile.

Happy Canada Day!

2010-07-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

Haven't been up to much other than riding the last few days. A trip to Squamish and some Whistler rides. Pickard and Amila have left and our place is feeling empty. It was great having them and hope they have a great and safe drive home. Here are some pics from a beautiful trail we found in Whistler.

Hope everyone at home had wonderful Canada Day. I have to admit that I was a little home sick as quite the crew was assembled on PEI for the festivities. Can't wait to hear the stories.

2010-06-29T23:25:00.000-07:00

The days have been just flying by here in paradise. Saturday was hard as Matt was waiting for the hospital to call regarding his pending surgery. The call finally came and Sunday was to be the day! We woke up at the ungodly hour of 7:30 to drive into north van. We dropped Matt off at the Lions Gate Hospital and were told he would be ready to be picked around 3. Tyler and I planned to go and ride the famous trails located in north vancouver. We planned to ride Mt. Fromme since it is the most small bike friendly of the 3 north shore mountains. Upon arriving at the trailhead I noticed that I had forgotten my shoes at home. Tyler and I weren't that disappointed as we were both quite tired from back to back days of riding. We now had some time to kill... a few bike shops and a cheese burger picnic / nap at Mcdonalds brought us to 3 with still no call from the hospital. We called the hospital only to be told Matt would be ready by 7 at the earliest.

plate and 7 screws

We now had some more time to kill. Our goal was to find a way to ride. First we were off to Zellers to pick up some cheap new kicks. Then it was off to Cove bike shop for some cheap pedals. We arrived just as they closing but they were nice enough to sell me a beauty pair of $20 flats. No a side note this $30 shoes/pedals set up works almost as good as my $300 regular flat set up…. fancy bike gear is so over rated ha ha. Our ride was finally underway, for some unknown reason we hammered up the climb in under an hour and got ready for the ride down. The north shore is known for steep, rooty, and rocky terrain and this ride didn't disappoint. We rode 7th secret and expresso and managed to ride about 80% of the tails with only a few unplanned dismounts. Just as we were finishing our ride, we got the call Matt was ready and headed to pick him up. He was a little groggy but relieved to have the surgery behind him. We headed back to whistler for a much needed feast.

We awoke Monday morning to rain and decided to hit the park for some laps. To say it was sloppy was an understatement. Over the course of our ride we saw one guy get his arm splinted and 2 other ambulances taking some unlucky riders off the hill. We also got to experience some classic BC weather and in the upper mountain had to ride through fog… it was crazy and we could hardly see each other. The mud covering our googles wasn't helping either! All in all we had splendiferous ride!

We got home just in time to clean up the bikes before heading to Araxi for dinner. Araxi is one of Whistlers most famous restaurants. No better way to finnish off a great ride than with delicious cuisine…. although it may have dented the food budget.

The agenda for today called us back to Squamish to concur the trails that had weakened the woLf pack on our last visit. Before riding we decided to stop by and see the boys at the Tantalus bike shop. Andrew happened to be in the market for a new xc bike and the Tantalus had just the bike. We left Whistler with 3 giants and started the ride with 2 giants and a brand new Santa Cruz Blur LT carbon. One of the nicest ride going! We had a great ride with beautiful views and some amazing single track with a lung burning climb to keep things honest. Hoods in the woods is my new favourite trail. Steep enough to bring the fear, but with flow for days. A few more trips to Squamish are in the cards for sure!

"Fuck Squamish"...

2010-06-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

I'm not gonna lie, I really do love that place, but that statement was being tossed around yesterday and for good reason as you will find out below.

So… good new or bad new first? Good news is that Whistler is awesome. We are on back to back days with xc and dh rides. We ventured into Squamish yesterday and were having a killer ride until…. the trail half nelson claimed the first victim of our trip! On a sketchy double our boy Matt cased the nuckle and went down hard! While tending to him the next rider off said jump did the same thing. After extracting Matt off the mountain we headed to the ER in Squamish. After a short wait it was determined that Matt had seriously fractured his collar bone. We are waiting to hear from the doctor to see if he needs surgery or not. This put a major dampener on our day, but Matt is a trooper and is keen to get rehab started and get back on the bike.

Upon getting back to whistler, Tyler and I decided to rip out some laps on the big bikes to clear our heads. Unloading from the lifts I noticed 2 black bears grassing just meters from the chairlift. It was cool to see as I have never seen a bear up close. They were just minding there own business completely ignoring us bikers. Saw another black bear last night, this time just 5 feet off the trail we were riding. Two black bear sightings in two rides, I hope that fills the quota for a little while.

(Alice you'll be glad to know that there is no shed... and we are becoming pros at bike dodging)

I got some more information regarding the 4 queens bike race I signed up for a few weeks back and I think I am way over my head! The race consists of 4 stages which range from pure XC to extreme DH but you are only aloud to ride one bike. To start the race it was also noted that you need a moustache (real or fake). You better believe I'm working on some handle bars.

88 in we-slur!

2010-06-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

Well! the last few days have been a roller coaster ride to say the least. We left Charlottetown friday evening and arrived in Vancouver early monday morning after driving for 60 some odd hours. The drive was long and uneventful… which I guess is kind of a good thing. However, we did have two of the smoothest boarder crossings ever! The officer coming back in to Canada was even cracking jokes….

BG "do you have any alcohol or tobacco?"
WP "nope"
BG "your telling me your from PEI and you don't have any liquor with you"

I guess our Island reputation exceeds us haha.

So after arriving in Whistler late Monday afternoon we were homeless so we thought it would be a good idea to try to find somewhere to live. We got the local Pique paper and called every number we could find that had a place for rent, with no luck. Our focus at this point shifted from somewhere to live too a place to sleep for the night. Luckily Tyler checked his facebook and a friend he met in Aus was in whistler. After getting in touch with Linsey things started to work themselves out. First we dropped our bikes off at the Summit bike shop for safe keeping overnight. Big thanks to those guys for being super chill and hooking us up. Then it was off to Linseys staff party where booze, BBq, and an 80 themed dance party were the order of the evening.

(wolf knifes first use... woo)

After relocating Tyler and meeting up with Andrew and Amila tuesday morning we decided to go house hunting. We successfully found two spots that fit the bill and went to check them out. One was right in the village but it felt more like a hotel then an apartment. The other place is right beside the village and still only a 5 min walk to the chairlifts, woo! When we went to look at it there was a group of girls at the apartment also taking a look. We did a quick walk through and raced back to the rental office to snatch it up. After about an hour of getting the rental set up we headed back to the apartment and that group of girls was sitting in our living room. Conversation was something like this.

girls "Were just waiting for our friend, I think were gonna take it"
WP "oh… we just rented it"
…. long awkward pause"
girls "for how long?"
WP "september"
girls "you got to be shitting me!"

