Tis time...........

Aaaand.... Relax (Wraskally Wrabbits)

Holy Shit! Where the bollocks did that month go to?!?! I'd been hoping to pass on news of our 'rented rabbit' a few weeks ago, but alas, that weekend passed, then I was hoping to recant of tales of biking extravaganza, pushing past 100miles on a Saturday jaunt - but once more, the time passed. I was eager to blog news of catching up with the Tatey clan in snowy Yorkshire - but once more, old grandfather fucking time screwed me over and I woke up once more on a Monday morning, moaning to Christ that I have to repeat that far too mundane routine once again for the next five days! But I made it to the blog now with the great idea of just typing "THE END" in massive print and then signing off the tinterweb for a while - but having just got in from a good Friday night ride out west across the reservation and returning in the dark has got my head in the right place, so the world is a better place again (lets see how long that lasts for, once I start my bloody masters on Tuesday - like things aren't busy enough!!!).

The misses is thriving with the Kindergarten kids, and she's just aced her evaluation (they apparently couldn't find any areas for improvement for her teaching - which for you non teachers is something that never happens on the evaluation sheet) - so she's pretty chuffed! The old dear turned the big 31 yesterday, so we're off to Panorama for the weekend (and I get to take the knackered old bike so I can spin up Storm mountain, over the divide and across to Radium). Regardless of the snow conditions (which incidently are meant to be really good right now) we're just looking forward to kicking back and doing bugger all for a couple of days!!!!

As for the dealy in postings... the wraskally wrabbit blog was going to introduce the now infamous "Penne", or as the Kindergarten kids call her "Snuggles", but as she is officially known in the Williams household... "Bun Bun".

Although don't be deceived by the cute, cuddly appearance, those big brown eyes and the kashmir like fur... because Bun Bun can be bad... the little hoppity hop monster found a tasty liking for my straw surfing Ron Jon Hat in the closet, and after chewing it to pieces she knew she was in trouble - and hiding behind the cabinet (below) didn't hide her guilt!!!

But Bun Bun made up for her nibbling escapades by helping Brina out at work - when Brina takes her afternoon nap, the Long Eared teacher takes to the chair for instruction...

And if all else fails... just do what rabbits do best and look tasty
Hope you all find a spare second to spin those legs - and play chase the rabbit to get the little sod in its cage before it shits any more across the living room floor....

Thats all folks....

S&S.

Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

'Ey up....

it looks like a very busy, yet awfully mundane lifecycle has reduced the postings here. However, there have been some bright points in the past month.....

A long weekend down in Whitefish Montana was had with Brad and Julie last weekend. We'd heard good things about the resort there beforehand, and loved the place in summer, so we were hoping for a good 'un - and it didn't disappoint - it was flippin awesome!!!!!

The piccie above is Wieble about to plunge down "Glory Hole" one of the wicked black / double black steeps down through the trees in the surprisingly good deep snow!!!! (you always know it's going to be one hell of a run when you can't see the slope until you slide the tips of your skis over the top of the run).

After the near vertical steeps, the terrain hit the trees - and here's Brad taking on the powder and some pretty tight turns at good speed - it was terrific! Nobody else was around, we could have been on a big backcountry day (but with our own personal lift service).

Brina joined us for most of the runs on the main parts of the resort - and had a blast (even the blue runs had deep powder and trees off to each side - you couldn't but smile wherever you went). But she did leave the boys to go and play on the blacks for a while whilst she warmed her toes and took on the essential sugars (via hot chocolates etc..).

I'm still riding like a madman, and the above piccie is from today's ride on the old boneshaker bike - I headed out for a few hours west of Cochrane and climbed up from where this photo is pointing (there is a gravel road somewhere in the trees there that I sweated up - despite the just slightly sub zero temps). This is out towards the Waiprus, and it was without doubt the perfect day for a ride (albeit a touch on the chilly side).

The speedtheory spin nights are still as tough as ever - I'm looking forward to seeing what it has put in my legs for this season (one feller snapped the front mech off his carbon frame this Wednesday in the spin night - such was the intensity of the power sprints we were putting in!!! - it's ace!!!).

Hope you're all bonny.

Two fingers up to the establishment,

If you ever get the chance - visit Whitefish,

May you all slide down the glory hole!!!!!

S&S.

Snow Go Superbowl Sunday

Superbowl Sunday : akin to FA Cup Final day but with a week long media hype build up, oodles of sporting rhetoric from unnecessarily loud ex players come commentators (whom I suspect damaged the old grey matter a touch, with one too many helmet crunching tackles in their careers), and very pleasant (but not enough) close ups of the cheerleaders and their fine athletic abilities. So really - nothing like the FA Cup. Fortunately, it seems as though every man and his dog stays indoors all day long on Superbowl Sunday (despite the game not starting until 4.30pm). This is just fine by me, as with the continued warming of the weather, the roads are very ridable (it hasn't snowed for an age) and the deathly quiet lanes along Grand Valley Rd and beyond made today's ride overwhelmingly peaceful (once off the 1A, didn't get passed by a car for nearly 2 hours). I took the camera in hope of seeing something very exciting - alas, that didn't occur but hell I thought I'd take a photo nonetheless....

