09.07.09

Up in the Air

Some people would call it a flagpole. What it really is is a signal mast. It takes after the mizzenmast of a square rigged ship where signal flags would be used to send messages back and forth between ships. Some were used between shore bases and ships. We fly flags from ours here at my work.

This one had to be re-finished last spring and we rigged it two days ago and yes that is your Clydesdale Class cyclist Bluenoser up there rigging it. Busy days as of late. Not a lot of riding getting done but things will be back to normal after the weekend, whatever that is.













Sorry about the darkness of the photos but it was getting into evening. At this point it took 14 hours to stand and rig this, eight hours of which I spent in the air.

So when I ask if you just want to come and hang out, be sure to get me to clarify.

Is there a bike race going on?

-B

04.07.09

Happy

First off, I would like to wish all of my friends in the United States of America a very happy Independence Day. I, like some, will not say, our friends and neighbours to the south, because as the well educated Canuck in geography knows, Alaska is north of some places in Canada and so is Detroit for that matter.

As you can see I picked a foggy kind of American flag to display because that is just the kind of day it is here again on the loop as I went to work. I know it's Saturday and the Fourth of July, but hey I went to work on our own nation's birthday so there was no chance of me staying home for yours.

What I will do for you is take the Portland out for a ride this evening seeing it is from the stable of the Great Trek Bicycle Company. Which is a tip of the hat to you and a statement to the sad state of my pocketbook to say that I can't afford a Canadian designed bicycle.

On top of it I don't like asking people or wishing people to be Happy any more. This comes from my days back in the 80's of living in the central area of Nova Scotia known as Lantz. This was sort of a Tri-county area consisting of East Hants, Colchester County and part of Halifax County. A few of the places there would be; Lantz, Elmsdale, Dutch Settlement and Shubenacadie. It has since grown, like a lot of country places have but back then it had still retained it's back woods folksy charm.

People there were known to be hard workers and also for their quiet simple straight forward ways, which included their answers to your questions. Dutch Settlement in particular had a family by the name of Grono. There even still remains a Grono Road. There was an older man that lived there named Happy Grono.

I never met Happy Grono so I can't say what he looked like. I tried to search old guy type images thinking this is what he must have looked like but it just wouldn't be fair to Happy. So from now on when I try to conjure up Happy in my mind I'll use my own image...


Yes I believe Happy was the Wise Old Man of Dutch Settlement. Now in my story I do believe that this was Happy that this happened to because I'm reaching back in the memory here. We had a big wind and hail storm that went through that area back then that did a lot of damage. It was almost like a small wind funnel and it uprooted trees and such and went straight through Lantz and headed for Dutch Settlement. A news crew was dispatched from Halifax and who did they interview but the oldest resident of Dutch Settlement to see if he had ever seen anything like that before?

They rounded up Happy and put him on camera and put the question to him,"Was it a very big wind?". As this was to be his only and very simple reply, "Well I would imagine." With the word imagine being said loud and being dragged out very long.

I believe Happy passed on not long after that. Which brings me to my point. I would be working away at something while employed at the local brick plant there in Lantz and I would say to the boss or the person that may be working with me, "Are you happy?", meaning are you happy with what I've done there? They would usually stop what they were doing take a look at me straight in the eyes, and say, "Happy's dead".

So after a bunch of that you can now see why I don't like to throw the word Happy around too much.

So you folks in America, you just have yourselves a day.

-B

01.07.09

Canada Day

First off. To all fellow Canucks at home and those that find themselves abroad for whatever reason, Happy Canada Day, we miss you, really, sorry, no, we do.

Now as I was looking for a pic of a Canadian Flag for this post, I came across this picture, which left me wondering how I could tie this into cycling somehow.



The Canadian Flag Girl. How is this appropriate and what has it got to do with cycling other than your off your BP meds you ask? A lot I reply, and I'm feeling much better now thank you. Let me elaborate.

1/ Global Warming. Note how she is standing against the breaking up ice flows of the North West Passage waving the Canadian Flag. She was sent up north to do this because now that the 600 year old Illuminati plan to take over the world by finding a passage to China, has finally been completed with the melting of the polar cap with greenhouse gases. Every Tom, Dick and Harry country wants to claim our north, now that they know there is one there.

Too bad that someone hasn't told the Illuminati that a lot of these gases come from one of their original founding members idea of a contraption called a flying machine and they can just fly to China now. Better still. We don't even have to find our way there anymore. China has found us.

2/ She is military. I can tell. Our armed forces are spread pretty thin these days. In fact we just seem to be all over the world at the moment and it's like well, the roof has sprung a leak and nobody is home to fix it. In fact for such a large country geographically, with only 30+ million people to look after it, we've always done a pretty good job.

In fact the country is only 142 years old and shortly after the turn of the last century we've been running all over the place helping out because most of our country was covered in ice and nobody could live there or wanted to except the hardy Inuit people. But now because of Global Warming and the melting icecap reveling riches, our military has been caught with it's pants down so to speak, as you can tell.