We later found out that 4 other groups had looked at the place that morning. All I can say is we are super stoked on it and check out the pictures to check it out!

After taking most of the day to get our place set up Andrew, Matt, Tyler, and I decided to go for a quick xc ride at the lost lake trails just a few minutes from our house. The trials were amazing, and a flat tire couldn't even whip the smiles off our faces!

I'm currently typing in my new comfy bed and will rap this up as I'm getting antsy to get the day started as we have a big day in the bike park ahead of us!

2010-06-17T14:52:00.000-07:00

Tyler and I are heading out to whistler this summer and figured we might as well fire up the old blog again as we will be exploring trails up and down the sea to sky corridor for the next few months. We figured we would share our adventures with all our friends back home. As this is The No Trail Left Behind Act we figured our recent trip to Kingdom Trails was worthy of the first blog post for this blogging season.

What better way to start the summer than an MTB roadie. We loaded up JF's new Ford flex and headed down to Kingdom Trails in East Burke Vermont. We were trying to escape the rain we've been experiencing back home, but little did we know that the rain would follow us and the sun would find its way to the gentle island.

All in all this was an amazing road trip with lots of riding and beers with great friends! JF, Billy, Paul, Tyler, Robert, and Ben kept the laughs rolling and the techno pumping all weekend. JF kept the pain level high with multiple 5+ hour days in the saddle... my ass hates me as I type this by the way. The pace was always high with someone different blowing up at the end of each ride.

It was Tyler and Billys first time riding the Kingdom Trail network and the boys were all smiles after the first ride. Side winder, kitchle, moose ally, and tap and die were all trail favorites. The accommodations were great, we stayed in a condo located right on the mountain and the place was perfect. The washer and dryer came in very handy with the rainy weather and everyone got a laugh out of watching me starting fires in the fire place.

It seemed to be Islander week in East Burke as there was another group of Islanders in town for the weekend. Was great to meet up with those boys at night and share trail stories, always great to see people stoked on mountain biking. We were also impressed with the local restaurants who handled up to 20 Islanders with no notice.

Big thanks goes out to JF and Billy for the all the planning and logistics of this trip. Everything went to plan except for getting locked out of the condo... the boys took care of us all weekend and we can’t thank them enough. Can’t wait till next time Papa da pain and apolo 48.

Slide Show ..... Better Late Than Never

2009-11-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all. Finally got a version of the slide show done that I could load onto vimeo. Hope you enjoy.

2009 Summer Road Trip from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

A Fond Farewell

2009-08-14T19:23:00.000-07:00

After hundreds of kilometers on the bikes, thousands of kilometers on the truck, and millions of sunflower seeds later, it is really happening, we are done! We are now somewhere in Quebec, we have been driving straight ever since we left Rossland some 48ish hours ago.

At the beginning of the last post we asked how many summits? Well 7 wasn’t enough, Andrew Hamilton happened to be in town so we decided to do the 7 summits trail again with him on Monday. Just two days later the ride was quite different with zero fog, colder temps, and climbs that felt much harder. We also did a fun ride Sunday evening, from camp we rode to the trailhead and did a 2 hour loop. The trails we awesome, full monty was technical and had some fun drops and bridges throughout. But, we also learned some lessons on the ride. I learned that if everyone looks at a rock and decides it can’t be rolled (including myself) I shouldn’t try to roll it. We also learned that double black diamond trials are labeled that for a reason, way too steep for some east coasters on the left coast.

I have been starting to put together a slideshow (will post it when it gets done, may be a week or two) of some of our favorite pictures from over the trip, and it just really hit home how much we have done over the last couple of months. All the different places that have such amazing but diverse terrain or all the amazing people we have met, some friends for life and others never to be seen from again. A special thanks to everyone who helped us out during our travels, especially Tiny, Lois, Penny and Family, Mark, and Domique.

We are all looking forward to getting home and seeing all our family and friends. It will also be nice to put the bikes away for few days and try to ease our way back into a regular existence. Also it won’t be bad to not see each other for at least 24 hours. I have to say that I am mostly excited about regular access to a fridge. To everyone out there in cyberspace I hope you enjoyed following along on our adventure and until next time… happy trails.

Ben, Steve, and Tyler.

Ps – life at home hasn’t been too bad yet, a little wake boarding/surfing got done today.

Too Many Summits?

2009-08-08T21:29:00.001-07:00

Today we rode the 7 Summits trail in Rossland BC. It was a good ride but I think our bodies know the trip is coming to the end and are acting accordingly. Sore hands, backs, and shoulders were the name of the game today. It was also crazy misty, although I wouldn't want to ride in those conditions all the time it was cool to experience it once. Here are some pictures from the ride.

We also wanted to congratulate the newlyweds Andrew and Katherine, and today's ride was dedicated to them... the helmet cam isn't the best for recording messages but if you crank up the volume at the end, I hope that you get the idea.

7 Summits - Rossland, BC from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

The Final Countdown...

2009-08-07T21:19:00.000-07:00

The general consensus yesterday as we packed up camp and left Squamish/Whistler was that the trip is truly starting to wind down. Although we still have a few rides left in and around Rossland, reality is starting to set in that journey can actually end. Although sad to think of the end, it is hard to be sad when you are truly 100 percent content with your current situation.

Our last few days in the Sea to Sky corridor (Squamish, Whistler, ect.) were great. On Monday night we meet up with Andrew in Whistler. After a few beers and a little catching up we decided on a good Squamish ride to do in the morning. I have to hand it to him, he ripped it up on one of the best loops we got to ride in Squamish. We all had a great ride, and finished off the day with a refreshing swim at the lake.

On Wednesday we decided to rent some big bikes and hit the famous Whistler bike park. After having a ridiculously hard time finding bikes and renting all the necessary gear, we hit the lifts. This type of riding isn’t even fair, I would have to compare it to shooting fish in a barrel. With zero climbing you have access to thousands of feet of supper flowy pump track style trails or super technical natural and man-made descents. The conditions were supposedly poor and it was still AMAZING, can’t wait to hit it when it’s in prime shape. It was also neat to see Whistler getting all ready for Crankworks which is a huge mountain bike festival held every summer.

Jared finally arrived in Whistler so after returning our rental gear it was off to meet up with him. He was in town for the unveiling of Giant Bicycles 2010 bike line (the bikes looked great, if you liked the 09s then next year’s bikes won’t disappoint). After Giants giant BBQ we decided to hit the town, we eventually meet up with some of the boys from the Tantalus bike shop and with some local guidance we had an amazing night in the village. Huge thanks to Peanut, Scott and all the boys at the shop for hooking us up and for just being super good guys, if you are ever in the Squamish area and need anything bike related hit up the Tantalus bike shop and you won’t be disappointed (the owner who unfortunately was away, is also from Montague).

