-51 with windchill

sorry, this secretary took no notes last night. Perhaps others can chime in on the comments to remind about a piece of discussion that was significant. With today's temperature, it might be interesting to hear if Juan and Chris actually rode... guys? any comments? do you live?

Bike Club related:

Chris has sort of convinced Jonny to ride this sunday in the Ice Bike race. That will be the extent of FGBC participation in the event. It's a growing phenomenon however, I can feel that next year will be a big year at this race for the club. Results will be posted on the race page.

Marles is thinking about turning his current bike into a single speed and buying something new in spring.

Jonny had a very nice one hour clinic with the Olympia people on Portage. I forget the tech's name, but Jonny was allowed to watch/help change his cables and adjust the derailleur (I can't spell helmut [sic], but I love derailleur). Very nice of the Olympia people.

Other:

The Darkness Website Miss this new rock band at your peril, apparently. I hope to check the site out later today.

work issues continued to dominate discussion. Marles going for an interview today, Unger writing his ticket for a 22hr work week, Bergen doing well with uncertainty, Chris also living with some uncertainty. No work = No $$ for bike stuff.

the stinky dead guy was in the Collective

well, there was a bit of biking discussion, but larger discussions raged about where they found the dead guy who had been dead for quite a while. Marles insisted Ozzies, the general consensus from the rest was in the basement of the Collective Cabaret, just a block away.

Other significant discussions, or rather, ones I found entertaining were:

Marles holding forth on the state of the record industry, having been an insider for many years. The general consensus here is that the state is not, in fact, good. There seems to be a new level of revival in the indie scene, but it's an uphill battle. If he would open a record shop, it would have to be a specialty shop of some sort. Vinyl, or classical or something. In fact, opening a diner seemed a greater interest. So much for the music industry.

James continuing to insist, against a strong majority, that the second Matrix was worth the plastic it was printed on, and that the third Lord of the Rings was really bad. He seemingly was not in tune with the rest of the gathered assembly. The crowd was analytically sharp and condemned almost every piece of the second Matrix, and then in a group switch, went into a softer, forgiving, nearly sentimental stance for the efforts in the last Lord of the Rings.

Attendees of the club included: jonny, marles, the president, james, chris, juan eppstein, and the secretary.

From this reporter's standpoint, every effort at raising the issue of club participation in the Icebike race was almost ignored. I tried (which, admittedly is easy because I can't ride yet) and the technical/race director tried, but with basically no response. The president did at least say something, which is the same as every other time, "I've used up all my sick time for this year." Not really encouraging stuff.
Forge on Race Director. I hope I can be there to cheerlead...

the link for Simpsons and "Breaking Away"

Here's the link Chris was trying to get going in the previous post:
Simpsons and Breaking Away
It's a nice article.

A couple of things

First, it turns out my new helmet purchase was less of a deal than it appeared at first. Yesterday I got a bill from FedEx for an additional $25 for duty, etc. Should have seen that one coming. Just a warning to anyone who might be tempted to order from US online companies.

Had an adventuresome ride into work yesterday. Everything was going fine until Omand's Creek, which I was prepared to hike through. But I was not prepared for Wellington Cresc. to be such a mess. Lots of loose snow, and it was a sheet of ice underneath. It took me about 35 minutes to get in rather than the usual 15-20. There were good stretches where it was simply impossible to stay on two wheels. At one point--I guess I was looking a little bit screwed--a pickup truck pulled up beside me to ask if I wanted a lift. Turned out to be one of my students, who probably now thinks he's set with brownie points for life. But we all know better than that.

