Paddling from Morris to Winnipeg

We find ourselves with a free weekend after other plans fell through, so Graham and I are going to paddle the 100 km from Morris, MB to Winnipeg. Actually it's more like 110 km all the way to home, which is the target destination.

The food is purchased (mmm, freeze dried ice cream), the map is drawn (yeah, we know, we don't really need a map to paddle up the Red, but it's nice to have some sense of your progress), and the tent pegs are all accounted for, so now we just have to wait until Saturday morning for our ride down to Morris, courtesy of Deanna. Hopefully the weather forecast holds, because it looks perfect right now.

Feel free to follow our progress this weekend by viewing the pics and tweets along the left hand column of this page. Hopefully we'll be able to update every hour or so.

Start 'em young

Hmmm, so I guess it's too late for me to embark on a successful MMA career then?...

Omand's Park / Bert & Ernie's Bottlecamp Race Cancelled

We are very disappointed to announce that the Omand's Park / Bert & Ernie's Bottlecap Race has been cancelled. We received word this morning, Sept 21, that our permit application for the race to be held in Omand's Park has been denied.

In spite of the event location having been chosen and submitted in January and the race calendar being finalized in February we have been notified 11 days before our event that it cannot be held as planned.

Without getting into too many details, our race is (or was) the only event on the cyclocross calendar this year that falls into what has become the most contentious area of the city's parks, and even though we, and others, have held successful cyclocross races in this area in the past we are told now that we must not use any grass as a part of our race. As you can well imagine our race course, which was designed months ago, includes plenty of grass use, and it would be impossible to hold the event otherwise.

This does not affect other cyclocross races in Winnipeg this year because they have the good fortune of being located in other areas of the city under the administration of more reasonable park officials or are on private land.

We've really enjoyed putting on a quality cyclocross event for the last 3 years and are deeply disappointed to have to cancel our event this year at such a late date. We wish all the other event organizers the best as they plan for their events and of course we wish all race participants the best as they compete.

Sincerely,

Scott Wiebe, on behalf of TheTrainingCoop.com

The Beautiful Game

And this is why it's called The Beautiful Game. It's always a bit tense in the house watching Liverpool (Deanna's team) play Man U (my team) but we were both applauding yesterday as we watched this goal go in.

Manchester Utd 2-0 Liverpool

Simão MySpace Video

Peloton Prohibition

I guess a rule is a rule, but there's some sort of irony in a team kicking its own pro cyclists out of a race for going out to dinner and having a drink when we're in the midst of never-ending drug scandals. Were they drinking bottles of EPO? O'Grady's one tough dude - I don't think I'd have the guts to discipline him over anything, let alone a beer.

Cool dude

I had to take a picture of Levi's (Graham's son's) t-shirt yesterday - it's pretty cool:

Stryker

Oh my...Chopper style bikes aren't usually my first choice but this one is put together very well, and it doesn't hurt that it's being pitched by an MMA fighter I like. The bike happens to have the same engine as my current ride. There goes more time pedaling. It does motivate me to get into the gym though because I've got to try to look tough :)

I must be working out

I was disappointed to come to the conclusion today that I had to say goodbye to my favourite pair of workout gloves.

They're even rattier than they appear in this pic (and they have a sort of permanent semi-dampness due to sweating) but then I realized that they were a symbol of the work I've put in.

Kind of a gross symbol, but still.

Ouch - Cross Lab hurt for all the wrong reasons

Maybe next time I need to do more riding and less standing around telling others what to do. I offered to lead Cross Lab tonight and I think it went alright, but my goodness where the mosquitoes bad.

This pic doesn't really do it justice, but my legs are pretty much on fire at the moment.

It's subside soon enough I'm sure.