All in all, the last week was awesome. We got to meet up with good friends and make some new ones; I hope Jared and Andrew had as good a time as we did. Thanks again to everyone who made our stay in the area unforgettable, especially Penny, John, Lauren, and Heather.

Chilcotin Adventure

2009-08-03T21:02:00.001-07:00

As I type this we are drive back from the Chilcotins, a little bit earlier than planned, forest fires are burning on three sides and the road back to civilization closes in an hour (there are only 2 and the other has been closed for a few days). The country here is AMAZING, bigger and remoter than anywhere I have ever been. The plan for today had been to get on a float plan at 9 am take a 20 minute ride to a remote lake in the backcountry, then use the next 10 hours to ride out… needless to say were supper bummed out, but we definitely made the sensible decisions.

… SO up until this point in my life forest fires never really affected me, although I have always seen the carnage on TV, but being so close to them has left a lasting impression. At the general store we overheard a helicopter pilot saying the fire in Lillooet was climbing the hill faster than he was, not something I would want to be near. Huge respect for all the fire fighters and forest workers working around the clock on limited resources to get these fires put out. Two helicopters loaded with buckets just flew overhead, and plane just sprayed fire retardant a few hundred feet away from the road. Can’t see that road being open for long, glad we made it out.

Although one could truly say that “the shit has hit the fan”, the trip was worth it. We camped at Tyax Resort, a world class heli ski outfit (packages in the tens of thousands of dollars) in the winter and luxury relaxation in the summer. The lodge, which had a nice rustic beauty to it is entirely built of logs and defiantly fits in with its surroundings (note the main entranceway). The lodge offered a great twist to our lake swims… a nice hot tub after a cold dip!

The ride yesterday was as good as it gets; huge climbs, beautiful views, big vertical descents, and a little hike-a-bike thrown in to keep things honest. Those views shouldn’t come without some blood, sweat, and tears (a little, too much, and none that I saw…). After reaching the top of one of the passes we noticed a helicopter flying vary low and carrying what appeared to be a net. Upon further investigation we learned that it was removing camping gear for a large group of campers that had been staying in a remote cabin (for those you who have seen the bike movie “the collective” it’s the one that appears in the second segment of the movie… yeah those are the trails we rode yesterday suckers). I’ll let the pictures and video say the rest for the ride. Again, a big thanks to Penny and Duncan for taking us on another sweet adventure.

Chilcotins from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

Tomorrow it’s off to Whistler to meet up with Pickard and Jared. Can’t wait to see the boys and hope to get some good riding in as well. Won’t hurt to get to see/ride the 2010 Giant bikes line up either!

Chilcotins here we come...

2009-08-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

Nothing much new, lots of riding, lost of forest fires, and still lots of heat. We are heading up north for a few days of riding and should have some goodies to post about early next week. Here are a few pics and video of us riding in Washington. And to Dom... we shower with soap when we can.

Riding in Washington from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

Tour de Lakes

2009-07-29T00:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a great day, the heat wave continued with another day in the upper 30’s. We had learned our lesson the other day and planned on riding in the evening when the heat died down. We had been drawn a map of various lakes in the area and decided to find them. With the map in hand we set off on the bikes. Towels were not needed, as after a few minutes on the bike you were completely dry, and then a few minutes later you were soaked with sweat again and hoping for the next lake to appear…

After our refreshing afternoon, it was off to meet Penny and Duncan in Squamish. Although it was a little cooler out, we kept to trails that were hidden in the shade. A huge thanks goes out to Penny and Duncan who were excellent guides. There is something about a ride when you don’t have to use a map and not get worried about getting lost that I had been missing. The trails were nice with a good variety of terrain ranging from supper steep and tight descents to supper steep and tight climbs mixed in with some fast flowy single track trails. The trails were covered with cool bridges and rock slabs. On a sour note, Tyler suffered a twisted ankle near the end of the ride so send all your healing vibes his way. We are going to take the day off riding and take a ride on Whistlers new peak to peak chairlift.

We are getting excited by the prospect of seeing some fellow Islanders this coming week. It sounds like we will be meeting up with both Mr. Stretch and Andrew P, safe travels guys and look forward to seeing you both.

2009-07-27T22:23:00.000-07:00

We blame the lack of posting on the lack of riding. Although, great times have been had! We spent the last few days in and around Vancouver. We have been living the good life ever since we have hit our home land. After five and half weeks of sleeping in a tent, we were treated to nice beds, delicious food, and hot showers. A HUGE thanks for Aunt Tiny for all she did for us, we had a wonderful time and can’t wait till we can visit again. Also a thanks to Mark for letting us crash for the night, and last but certainly not least, thanks to Aunt Lois for a great evening and the opportunity to see the amazing fireworks/light show (sunset wasn’t bad either).

We headed for Squamish Sunday morning and our home coming welcome continued. We meet up with Penny (whom we meet in Oakridge) and she has been more than welcoming, we were invited to an amazing BBQ on the lake near her house. We cannot thank her and her family enough for opening up there house to us and showing us all the best trails Squamish has to offer.

We went for great ride today. We got our first taste of BC riding… steep and technical, the cross country trails here would put a maritime downhill course to shame. Although the trails were perfect the 36 degree heat was not. I have never seen 3 people sweat some much… not even in Moab. After a few bouts of nausea, cause by/combination of heat stroke or expired milk residue in a water bottle a great ride was had by all. The post ride lake swim was the perfect way to finish off the ride. And as a matter of fact I have to go now to explore a new lake for the second dip of the day…

Homeward Bound

2009-07-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

Ever the busy bees! The last few days have taken us to a wide variety of locations. Since our last post we have been in Hood River, Mount. St. Helens, Portland, and few in between. Pulling into Hood River on Sunday night was very neat, all you could see on the horizon was kites. We went down near the water and it was just buzzing with kite boarders and wind surfers. Upon puling into our campsite we could tell Hood River was a little different than some of the other places we have been. When we usually arrive at a campsite it is us who are loaded down with all the gear for life on the road. It quickly became apparent in the little campground parking lot that we were the armatures! A friendly middle aged woman in a prius pulled up with a kayak on roof, when she popped the trunk we realized she wasn’t fooling around. Not only did she have all her camping gear and paddling gear….she had 3 wind surf boards and sails? Then there were the two guys at the end of the parking lot who had outfitted an old U Haul van with wooden bunk beds and gear storage compartments. Not to mention the other 15 passenger vans loaded with gear and people. Hood River was defiantly a cool little town that caters to the outdoor crowd. We picked up a 6 pack from a local microbrewery to enjoy over a game of horse shoes and the label on the box summed it up pretty good (can click on the pictures to enlarge them).