3/ Equipment. I can also tell she is military by her equipment. She is wearing her approved anti snow and ice glare glasses. She also has her safety boots on and gloves in case her hands come into contact with anything really cold that may cause frostbite to her fingers, like a beer that was put into the freezer instead of the fridge by mistake.

But what is the most obvious...

4/ Mae West. It's quite obvious. She is wearing her Mae West in case she falls through the ever thinning ice cap. Now to the younger crowd who now have the Tri-Dork keep-em floating I don't know how to swim on my own skin suits, here is a brief clip from Wiki.

The Mae West was a common nickname for the first inflatable life preserver, which was invented in 1928 by Peter Markus (1885-1974) (US Patent 1694714) with his subsequent improvements in 1930 and 1931. The nickname was originated due to the fact that someone wearing the inflated life preserver often appeared to be as physically-endowed as the actress Mae West. It was popular during the Second World War era with US and British Air Force servicemen who were issued inflatable Mae Wests.

Notice we Canadian's were left out of that. We weren't issued ours Mae Wests until just recently as you can tell. But I've found a photo from an instruction pamphlet with Mae West herself showing how to put it on...



So all in all I think that explains the pic fairly well. I also in the explanation managed to get Canadian Flag Girl's pic in there five times, not bad eh? In my research I also found out another interesting tidbit so to speak about the May West, which seems to come from another part of Canada that is described as a tasty cream filled cupcake... I think I'm just going to stop now.

So I hope you all have a great Canada Day. I'll be headed off to work. After all we are also known as, The Hewers of Wood the Drawers of Water.

-B

Update:- I did manage to get out for 50k around the loop after work this evening.

-B

28.06.09

Overweight
and the
Privacy of Rails to Trails

So with all that has been going on the last winter/spring into the summer, I've put on a few pounds.



So after what seemed like an eternity of staggering around in the dark, beating myself up in all sorts of ways by running into the brick wall while looking for the door.



I manage to find it and having wallowed around enough in self pity, I have eaten and drank the pounds on trying to make myself feel better in all the wrong ways. That I still even managed to fit through the door when I finally fished the right key out of my pocket, thus making it to freedom on the other side is a small miracle.

Realizing what I had done to myself over the past while and knowing what needed to be done to cure the situation, hopping on the Trekinator in lycra in public was not an option for awhile.



After working at Al's race last week I was reminded as to just how much of a poser fest road riding can be and after just making it back through the door and feeling still a bit fragile I need a bit of privacy to get back into shape before I try on that scene again.

As for the race report I had promised. Why bother. The road race scene here in Nova Scotia is in serious decline with infighting and poor attendance. The elites which I followed with the spare wheels, was just a 142 km Sunday ride with a sprint at the end. A regular yawn fest. No wonder I like Cyclocross so much better.

Anyways, back to the fat wars. With work still crazy for the next couple of weeks, a bit of road work going on here on the loop and the need for some privacy, the Rails to Trails seemed like the answer. The cyclocross tires are still on the Portland and so are the fenders. This is great because then wet weather isn't going to get in the way because it's warm enough now that it doesn't matter if you get wet. Just keeping the crap off will be fine.

I'm back up and riding the bike now that I have the OK on the hand from the plastics guy. He did a great job by the way...



It's quite comfortable to ride 50-60k at a time on the trail, even if it is a bit rougher than the road, if I wear a glove and change hand position often, which is the plus of drop bars.

I'm also a bit tired of the small battle down here that has been going on between the local car drivers and the cyclists. It's kind of been a silent battle. The cyclists, not all of them, pull off bone-headed moves on the roads down here. This pisses off the local car drivers. They hoot and holler to each other about the inconsiderate cyclist that think they own the roads, because we all know that the motorists own the roads, but they don't say this to the cyclists.

Except one. Me. The local cyclist. I get it everywhere I go. And me being like I am, not shy at all, reply something like, do you know that according to the motor vehicle act... and then it goes down hill from there.

So I figured that I would be safe from the eyes of the posers and crazy drivers on the rails to trails until I shed a few pounds and feel like I want to be seen on the Trekinator in kit on the loop by the time Dee gets here but it seems that the Rails to Trails have their own set of problems when it comes to multiple use and cyclists. (you'll have to look for the article "Educating Cyclists" my computer is still not great yet).

I should know better, because if I was as well versed on The MVA as I say, then I would know that all bicycles in NS are supposed to have a bell, amongst other safety equipment. On top of it I was nearly run over by a full throttled 13yr old on an ATV, with no plate, doing at least triple the 20kph speed limit and barely in control.

I feel I'm OK with all this because I'm a defensive type rider and I always call out, "on the left" when I pass anyone. But I do feel I have the answer to the problem on the Rails to Trails.

It's this guy...



-B