At school, one of my colleagues suggested that it was "inconsiderate" of me to have biked into work in those conditions. It seems Charles Adler had a little rant on CJOB on the drive in to work attacking all of Winnipeg's loyal bike commuters for shutting down the morning commute. It seems we staged a critical mass ride without even knowing it. I'm not sure if these sorts of vitriolic responses on redneck radio are a good or a bad thing. In the no news is bad news sense of things, I suppose its not all bad that people are talking about bikes as traffic. But in the good old USA, Clear Channel (a top 40/redneck radio network) is in trouble with the law for having several of its DJs making on-air encouragements to run cyclists off the road. A number of incidents in North Carolina and Texas seem to suggest that drivers were more than willing to heed their advice.

Spain apaprently just passed a law permitting cyclists to ride two abreast on all roads. Still this didn't prevent some pro cyclists out for a training ride from getting run into a guard rail by some overly aggressive old man. Seems the world has it in for us these days. But let's be strong, resist the coffin-driving evildoers, and stay on the narrow path.

Apparently last Sunday's episode of the Simpson's featured an homage to the old classic cycling movie "Breaking Away." Did any one see it or, even better, happen to record it? Perhaps we should hold a screening of the film as a Bike Club even in the near future. This could be the sort of Bike Club event that even the Duke might come to. In any case, see for more on the Simpsons and "Breaking Away."

Starting to get excited about the Icebike race. Anyone interested in in a ride this weekend?

last night's gathering

Nice to see Marles and the President out on a wintery Winnipeg evening. With no specific agenda, conversation went in the usual places... starting with, how's the Dark this evening. It was good.

Chris showed up with a lovely catalogue of cycling accesories. He just ordered a helmet from these folks. www.performancebike.com

There is some excitement building about the Icebike Race Feb. 1. Check the post below for the link to the site and the registration form.

Club members gathered: The president, Luke, Jonny, Marles, Chris, James, the secretary plus some of the usual hockey guys.

For the record, there was some debate as to when we began formal planning for last year's trip. A trip to the minutes archive revealed that minutes were first kept on March 25, 2003. That isn't to say that discussions didn't take place sooner... years sooner in fact.

Icebike Race 2004 website up

The website for the 2004 Icebike race is up. There had been some discussion that we would try to attend as a team, flying our colours, or, in the case of black, the absence of colour.

The Icebike Race 2004 Site

This link should not be confused with the Icebike Site link in the links section on the right which connects to the fine Icebike Site in general.

Fruitful Christmas, delightful gathering

Well, a gathering of the gift laden bike club members... an excellent turnout at the club house (despite the fact that they were out of dark... pathetic) turned into a sharing of Christmas bike riding booty. It seems there were no Buy Nothing Christmases for those attending the meeting. As if Aiden would want to see the bicycle industry collapse.

How's this for a list of goods for those present:
Jonny: helmut (after my "helmet" misspelling in the previous post, i feel i might stick with the slightly revised version... this would not be a bad name for the kid Jonny); bike stand (for cleaning/tuning, not "kick stand" apparently); jersey; bike tool.
Juan: bike computer
Unger: bike computer; socks; under-the-helmut toque
Chris: big $$ racing helmut; shoes; socks; sunglasses
Penner: (not actually present at the meeting due to work commitments) helmut; clipless pedals
Bergen: jersey; back flashing safety light
Luke: winter riding jersey
James: balaclava
the secretary: as mentioned below in the previous post.

Some excitement surfaced about the spring ride. Location was, predictably, the priority. Spruce Woods got some very good billing. It seems many of us were looking forward to another spring ride.

Juan shared about his latest wipe-out in Assiniboine Park, and we heard about Chris crashing because a dog swerved at him. The trials of hardcore winter riding.

In related news.

Unger shared that he's quitting his job. Some freelancing will set the stage for a nice bicycle/wallpaper/drycleaning shop in the retail space that's expected to open up shortly in Wolseley where the two organic foodstores are duking it out for the granola belt's loyalties. (Check out The Meatrix for a nice pro-veggie bit of Flash animation.) There is usually only one winner... and it will be Unger's Bike and Paper Hanging and Cleaning Emporium. The primary news should increase Unger's time for riding bike and coming to meetings anyway.