Our ride in Hood had been recommended to us and it had the potential to be great, but I think we were a little too early in the season for it to be in its prime. The ride did offer spectacular views of Mt. Hood on the grueling climb up. Once at the top it was supposed to be a sweet downhill all the way down to the car. It wasn’t in the cards, although there was no blow down (downed trees) on the way up, we probably climbed over 30 to 40 trees on the way down. The sections that were clear were great, so I guess we will just have to go back some day to experience the full downhill. Although, a little excitement was had on the ride, I had my worst crash of the trip so far although it didn’t involve my bike. We were moving some of the smaller blow down on the trail as we came upon it. There was a tree that was lying parallel to the trail with just a large branch hanging across the trail, me trying to be hero though I could break it no problem, not to be. With all my weight and a huge bow in the branch it finally snapped sending me flying into a tree, some roots, and then finally coming to a rest on my back, with the only comfort being Tyler’s uncontrollable laughter. Although unhurt, I still have a few cuts and scrapes to remind me of my fall.

I feel like I’m writing a novel so I will try to wrap it up. After Hood River we went in search of Mount St. Helen's. With a great deal of difficulty, no thanks to tom tom (gps system) we finally found it. We set up camp near the trail we were going to ride and took some picture of the sun setting on the giant peak. Ape canyon was to be the ride and climbs into the foot hills below the active volcano and then across the base. I’ll let the picture do the rest of the talking. On a side note the flies were insane! Having 100’s of flies landing on you at one time was something I could have done without experiencing.

After the ride we packed up and headed to Portland to visit Powell’s city of books, one massif book store. It is a whole city block, four stories tall, and claims to have over a million books. It sure felt strange being in Portland when we first arrived, it felt as if it had been weeks not hours that we had just been up in mountain as the base of St. Helens. Just two every different environments, but the book store was cool and we had more Thai food. Now we make our way north.

Did we mention Oregon was Beautiful!

2009-07-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was great day filled with a good ride on one of the most beautiful trails I have ever been on. Today was filled with quite the opposite. After hitting snooze on our 7 am wake up call for 2 hours we finally made our way to wallmart to get some new tires put on the truck. I can truly say that 3 hours inside of wallmart’s customer service area has nothing on crystal blue pools, waterfalls, and lush green vegetation. The McKenzie River Trail is a short drive outside of Bend. It follows the McKenzie River for 26 miles over a variety of terrain which kept things interesting. It would switch between super fast smooth single track or having to pick your way through super technical lava rock fields.

The trail also marked some firsts: the lava rocks caused Mr. Roosh his first flat of the trip. Although he is still leagues behind us in running flat tally, Tyler and I gladly welcome him to the club. Secondly, this ride required a shuttle back to the car along the main road, we sent our most experienced hitch hiker out on a mission to get our truck. A short time later the truck appeared to pick us and our gear up. This saved us $200 (that’s what we were quoted to shuttle the 3 of us). We celebrated with some Thai food, hun-yeah!

We noticed in the guest book a request was made to elaborate on the pixie cross and river jump competitions held during the Downieville Classic. I found some footage that lully had shot during the weekend and edited a little video together. It has the start of the race (mountain bike race starts don’t look like this in the Maritimes…), the first and second place river jumpers, and a heat of the pixie cross race.

2009 Downieville Classic Festivities from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

We have been busy and also have a video of our riding in Oarkridge done.

Oakridge, Oregon from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

Leasoned Learnd "never underestimate a ride"

2009-07-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

Howdy from Bend, hope all is well on the gentle island. We finished up our time in Oakridge, with quite the adventure. We planned to do a ride called middle fork/moon pt. and though it would be a few miles of mellow single track following a river followed by a decent climb with a killer decent, 2 or 3 hours tops. We had been told this was a straight forward ride at the shop and decided not to get a map (the only ones they had were huge and were on plain paper). The locale visitor’s map also showed it as a strait forward fire road climb with no branch offs, so off we went… We happened to meet up two fellow Canadians who I will accredit for saving our ride! Lesley and Penny were also doing the ride for the first time, but they had a map! On a side note they got there map of Oakridge in Bend, made of regular plastic and size… take note Oakridge, take note. Anyway we had a great ride with them, and even with the map got lost a few time on the 9 MILE climb, not what we were expecting, 2 to 3 hours of climbing later we were at the top. We all rejoiced, and headed for the downhill, which as we expected was killer. Thanks again to Lesley and Penny who are ripper riders and were kind enough to offer to guide us around Squamish and Pemberton when we make our way up north.

It was then onto Bend, we had a great ride today. Crazy fast, buttery smooth single track, but the dust was killing us. Some crazy dust tan lines were had. Then it was off lake, which happens to be a block from main st. (this town is very cool) , we planned on swimming but put our leaky air mattresses to use and floated around with the locales for a while. Tubing seems to be a big past time around here, there was a shuttle bus doing laps of the lake.

Tomorrow is our last ride around Bend. Then we are supposed to be heading to Washington, but the name Hood River keeps popping up around here so we may have to check that out as well… And some pictures to prove that we have been riding in Oregon.

Why would you have a speed limit of 55... get better Oregon!

2009-07-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

Oakridge, Oregon is where we have decided to hang our hats and subsequently our towels out to dry for the next couple days. Yes I know we had originally told you of heading to the promise land, that being Bend, Oregon where we would fulfill our destiny of riding the Mackenzie River Trail that has managed to become one of the top rides in North America. We took a slight detour and headed left at the fork instead of right, and yes it was planned. With a couple days off the bike we were really getting antsy to ride and ride we did in Oakridge. We hoped on a shuttle this morning around 9:30 that took us up a mountain. We got dropped off right before a washout had taken out part of the road making it impassable for a vehicle; bikes of course were able to squeeze by. After mile or so of climbing we hit single track that reminded us of home with some tree cover and roots thrown into the mix. I’m just going to go ahead and say it, this was one of the best trails we have ridden so far this trip. It had a nice cross country feel to it with lots of fun windy downhill’s that ribboned though old grown forests, oh and the views were nothing short of breathtaking, don’t worry though all three of us managed to forget our cameras, woo go team. Luckily we had the helmet cam but it too was limited with only so much battery remaining.

Don’t you worry though Benny did manage to pull together a nice little video from sections of the Downieville trail.

Downieville, CA from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

On a side note. Benny had written the last couple posts and forgot to mention the dancing him and Lully took part in on Saturday night at the bike festival. As previously mentioned beer was flowing at an alarming rate and those two boys just got caught up in the rapids. I seen Lully riverdance, breakdance, mosh, swing dance, grind, and even do a little hustle all to the beats of Saddle tramp. Benny was not to be outdone though, at one defining moment Benny turned to me with a sparkle in his eye and said”I have to do this, hold my beer” The rest was a blur.

