Happy on The Red Bike again!

Wicked storm to the northwest.

A great weekend on the bike! Saturday was a 67km road ride with Linda and Michele. I wasn't feeling that strong in the morning when I got up, but I thought I'd head out with them and plan to turn back if my legs weren't cooperating. I'd done a hard spin class ride on Thursday night and my legs were still complaining about that. As it happened though, I felt really good once we got riding. I beat my previous best time up the Calgary Olympic Park (COP) switchbacks, and felt pretty strong through the first couple of hours. The last hour took a little determination with some groaning muscles -- my groin mostly -- but I made it home and, happily, bounced back very well for Sunday morning.

Some single track at Nosehill.

Heather on the mtb finally. Exams done!

Post COP, post rain, muddy bikes.

After a fun morning watching Kate and Craig swap out some parts to get her race bike ready for her upcoming stage race, a few of us had some eggs and espresso at Cadence. From there Heather and I made a quick stop at Bow Cycle to get her repaired tire, and then we were off to Nosehill with Sante. Happy dog, happy girls. It felt awesome to get out on the mountain bike. We got a little bored after some time with the lengthy flats in between some moderately fun treed and hilly trails, so we decided to load the bikes back up on the Rav and head to COP for "part deux" of our MTB Day. Now THAT was some fun ... steep downs, some real climbing, narrow bridges, muddy bottoms, and lots of smiles. We'd dodged the rain at Nosehill successfully, but not so much at COP. It didn't take away from the fun though, just rewarded us with some muddy bikes and legs. That's probably the closest to mountain biking you can get in the city, and we had a great time!

Crocus Season

Eating the crocus I was photographing.

Sante and the Bow River valley.

Mother Nature has her way of telling us winter's over here in Calgary. She sends in the crocuses to splash a little colour into the brown landscape. Santé thinks they're tasty.

Summery Weekend in April

C3 java Friday morning

It's Sunday night again already. Another weekend gone in a flash!

Friday doesn't count as the weekend but since I'm working from home only on Fridays now, they're a little special. It's a treat to start the day off without a rush to get downtown. I like rolling out of bed and brewing some coffee while I catch up on morning email with my furry buddy nearby. This week I had some freshly-roasted and personally delivered (thanks Christine!) Crowsnest Coffee Company beans to crack open! Love the Bootleg beans!

New grips on The Red Bike!

After a morning doggie walk Saturday, I went to Bow Cycle to pick up a jacket. I never leave Bow Cycle with only the one thing I went in looking for though ... without itemizing my bill, I'll say I did get some new grips for The Red Bike. Under Sante's watchful quality assurance, I installed them and hit the trails right by my house. Bowmont is an awesome natural environment park two blocks from my house that runs along the south and north sides of the Bow River; it's had lots of attention from trail builders over the years. Plenty of places to play on the bike or on foot.

I've done a little single-track riding through there recently but I hadn't braved the trail along the escarpment: Sideshow Bob's. I've walked it in winter plenty of times and it's a little exposed and a little narrow in spots -- and there's a couple of gnarly (for me) drop on its west end. I'll admit it's been taunting me and I've been nervous to try it. I rode it with Linda though and it's a lot easier to do a new trail if you're following a confident, experienced rider. This I've learned! Plus, when the confident, experienced rider stops to walk a section ... you feel some relief that you're not just a big chicken.

After Sideshow Bob's we kept west and did lots of rolling single track without the exposure. I fell once on Saturday; typical Suzanne-style fall where I can't get my foot out of my clip pedal fast enough. So instead of getting a foot on the ground when I stop, I fall over sideways and break my fall with a leg and an arm -- sometimes my ass. Not pretty, and painful, and somewhat embarrassing. This with my "new" hand-me-down worn out pedals from Alana she slips so easily out of, she had to retire them. Those probably saved me a number of other falls.

Ah well, onwards. After the ride I cleaned up and joined the Reckers for our season wind up party. All of us in one spot without a game to play meant we could finally decide on our new uniforms for next season. Seems we'll be sporting New York Rangers style jerseys. Blue with red and white trim. We need a new crest! Any designers out there?

Sunday brought even nicer weather! I don't know how warm it got but it's 21 right now and it's almost 8pm. Sante and I went for a toasty warm ride (after I watched the Penguins suffer two unproductive periods against the Flyers ... season-ending periods, pfft). I was solo today so I made some stops and took a couple photos. It was a short ride punctuated by a long swim-and-fetch session for Sante in the river -- she seems pleased that swimming season is here. Ah, cooling off! And yeah, I fell over again today ... it might be time to put some flat pedals on the bike for a while. There's so much to learn! Spin Sisters club rides start up soon so I'll be getting plenty of opportunity to practice and learn with others.

Sunny Sunday with Sante

Side Show Bob's

Drop! Looks gnarlier
behind the handlebars

More errands after that, a drop in on Mike and Shannon, and some bike cleaning before barbecuing some steak. The forecast is looking sweet for the next few days. I'm definitely going to be commuting on the cross bike at the start of the week.

That's all for now! Get outside!

Spin Sisters (The "is" keeps it from being Spinsters!)

I'm officially a member of a mountain biking club! That's right! If the club Ride Calendar for May is any indication, I'll have no shortage of options to ride with other enthusiastic biking chicks all summer long! I've even got a couple of club jerseys in-hand, and some cycling shorts on the way. The weekend forecast is looking good for getting out on The Red Bike here in town on some single track. Tonight I'll spin indoors at my Thursday night class ... though it's getting harder to choose to ride inside! So much daylight!