Not mentioned directly, but strongly inferred was the fact that Jonny and Charlene are great with child. No predictions should be made on how this affects his time riding bike...

The bike club shirt saga is about to come to a close.
The last available bike club shirt should perhaps never really have been considered "available" as such. It is being hand-delivered to the Duke at the Chicken Chef in Altona tomorrow noon. The transaction will hopefully slip under the storey starved vigilance of the local press. Better not to attract too much attention...
While it seemed that Duke was not fielding his physical presence at bike club gatherings, this quote from a recent email makes it clear that he is the rightful owner of the shirt, and not Bechtel, as the pendulum had been swinging...
"As for Bechtel's supposed claims...what can I say? He is on the left
side of right but I can claim better intentions than he so with that
moral authority I claim the shirt as rightfully mine."
Thus saith the Duke. Who's going to argue with that?

As a visual post script, you may want to point your browser to this link to a picture of the inside of my shoulder on the media page of our site. It's a little tough to tell what's what, so I have annotated it. Good luck.

first post Christmas post

well... Merry Christmas to all bike lovers... and the rest of us bike likers.

i am now in a modified typing scenario. both hands, but the keyboard is shifted hard right on my lap. i'm not allowed to move the fixed arm to straight in front of me yet.

actually, there was a Bike Club theme for me this holiday season. i received two helmuts, and a pair of winter riding/jogging tights. (those funny looking things with the reflection strips that the technical director wears.) i'll return one helmut eventually. now all i need is the new bike and time to ride it... maybe next year, or the year after that.

i hope to post the surgery pictures i was given in the next while.

surgery today

so, it's done. i was supposed to have a local block for anesthesia so i could watch the proceedings, but it didn't take. they had to put me under. the local block they put in still isn't out... they told me to expect pain tonight.
have to use the sling for 3 weeks.
should be ready for our big spring event, however...
glad i got yesterday's ride in.
perhaps someone will report from the gathering tomorrow, but i won't be there and one-handed typing sucks.

Night ride this eve

Well, James, Jonny, the Technical Director and I met at Whittier Park this eve at 9:20pm. We decided not to race, but to explore... with my surgery coming tomorrow morning, it would have been poor for me to push too hard and have an incident. We rode til about 11:00.

Check this map which is in the media section of our site for the the Whittier Park ride area. Follow the dotted red lines for our route.

I'll see if I can type (one handed) a few notes about the surgery tomorrow.

Race this weekend

Yes it's cold right now. But not so cold that we cannot continue to be excited about the next race. Yesterday my fingers froze and my freewheel was threatening to do so as well. So now the bike keeps me company in my office during the day. I almost got sideswiped today by some asshole in an Aztec flying around that sharp corner on Wellington before he lost control and took out an oncoming car. This only 200 ft away from where some other idiot in a pickup decided to try and take down the St James bridge the day before. Two crashes in two days. I think I might stick to the bike path for a while, at least for that portion of the trip.

In any case--we do need to have another race before our loyal secretary gets his shoulder rebuilt. He's nearly the bionic man already, so I wouldn't want to have to line up against him once he's healed. The always reliable Environment Canada weather service tells us that it's supposed to warm up during the weekend. -6 on Saturday and -4 on Sunday, with the low only a balmy -11 for Sunday night.

My suggestion: a Sunday evening race back at Whittier park. A slightly longer lap than last time, which will feature mostly trail riding. Johnny G and I scouted out some possible race courses last weekend and we believe we have a few options that would be still more exciting than the thrilling race we held a few weeks back. If we get enough guys out, we might even try James' relay idea and see if it works.