"Have'n A Time" at the Downieville Classic

2009-07-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

Time keeps passing, and times keep being had! Our time in Downieville is winding down, and then it is on to Oregon. The race/festival was quite amazing to take in, to quote Miles Rockwell (ex-worldcup pro) “This race is awesome; it’s super fun but only serious when it needs to be”. The pixie cross and river jump were quite entertaining, while the highlight for sure was the evening’s entertainment. Saddle Tramp was their name and to tell you the truth I have never heard anything quite like it. Hillbilly rock at its finest, it was racist, sexist, and crud to say the least But, it rocked and everyone was have a great time, dancing and mosh’n the night away.

As for the race, Adam Craig took both stages of the all mountain category to win the pro men’s division. As for ourselves it was great to have a few days off to let the legs rest and the bumps and bruises heal up. We are itching to get back on the bikes thou, as many people we have been talking too have had great things to say about the riding Oregon, it’s also a place that none of us have ever ridden so it adds to the adventure a little not knowing what to expect.

On a side note, hurray for New Belgium breweries for their love of Canadians. We were treated to free beer and new friends. Not to mention its great beer!

This ones for MacLainer...

2009-07-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

Although it was stated that not too much happens in Downieville, we were mistaken…this weekend for sure. It so happens that the Downieville Classic mountain bike race is this weekend aka the all mountain world championships. There are two races: the cross country which is a 27 mile point to point which climbs 4500 ft and descends about 6000 ft (mostly on the downhill course), and the all mountain category in which racers must race the cross country on Saturday and the 20 mile downhill course, Sunday, with the combined time being the winner. The catch is that in order to compete in the all mountain category one must use the same bike in both races (tires, wheels, everything must be identical…should make things interesting). The all mountain category sold out online in 3 minutes, while the cross country took about a day. A total of 800 racers will take the trails in a town whose population is around 500. Tyler and I were talking this afternoon and were both saying that this is the first race in a long time that we would be really keen to try, as it is a true test of fitness and of mountain bike handling skill.

This town is alive with bikers we ran into our second world champion this afternoon, Brian Lopes on the trail yesterday and had lunch next to 15 year world cup veteran and Swiss mountain bike legend Tomas Frischknecht. There are team trailers from Sram, Scott, and Santa Cruz just to name a few. This weekend sound like it will be quite the “time”, the party starts Friday night with the xc, river jump (massif jump into the river), pixie cross (an obstacle course around town on 12” kids bikes), and steet party on Saturday with the downhill on Sunday to cap things off. We should have tons of pictures to show you all the happenings.

Anyway, you are all probably wondering how we are doing? Moral is high with between 20 to 40 miles, 90% downhill, being covered a day. A few flats and crashes (no injuries, just a few scrapes all around), and very sore wrists! Although out wallets are being hit equally hard with multiple shuttle runs and deli sandwiches (Maclainer you know what I’m talking about). Here are some pictures to show and a video should appear over the next few days.

Lake Tahoe, 4th of July Weekend....not so much!

2009-07-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

Well it has come time for us to pack up and head onto our next stop, Downieville, Which is only about 100k from Tahoe so it will be a nice short drive. We have been slacking a little bit on the posting but it is for good reason. We definitely picked the wrong weekend to roll into Lake Tahoe. The place was just jammed packed with people all looking to party at the lake for the weekend. After a short search we managed to snag what was probably the last campsite in town at a place about 10 mins from the lake. The camping was primitive but nothing that were not used to by now, with that said we tried to avoid the heaps of people and traffic as much as possible.

On Friday we rode a trail that was suggested by a guy at one of the local bike shops and it turned out to be a pretty decent ride. The main ride we were looking forward to doing well in Tahoe was Mr Toads. (Macleaner you failed to mention the two and a half hour climb that was involved with this ride when you talked about its fun factor , im holding you personally responsible for the pain my legs are feeling today) none the less after a large grinding climb we reached the top and subsequently snow. I made a snow angle while Benny built a snowman. The downhill was fairly tech for the first part but as we descended the rock slowly started to disappear and was replaced by smooth windy single track.

Just as fast as we rolled in though, we are set to roll out, but not without a small photo shoot for Bens biggest fan Charlote. We haven’t heard from you lately and Benny was starting to get worried you had moved on. He hopes this picture will help to rekindle the fire that burns deep down inside you for him.

Ps, It may be a few days before we can post again, as anyone who has been to Downieville can attest it's not a hub of internet activity or much else for that matter (other than the mountain biking of course).

California Bound

2009-07-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

It is now day 18 of our trip which means were past the ¼ mark of our little adventure. Today were gonna be leaving Idaho behind and heading for Lake Tahoe, California. Sun Valley, Idaho has a ton to offer anyone looking for a great resort town, summer or winter. The area around Sun Valley is littered with hundreds of miles of single track that we know about and possibly hundreds more we don’t. It’s the type of place you could easily come and stay for a couple days or a couple months because of its atmosphere towards cycling. The towns population is only that of I think around 5,000. Yesterday on our way to our campsite we saw a group of road riders that was easily 50 strong rolling down the highway. Don’t be fooled though it’s a rather posh town where you can find all amenities that you could possibly want, as long as you have got the monies (which we don’t) Heck none of us have even had a shower since Moab, ya that was 7 days and 5 rides ago, we are the funky bunch)
Since Today is gonna be a 1000km drive were hoping that everything goes smooth and we will be up and riding for Friday morning. We celebrated Canada day last night by buying some truly Canadian beer (kokanee) and splitting a 12 pack (4 beer each, things got wild haha)

Our ride yesterday was very wet with many stream crossings and mud everywhere! Some nice meadows were seen as well.

Ps Dom from your high level of traffic to the blog some people have been questioning if you are also the same guy who poses as The Italian Stallion on Optichat who is consistently asking everyone in the chat room to have private message conversation where you immediately request a/s/l. Also in regard to the beast that was pestering the tent a number of nights ago. I have seen you stop drop and roll like Smokey the bear when confronted by a wild pack of butterflies, you don’t need any more suspense. Oh and Dom on a lighter note we managed to trade the epipen you left in my truck to some guy in town for: 3 sticks of bubble gum, 2 paper clips, and a broken shoe lace.

And as one Andrew Maclain noted on the guestbook, the gun sightings have risen to one, with the up coming 4th of July weekend. It was a particularly nice gun thow, a masive revolver on the dudes belt with a nice cherry handle (it may not have been cherry but it sure was shinning in the sun). Also a few picture to ponder over...

Happy CANADA Day!!!

2009-07-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone out there has a great Canada Day, and enjoy a nice cold Canadian beer for us! Here is a video we made during our time in Idaho, Enjoy.