A Rest Weekend

I've been off the bike since Wednesday's awesome ride. A little rest was in order. Thankfully Mother Nature made it a little easier to rest by serving up a weekend of sleet, rain, snow, and wind. This was also conducive to play-off hockey watching. (My Penguins are going down. No composure against their Pennsylvania rivals!) I got a massage Friday night then loaded up on sleep, lazy mornings, dog walks, and a few errands. Santé was all in for some hockey watching, as you can see from the photo.

Back on the bike for the morning commute downtown tomorrow!

Evening City Ride

It's 8:35pm and the sun is only just dipping behind the Rockies in a wash of pink sky. All that daylight means there're are plenty of cyclists out after work. Including me, of course! A group ride from Ridley's turned out to be Kate and I; a small but enthusiastic group. Ha ha!

It was about 16C when we set out, though I've just come out of a thawing-out shower 4 hours later. The temperature dropped to 11C while we were out though it felt colder after leaving toasty warm Starbucks in some sweaty gear!

I did some single track (dry and dusty, just the way it should be!) on the cross bike tonight for the first time and really enjoyed it! Can't wait to do some more this weekend with Sante. Other than that we did some road riding and a covered a lot of asphalt pathway with some hills mixed in. GPS says we climbed 900 feet overall. A scenic ride through all kinds of terrain, with the Rockies almost always in view, right here in the city. Calgary lost its shine for me for a while over the last couple of years but cycling is renewing my fondness.

Other than "Oliver" the Pug picking a fight with my front tire -- he lost the fight and shifted his attention to my foot -- it was a great evening ride. Way more fun than being on my stationary trainer in a studio. Just sayin ...

Easter Weekend

Snagged from Google: The Peace Bridge

Every weekend should be a three-day weekend! I suppose then I'd be wishing for every weekend to be a four-day weekend. Back here, in reality, it was a great long weekend enjoyed with my bikes, my doggie friends, and some human friends too.

Linda at Railway Cafe.

Thursday night was spin class. Coach Jeff had us warm up for half an hour then sent us into a full 60 minutes of threshold training. As he said to me after class ... you basically just did a 60 minute full-on hockey shift. Mmmhmm. I felt pretty good after and even had some legs left for a ride Friday. After a doggie hike with Kate at Calgary Olympic Park (COP) and breakfast at Cadence with Petra (visiting from Victoria), I met up with three Dead Goats: Linda, Michele and Gerry for a city ride. We did about 50kms and circled the reservoir. We saw a little sun and a little snow, crossed the Peace Bridge -- Calgary's brand new and hugely-debated pedestrian/cyclist bridge -- and lunched at the Railway Cafe at Heritage Park. (See my ride on Strava.) After that some supper and a little couch time was in order.

Santé and The Red Bike at Bowmont.

Saturday I had another COP hike with Kate and the dogs to start the day, some more breakfast at Cadence (hey, why mess with a good thing?), and then I took Santé and The Red Bike -- newly operational after some TLC from its previous owner -- on a little muddy tour of Bowmont Natural Environment Park (our local-est park). The legs were a little tired so a short ride was plenty. Some errands rounded out the day.

Smiley Cyclist.

Feeling a little refreshed today, I made a plan to head out to Bragg Creek for a ride. Heather joined me at the last minute and we had a great ride on the hilly and scenic HWY 66. This is the first ride I've felt pretty strong on for a few weeks. I actually felt some power in my legs and enjoyed the up and downhills all the way to Elbow Falls and back. Highway 66 from Bragg Creek is part of Kananaskis Country. (See my ride on Strava.) After grabbing a latte and a muffin for the road, we headed back into the city and another hike at COP was in order ... Santé needs her romps too!

Riding in K-Country.

Now I'm on the couch, blogging and chillin' ... I also just finished buying my Alberta Bicycle Association (ABA) racing license online. Yep, I'm gonna do some mountain bike races this summer! Can't wait!

I hope you all had an equally fun Easter weekend!

A spring time walk with Riley ...

Riley Bear ... 11 years old and still spunky!

Ear flappin' (x 2 Labs) in the snow.

Mother Nature must have thought things were looking a little brown around here lately, she opted to freshen things up with a snow storm. The winter storm watch was downgraded to a snow fall warning. Semantics right? There was snow. It blew sideways. It clung to my coat, jeans, and toque. It needed shoveling this morning...

But a little spring snow wasn't keeping Santé and I out of the park, especially when Riley was ready to join us! We had the park to ourselves other than a bike commuter or two making their way home through the late day snow.

Bring on the long weekend! It's Good Friday tomorrow!

Tournament Road Trip!

Me and my road trip buddy.

Road trip with my traveling buddy! Up to Edmonton for a hockey tournament.

It was a big weekend of driving, playing hockey, visiting with friends and nephews, yummy breakfast eating, and dog walking. Now I'm happily home in Calgary -- a city with a view -- after a second place finish in the tournament.

After taking Kyle and Matthew out for Kyle's birthday dinner Friday night, I met the team at the rink and we won our first game 8-3. Saturday we won our second game 4-3. Today we lost to the hosts 10-3. Yipes! We were supposed to play them to finish the round robin today, then meet them in a final an hour later. Both teams opted to play once. Good thing too ... tense game. A second one would have been ugly.

A busy fun weekend!

Birthday dinner with my boys!

Sante making friends at the park.

Jennalee and Laura, one of our pickups.

I found only photos of me wincing.

Gettin' fired up!

Stretching -- hopeless.

Pre-game jig.

2nd place wieners.