Thanks for the link to the icebike site, Darryl. I think it is based in Alaska.

icebike site

here's the link to the icebike site. It seems to be Winnipeg based. Info on riding technique, dressing, and anything else related to riding bike in the winter, except for the race that carries the name, and there's even a comment about that on the news page.

and for the Great Lakes/Chicago members, there are even winter riding enthusiasts out your way at the Chicago Bike Winter site.

december 9 gathering

no major news. a bit of discussion over the Duke's shirt. Trevor has suggested that it is now his, as the Duke has made no moves toward claiming the shirt he initially ordered.

would be nice to get one more event in before I go under the knife for the shoulder rebuild on monday. the current -30 weather has made it difficult to get excited about the idea. night race at Whittier has been suggested... the technical/race director claims it's no problem without a light. the ground's white, the trees are not. no problem.
there will be an email around if something transpires.

the secretary

fgbcbc #2

It's now a few days later and the dust has all but settled. Time for an update on the second installment of the fgbcbc. Despite some good early indications that had us looking at a possible record number of participants, we ended up with five eager racers yet again. The Wolesely contingent put in a good showing, warming up by biking to the race site at Whittier park and previewing the course while waiting for the secretary to finish his pep talk with the faith and life women's choir. Two rookies made their debut Jimmy and the Secretary. The race: 3 laps aroung Whittier park (river trails and back on the gravel path, including a mandatory trip through Whittier's version of devil's ditch). This time the pack stayed together for the first half lap. Jonny G took his customary early lead, but a bad choice of trails let Chris and Jimmy get ahead. Taking advantage of Chris's untimely confrontation with a tree, the secretary moved into second behind Jimmy. Coming into the first straight, the two rookies are sitting 1-2, with Chris on their tail and Jonny G and Unger not much farther back. As the course became flatter and straighter, Chris attacked and Jimmy couldn't hold his wheel. Jonny G soon caught the two rookies and assumed second spot. Chris's long solo break held for the remaining 2.5 laps, but not without a few more close encounters with trees and nearly sliding down the river bank. Jonny G held onto second place, despite falling on the last straight and giving Jimmy some last-minute hopes for second. This left Unger and the secretary in a monumental battle for 4th place, with the secretary narrowly taking it at the line.

Post-race festivities ensued at 206 Home St., with Juan Eppstein joining the fun after putting in some weekend hours at the office. Our worst fears have been confirmed: Bubbas are no longer being produced. 12 Canadians had to suffice, courtesy of the secretary. Post-race conversational highlights included James's idea that the next race should be a team effort--pairing up and racing as a relay. In addition to possibly keeping competition closer, this would have the added benefit of allowing the traditional post-race festivities to take place during the race itself. It was noted that participation from Altona has been a little on the lax side lately, and that the Duke has not yet been to one fgbc event involving bikes.

FGBC Bubba Cup #2 a success!

I won't give any colour commentary at this point, (except to say that the two race novices were #1 and 2 for the first leg of the race), but want to say that the event was sweet. I'm hoping the race director will comment on the nature of the course and the event.

You'll notice that there is now a Race Standings link from the homepage, and there are pictures of the event under the "Events 2003" heading.

Sad news on the bubba. They are no longer made. Do we change the name of the race series, or do we forge on with the bubba held in our memories?

the secretary

Strong Dave

I still can't seem to get pictures to actually work on the blog, so, if you want to see the pics of Strong Dave (ie. our Juan Eppstein) at work, you'll have to click on this link:
Strong Dave

Meeting Place and more

The secretary tells me I'm supposed to clarify the meeting place for Saturday. While I'm not sure that responsibility is part of the technical director's portfolio, here's the deal. We will meet at the end of Tache (right by the intersection with Messager St.). I can't remember if there's a parking lot there or not, but there will be ample room for parking. Be there at 1pm.

I'm assuming the Wolseley contingent will ride there together. Let's meet at my place at 12:30. Others can feel free to join us if you want to get more kms in those legs.

We do not yet have a venue to host the post-race Bubba-fest. Perhaps one of the mini-vans will have to suffice.