Riding in and around Ketchum, ID from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

2009-06-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

So it has been a few days since our last post, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been up to much. Did we mention that Idaho was great, well it’s worth mentioning again. The nights are freezing, the climbs are brutal ( “I was cat’n heavy on Bonk blvd.” was tossed out yesterday near the end of a serious lung buster at altitude), but the alpine meadows and smooth ribbons of single track keep us coming back.
Over the last few days we rode at an area named Adams Gulch for a nice 17 mile spin, we rode Greenhorn Gulch (everywhere you look there seems to be a Gulch around here), and rode Baker Creek this morning. The ride today was amazing with a nice 8 mile mellow climb to more beautiful views and a 5 mile downhill that had us giggling like schools girls with wrist pain up the wazoo!

We are heading into town now to do some exploring and are all feeling a little self conscious of post ride funk, as this town in ball’n. These hills are dotted with mansions, nice cars, and fancy Shops. All a little out of our league, but the locals around here are all very nice and friendly, they also don’t mind letting us in on all the local highlights such as post ride grub spots, local hot springs, and full reign of bike shop tools. Our time is winding down in this bikers paradise and it will be bitter sweet to leave, although with Downieville on the horizon, the morel is still very high.

Lets get the heck out of Dodge (aka Durango)

2009-06-27T19:57:00.001-07:00

Riding the Ribbon Trail in Fruita, CO from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

Just when you thought we were in Durango we switched it up and now were hanging low in Idaho. So we arrived in Durango on Wednesday afternoon to what looked like was gonna be some fairly promising riding conditions but that just wasn’t going to be the case. Once we arrive in town we visited some bike shops talked to some locals and figured out where we were gonna ride, just as we were on our way to the campsite the clouds above us began to leak and did they ever spring a large leak. We hunkered down for the night hoping it was just a passing thunderstorm but awoke the next morning to realize it was sticking around. We quickly found internet to check the forecast and long behold rain straight up till Monday. We quickly brainstormed and came up with 2 options. Number 1: wait out the storm in hopes it would subside. Number 2: head for greener pastures. After a few quick head nods I programmed Sun Valley, Idaho into Tom Tom and off we were. After traveling some 6 thousand km in the last 2 weeks, the thought of driving 1200 yesterday didn’t faze us in the least.

We arrived late last night and set up camp just off one of the roads in what we thought was a suitable location. For the most part it was besides It was located next to a skeet shooting range. Thankfully we were out of there in time before any of the shooting got underway as it might have scared us silly. Not to mention the large animal that hassled us last night. Majority of my time before I fell asleep was asking the boys if they heard that sound. They must be a little hard of hearing because I swear that beast was just outside our tent. Either way I was ready for him and if he would have poked his nose anywhere near my zone looking for food, he would have found himself dinning on a knuckle sandwich compliments of chef Steve haha. After what might have been the coldest night, their for resulting in the worst sleep of our lives(Second worst for Ben) we awoke in search of fisher creek trail. After talking to a few places and picking up some maps we were on our way to finally ride after 2 days off.

The 1200k drive, the freezing cold sleep, and the missed riding in Durango was all silenced after we rode fisher creek trail today. The ride consisted of a 8 mile climb that was gradual but with a little sting since we are wrestling with some altitude. If you haven’t already realized anything worth wile in life takes a lot of work. The downhill we encountered was worth the climb. It’s hard to even talk about it because I don’t quite know what words to use to give it the justice it deserves. I think the easiest way for you to know is by the video we are in the process of making. If you were already somewhat jealous about the trip, well this ones going to hurt. For now though we will leave you with a video Benny finished editing yesterday on the drive, from riding we did back in Fruita from a trail called the ribbon. We hope you enjoy.

Out of the desert, and into the high country

2009-06-25T14:20:00.001-07:00

Rest day number 2 is now upon us as we leave behind beautiful Moab to head for higher elevation.

Yesterday turned out to be a day of relaxation, we all had good intentions of waking up and going for a ride but our bodies had a much different plan for us. Our forearms and calves were still tweaked to the point of immediate failure as soon as they even began to feel called upon. We decided to play it by ear and see how we were feeling later on in the day. Moab is such an awesome town that really caters to travelers and those seeking outdoor fun. There are tons of bike shops, rafting places, jeep tours, and rock climbing that is based out of the town. It’s the type of place where you could take you family and it would have a bit of something for everyone, oh and have I mentioned how hot it is there.

Since it was our last day in Moab we decided to ride as we knew a rest day was waiting for us the next day. We ended up riding an out and back trail called Amosa back that was highly recommended by the locals at the bike shops. The ride was really nice and had some really good view points of the canyons around us. We stopped to take a few pics and also to see how good we could get our voices to echo. Lully and I had little trouble belting out some worthy noises that echoed around many bends making for a rally cool echo effect. Benny on the other hand struggled. Poor guy cant even whistle which I think makes him feel like he’s a bit of an outsider when Lully and I bust out a tune. Sometimes you can even hear him off by himself blowing air to no avail. (haha sorry Benny I didn’t mean to expose such a tender area for ya). I won’t even get started on him trying to snap his fingers ha.
Anyways were just outside Durango Colorado which was about a 260k drive from Moab. The plan is to get our camp set up and talk to some locals about what we should be riding tmr, and boy oh boy these mountains have some size to them.

Epic? You decide

2009-06-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

Really from yesterday, June 23 way too tired to post this last night.

Wow what a day. We put in a very large day to say the least, a day I think that is safe to call epic. Now you first must realize I’m not one to throw around the word epic so easily, the word epic must be backed up. No your walk to the grocery store is not epic nor would your 4 egg omelet that you cooked for breakfast. The epic I’m talking about involves descending 7000 feet over 50 km. Still not epic enough for ya. How about the fact that we hoped on a shuttle at 7 am where we were driven up to 10,000 ft and dropped off on the side of a mountain, still not enough? Ok how about we climb for 1,500 ft at altitude so high you would be gasping for air just brushing your teeth. Now you must be convinced. For those few skeptics though we were so high that I was making snow balls and throwing them at the boys while they rode by. Ya we were that high. So I meow must have you convinced that the day was one of epic proportions.

We reached burrow pass at about the point I was ready to lay down and wait for the rescue services to come, because altitude really puts the hurt on, If I was a crying man I would have been able to start my own river it hurt that much. Thankfully though we reached the summit and it was a long way down, with minimal ascending to be done. We started our decent in high alpine, just above the tree line. The descent was fast and technical and of course I went down only minute’s in. luckily I had roots and soil to cushion my fall and was no worse for the wear. We bombed and we bombed and we bombed down some more. We rode along streams and crossed them and even stopped to take a few pics. I swear at times Benny and Lully traversed log jumps and rock drops with the grace on an elk and the nimbleness of a mountain goat. As the Germans would say Benny was looking very Leuchtbau ( ya I can rock the German language). As we descended the air got warmer and the sun got hotter. We started our day with chattering teeth and ended it in pools of our own sweat.

The day was nothing short of amazing as was the terrain. We got a little taste of it all. We rode though alpine meadows and old growth tress, along cliff edges that were so high you would think you found the end of the earth. We were so high it took us 6 hours to fully ride out the trail. We got to see tons of wildlife from elk to lizards and even seen a sign that said you are now in bear country. You will be thankful to know though that me and Ben made a deal in the case we encounter a bear. He would take one for the team as long as I told Charlot that he fought the bear with a brave face and did it in the name of love haha.

Leuchtbau – Is the way the Germans describe something that’s lightweight and sleek

Trail we rode today ( the Whole Enchalada ) Yes it was large, look it up if your ever in moab

Smooth Cycle is # 1

Looking over the edge of the earth...

Video of Fruita, from a few days ago

Droping into Horse Thief Bench Trail in Fruita Colorado from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

Fairwell Fruita

2009-06-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

MVP to Kathy Lelacheur for wine and a nice toast.

A well deserved rest day was in order for today after a hard 3 days of riding. We were pretty cooked after yesterdays ride and didn’t have the energy to bust out a post and most of the afternoon was spent laying under the truck to try and escape the sun. Yesterday we rode at a place called Lunch Loops that was about a 20 min drive from our campsite. We hit our first sizable climb of the trip yesterday but luckily it was on a paved road that climbed up to the top of the trail. After the climb our quads were screaming to the tune of a heavy metal band. To me we had climbed up high enough to touch the clouds but the boys quickly reminded me that I haven’t seen nothing yet as they giggled at the thought of the altitude to come. We took a quick pause to eat and let our legs flush out some of the acid acquired over the last hour.

The descent was long and fast and covered some really fun slick rock as we weaved our way down into the canyon. We got a few good pics and more footage but it was just hard to stop when you were having so much fun bombing down. We were on the breaks so hard at some points you would swear they were about to fail. After one especially steep and long downhill benny touched his rotar only to yelp with pain from how scolding hot it was. Some kids just have to learn the hard way I guess haha.

After about 3 hours Lully got a flat that sent him back on a fire road because we foolishly left spare tubes back at the camp site and were unable to buy any from other riders before we set off. We knew the gamble and of course the house always wins. Since he would be walking back we decided to hit one last single track trail that I now wish I would have skipped. Don’t get me wrong it was super fun for the first half, or at least until I managed to flip over my handle bars on some slick rock and punish the left side of my body. Like any mountain biker would I got right up and checked to see if anything was broken, on both me and the bike. After a couple tense seconds I realized we were both ok and just a little scraped and bruised up, nothing a rest day won’t cure.

Were in Fruita now just about to take off to Moab Utah where we will start a new adventure in a new town. I’m gonna miss Fruita, its such a layed back one street town that caters to mountain bikers but the journey must move on.
Oh and we really enjoy hearing from all of you in the guestbook section it gives us something to look forward to and makes home seem to so far away, so please feel free to sign the guest book as much as possible.

Ps. Charlot you have made Bennys day, he was secretly hoping you would stumble upon the new blog haha

Save the HOT Tomato!

2009-06-20T16:10:00.000-07:00

Sign the petition to keep this place open. Great pizza and beer and ran by bikers.

It is now day 6 of our adventure and day 2 of actual riding. We loaded up around 8 and headed a short distance outside Fruita to ride in a place called Kokappelli. I started off the day in a terrible mood due to a malfunctioning rear shock that was messing with my entire universe. The technical climb at the beginning of the trail only heightened my level of crankiness and resulted in a rather quiet and frustrating climb. It wasn’t until the top that we figured out, it just needed some air in the sag valve. Once that took place my day took a massive turn for the better. We spent about 4 hours in the saddle today and were able to snap some pretty good pics.

Then out of nowhere catastrophe struck, a lizard decided to play Russian roulette with his life and dart across the trail that we were bombing down. I was middle in the pack and Lully was bringing up the rear woo. I noticed him dart out of the corner of my eye and he just wasn’t fast enough and my back tire caught him. We turned back to investigate. Upon first glance he seemed to be alright maybe just a little shook. After a close inspection he wasn’t doing so well. I’m no doctor but his leg defiantly looked broken. We stood for a minute and weighed our options. Option 1: take him with us. Option 2: lets not talk about option 2. Just when I thought there was no hope Lully chimes in rather convinced that lizards were able to grow back limbs. Im no kinesiology grad (lully) but I didn’t think that was a possibility. It must have been that one glass of wine last night because he somehow convinced me that he would be fine and have a new limb in no time. This Lully character seems a bit sinister to me but ill let you be the judge. Also Alice if you could shed some light on this situation that would be greatly appreciated.

Back to riding though, like i had mentioned we put in a good size ride today on some very interesting trails. At one point we were cruising along a rock ledge with about a foot to spare before a few hundred foot drop down into the Colorado River. This is a pretty big step for me as I don’t even enjoy being on the crazy bus (don't act like you have never been on it...) when old home week drops by town. We snapped a few good pics to kind of give you an idea of what our ride was like today. We also have footage of a downhill section that one of us may or may not have made. The picture helps to give you a good idea of just how nuts it was. (Footage will be up loaded in the next couple days). Just how impressive it was to make this section you may ask? People had gathered around to witness it as they told stories of how they have never seen anyone actually make it all the way down. Ill give you a hint who it was( He weighs 145 pounds and im sure about 10 of those pounds could be lost from cutting his hair and shaving his beard haha) none the less everyone was extremely impressed, including me and Lully…oooops.

A Taste of the Good LiFe

2009-06-19T17:57:00.000-07:00

Finally we get to ride and ride we did. We arrived in Fruita Colorado at about 2 in the morning mountain time which I think we are all still trying to get used to, that’s 5 in the morning Atlantic time. Oh and did I mention WE GOT LULLY. We found him loitering around the east terminal at a rather large and intimidating Denver airport. He looked happy and had a nice bronze color to his skin so we figured he would be a good addition to our rather pale twosome. After grabbing Lully we still had a 400km drive to Fruita that took us directly through the Colorado Mountains which were quite tricky in the rain. A few red bulls or 10 later we finally arrived at our destination, quickly set up camp and fell asleep. Only to realize we were completely underdressed and were awoken by how cold it got, oh and howling coyotes were not helping our cause.

After a somewhat unpleasant night’s sleep, we arose to a beautiful sunrise that was quickly heating us up. Since we arrived in the dark I had no idea of what our surroundings looked like and was to say the least was pleasantly surprised when I got out of the tent. The pictures will help explain.

We had a short ride to the trail head and were quickly on our way to some very exquisite riding. We had Bennys helmet cam mounted to his helmet, (he felt it made him look somewhat toolish, we agreed) none the less it was totally worth it because of the awesome footage we were able to get. Since we have a fair amount of down time and limited internet access we edited a movie of our ride today so you can get a better understanding of why we drove 4500km to ride our mountain bikes.