A brief update on my recent visit to Atlanta is in order. Two things of note: (1) I did a couple hours of good riding on Sunday morning. Weather was in the 20's and sunny, and the trails were surprisingly technical for being inside the City. Reminds me of how much the cards are stacked against us here in Winnipeg. But we won't let that discourage us. (2) There was a discussion concerning FGBC that took place--namely Trevor Bechtel indicated an interest in the subject, possibly even membership status. It seems he and Andy have had a conversation or two. The Americans are rallying! Let us not be too complacent. Still, I suggested Trev might want to consider making a pilgrimage to these parts sometime this summer, where among other things we founding (and non-American) members can flex our muscles, so to speak. Perhaps Jeff and Johnny S could lead them on a little night-ride as a sort of hazing process.

Trevor also expressed disappointment in not getting the last jersey, especially since (does this sound familiar?) James swooped in and nabbed it.

If only there was as much interest in the biking side of our operations as in the marketing/promotions wing. But all that will change on Saturday at 1pm.

new race date - Sat. Nov. 29

Well, it's not for lack of trying that we're going to get the second Fort Garry Bike Club Bubba Cup in. Now it's this saturday, at Whittier Park.

Meet at 1:00pm in the parking lot where the Festival de Voyaguer happens. Since those instructions are nearly meaningless to me, I'm including a link to a map of the close vicinity. I'm assuming our technical director, (and by now, race cheerleader) will put a quick post up here clarifying the point of entry to said parking lot.

The agenda so far is to meet, take a gentle ride to scope a course, and then, well, last one home is a rotten egg. (Check the Team Brown Manifesto for more on the rotten egg motivational bit.)




Map of
St Joseph St N At Grandin St
Winnipeg, MB

It was a slightly better turnout at headquarters. Jonny G is back from near death, Chris, Juan Eppstein, myself, James... there was a strong rumour that the president might show, but still nothing.

Oh, and for Chris and anyone else who doesn't know who Strongbad is....
www.homestarruner.com is the site, this link takes you right to Strongbad emails. Scroll right down to the "dragon" email if you want to cut to the quick. I'm hoping we can post the pic of Juan Eppstein dressed up as Strongbad for Halloween sometime...

a couple thoughts from the headquarters tonight

well, the actual FGBC turnout at the headquarters was a little thin last night. Chris, Juan Eppstein and I were the only attendees that were actually at the inaugural ride. James, Vic P. and Lorne B were there, but Lorne had James so mesmorized by discussions on how poorly the commonly held Westgate pension plan was doing, that he was barely with us til the end, until we got into stories about how fast we had ever driven in a car.

anyway, just to clarify a point from Chris' previous entry, the Feb. 1 Ice Bike race is an event somewhat sponsored by Woodcock Cycle. It's not necessarily a highly competitive event, however. the thinking is, it would be good to see the club out, with jerseys stretched out over bulky outerwear...

hope to see better turnout next week.

here's my haiku:

medium turnout
consider the field lilies
pensions don't love bikes

Good day for a ride

For a variety of reasons--some good, many bad--there was no second race of the Fort Garry (Bubba) Cup this afternoon, and no dogfest either. Another Tuesday of big talk last week at the F & H goes for naught, despite some late heroic efforts by the secretary to rally the troops. Postponed, not cancelled. Still a major disappointment. But just as the afternoon was shaping up to be a bit of a dud, I get a call from Hal Loewen--easily the most loyal non-FGBC member around: meet at Tim's place at 2pm if you want to ride. We did the trails in Whittier and beyond, including many of the ones Johnny G and Unger introduced me to a while back, but more as well. Five of us, for about a 2 hour ride. Perfect. Whittier looks like a good venue for a future FGBC race. This was the first time I took the single-speed out on the trails. It performed admirably, though the gear ratio made for a couple of hikes up some of the steeper and muddier hills.

Dates for the Ice Bike race are now set: Feb 1. Put it on your calendars now.

Here's my haiku. A bit on the uninspired side, I admit.

a race that wasn't
greasy Whittier Park trails
try again next week