I won’t talk too much about the trails today because the movie gives a pretty good view of what it was like. The climbing was not bad at all which made for a good introductory day for the three of us. Anyways we hope you enjoy.
Ps I sat in a thorn bush today, it was one of the worst experiences of my life and probably lullys too because he had to help me out and no, pictures will not be coming.

Some 18 Road Trails in Fruita from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

Lully here we come!

2009-06-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

Today was a long day on the road. We left Michigan this morning and covered about 2000 km as we are now sitting at rest stop just outside of Denver. Although nothing out of the ordinary occurred today, a few lessons were learned:

Although Iowa has terrible free internet, it somewhat redeemed itself with hundreds of wind turbines dotting it rolling country side.

I never knew critty had set up shop in Nebraska!

Dallas Green was right about Nebraska, but their speed limits are fine with us.

Lastly, Beans truly are a magical fruit...

Here's to hoping the next post involves some biking.

Altough Iowa has the internet, its sucks... Picture uploads to come

2009-06-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

June 16/2009

Alright for all of you who have had the great pleasure of traveling through the boarder and any one of the many Crossings you can take by car, this story is for you. Picture a sunny long day of traveling, at this point we had crushed close to a thousand k and were quite happy about our current progress. We arrive at the border to find no line up whats so ever and are immediately able to see a border guard. We engaged in some light bantering back and forth and the guard was very understanding of what we were doing. After a quick check and a few questions he sent us on our way and wished up good luck in our travels, yaaa that didn’t happen to us……
Everything up until us engaging in light banter with the guard is true. It actually went a little something like this.

Guard: Good day
US: hello
Guard: whats your reason for coming into the states.
Us: To go mountain biking.
Guard: Where
Us: Colorado and pretty much everywhere else on the west coast
Guard: Why
Us: Because you have good trails
Guard: Do you guys not have jobs
Us: No were students
Guard: how much money do ya have?
Us: about 270 in cash combined plus money in an account.
For some reason this was not acceptable and he couldn’t figure out how we were planning on financing this trip.
Guard: how do you guys have the money to do this?
Us: Um we saved it.
At this point we had apparently really thrown him for a loop.
Guard: What’s in the bins?
Us: clothes, biking gear and camping gear.
Guard: You guys plan on camping the entire time?
Us: Yes
Apparently another unacceptable answer from the look he gave us
Guard: Why do you have three bikes?
Us: we are meeting the third guy in Colorado
Guard: Why?
Us: Hes flying in from Australia
I Think that was the final nail in the coffin
Guard: Alright fellas just pull ahead and see the Two men waiting

At this point we were ushered ahead and greeted by 2 more border guards who ordered us to exit the vehicle and only take our wallets and head inside, he also requested me to leave my keys with him. Inside we were told to stand at the edge of the carpet and not to move until they were ready to see us. After a quick huddle between Ben and myself we decided against asking if we could use the washroom as we feared our urine would be collected and stored in a government data base for future cross references to determine if we had consumed the ever illegal fruit and vegetables harvested in Canada. ( Please check your apples and oranges and the boarder). After a plethora of questions trying to figure out how 2 guys could just be actually riding their bikes for 2 months and not human mules smuggling illegal drugs into the country we made some headway to negotiate our release. After they finally deemed us to be of a low threat to national security we were told to sit and wait and that we would be able to leave shortly. This was not the case for the buddy sitting beside us.
After a quick search of the truck to verify we were actually going on a bike trip we were released and able to hit the road again. All in all we lost a little over an hour. This has not been the first time nor will it be the last time I will be searched at the border. The new motto of the trip ( It could have been worse).
At the time of this post it’s about 9 at night and we are just approaching Flint Michigan, apparently moral is not so high in this city since the recession hit. Actually it’s so low it made a nationwide top 5 list of places where people are most depressed. Thankfully we are just passing through.

June 15/2009

Just sending out a BIG thanks to paul and ginny for sweet send off BBQ we had yesterday. Was great to see everyone before we headed out on the road today. Lets hope pauls hosts a few more Q's in his day.

THE END OF THE CHEESEBURGER PICNIK AND ROOTBEER FLOAT.
I figured it was about time that we started to really make this blog come alive and what better day to do that then the official day 1 of our trip. June 15 has been a day marked on our calendars for close to a year, a day that was set aside to begin an adventure that im sure will leave a lasting impression on the three of us. I was actually impressed at how prepared we were today, Benny and I have done a lot of traveling together and hes by no means the most prepared or fastest when it comes to getting stuff done but then again who am I kidding. I must admit though he really picked it up when it came to trail research, that is completly his domain and im just along for the ride. All in all though we were able to get on the road by 1 after we had to deal with a few things beyond our control.

The day started out with me taking my truck to the shop to try and fix a problem that had poped up on saturday. After a few quick visits to some local auto shops they were able to figure out that the reason my truck sounded like a jet engine taking off when ever I would step on the gas was caused by some bearings in the pully wheels that were just about shot. as i tended to that situation benny tied up some loose ends concerning our account and credit card we just got for the trip.
As I write this post we are traveling through Quebec close to reveir de loup parden my french I couldnt remember how it was spelled but you get the idea. so far we have put in 735km today and im expecting we will be able bust out a couple hundred more befor we start to look for a place to pull over and sleep at, I cant say im looking forward to sleeping in this truck the next couple nights but it could always be worse. Anyways between the three of us were gonna try our best to post as often as possible so you guys can feel like your almost on the trip with us. (Macleaner its still not to late to come you just say the word and we'll come get ya).
We are planning on reaching Denver Colorado Thursday so we can be on time to pick up Tyler as he joins our group to complete our tripod. (Also if anyone knows Tylers flight number that would be greatly appreciated and might come in handy haha) once we have assembled we will begin our epic quest hopefully on Friday, just bear with us untill then Its kind of hard to make all this driving sound even the least bit glamourous.
Benny has chosen to elect Ryan Taylor as MVP of the day for hooking him up with a set of his favorite grips that are unavailable in Canada at the moment.

The Days are Numbered...

2009-06-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

This blog has been started to follow our journey over the next 2 mouths as we explore the north western US and Canada for some of the best mountain biking this continent has to offer. The following interactive map ( scroll around and zoom in and out) shows the route we plan to follow, although hopefully there will be some unexpected detours... let us know if you know of any hidden gems hiding near our expected route.

View Larger Map

After months of planning, the big day is fast approaching. On June 15 Steve and Ben will set off to meet Tyler somewhere in Colorado. Packing has been started, camping supplies have been bought, and extravagant bike components have been/are being installed. Our fuel guzzling friend and "home sweet home" remains unnamed, but that that should change soon once we are on the road.

To all our friends or anyone else who happens to stumble across our little adventure, I hope you enjoy the stories and photos that are bound to appear in the weeks to come.