There were no roadies out for the old battered Trek to chase down, but she creaked along fine and dandy (it seems like the creaking bottom bracket stops once the thermometer rises above zero, as it did half way through the ride). After a jolly day spinning along, I did actually make it home in time for the Superbowl, and I must say, those Yanks do know how to put on a show. The razzmatazz, fanfare and all other associated bells and whistles that go hand in hand with American showmanship are just unbeatable and certainly couldn't be reproduced on the turf of Wembley. They even had Bruce Springsteen on the pitch at half time to sing a bit!!! (what's that all about?!?!?! I don't get it, but I like it in a very lazy, sit on my couch and turn my brain off and get mind numbingly entertained kind of way). As for the actual game, well, that's actually very good indeed and can be more compelling that a titanic Premiership clash between Stoke and Hull.

The rest of the week has had little in the realms of interest; training sessions with Speed Theory, working too late and too much, sleeping, eating, breathing etc.... Brina is having a ball with the K kids in Morely, and I sometimes think she's having just as much fun in class as the kidlings are.

We're booked to go to Whitefish in Montana to ski in a couple of weekends with the Weebles, and are currently scheming our next trip (NZ in summer - woo hooo!!!!!!). I was reading the BBC news this morning which was on high alert for the severe winter storms in the UK where a crisis looms as temperatures may well plummet to minus 2 - AT NIGHT TIME!!!!! How are those folks back home coping?!?!? I yearn for minus 2 at night time and may well get it by June!

Anyhow, it's probably time to go and iron some shirts (how very rock and roll).

May all your highways be clear and I hope you caught the game,

S&S.

Jaws

Well, what a fine day to neglect to carry a camera! Mr. Weible and I headed out to Shark Valley on a pristine blue sky Rocky Mountain day, with hardly a soul to be seen on the Smith Dorien Highway. Having basked in the delights of spinning on the tarmac through last weekend's premature warmth, we have now plunged right back into the minus 20s of winter - which to our delight kept everybody else indoors and left Mt Shark for us to attack unencombered by crowds (or anybody else what so ever). Fortunately the air was dead calm, as after I had proclaimed that "it's not that cold", once we began to slide along on the skis, the windchill soon began to rip away at my face and bring the temp down to somewhere in the "NorthPole on a bad day" range. Having only plumped for Mt Shark on a last minute whim on the drive out to the mountains, we were rather ill equipped for route finding, that being a lack of map, lack of trail knowledge seeing as though neither of us had ever been there before, and a good lack of concern on both of our behalves. Brad reassured me by confirming that he had his headtorch so all was O.K.
Mt Shark lies on the west side of the Spray Valley and is just sublime - being one of the starting points to Mt. Assiniboine. There is a comprehensive network of very well maintained xc ski trails which we began out on, but once we found ourselves on the edge of the trails, an untracked gap up through the trees seemed a much more exciting option than gliding along the trackset highway.
So up we went, breaking trail through the trees on our very skinny skis which were hailed to be 'light touring skis' when purchased - but which do very little for keeping you above the deep untracked snow (to which my aching knees and hips do attest as both attempted to jetisson from their sockets on a memorable descent through crusty deep snow as my left ski decided to sink down to my hip taking the leg with it, whilst my right ski (and leg) prefered to maintain a rather swift acceleration down the slope, twirling me around like a weeble on acid and resulting in one of those external whoofing lung emptying exhalations of breath accompanied by the internal cry of 'fuck me that stings a bit').
Fortunately, Weible has a touch more finess on the planks, and we carried on bashing our way through the snow like two kids in a sweetshop. After an hour of this we begin to discuss sensible navigation ideas - such as viewing specific summits and not following certian vallies etc... although this went hand in hand with the agreement that there was no way we were going back the way we came, purely due to a complete dislike for backtracking. We kept on following our noses, up and down and around - and we knew it was a good day when Brad mentioned that good old Ken P. would be proud of us for being in the situation where there is good potential to be really, really lost and have a rather spectacular backcountry epic.
Having hyped this day up, it may sound like a let down that we eventually found our way back onto the other side of Mt Shark, and that there was no pursuit by hungry wolves, or necessity to hack of a limb with a blunt leatherman. Nevertheless, a fine winter day for a last minute decision on a Saturday morning, I'll just make sure to remember the camera next time...
Everything else is exactly as you'd expect (make of that what you will),
All good in the Great White North,
don't forget your compass,
S&S.

Here we go again....

After a brief 2009 hiatus from this blog, I've now generated sufficient motivation to be bothered to get this thing into gear once more - albeit without the absurd compulsion to get a certain number of posts banged out before 2010. So lets see what 2009 has in store! So far so good, and also; So far so not much has really altered. There's a rather amusing work story that I shall share in conversing with folk, but which I would be petrified to share with the world on the web. The weather had been freaking us out with the amount of snow and crazy cold temperatures which just wouldn't abate - however, fortune has shone upon us, and we've now gone from minus stupid cold freeze your nuts off in a heartbeat weather, to hey look at me outside at 5pm in my tee shirt and not thinking anything of it kind of winter weather. It has warmed up so much that Sunday will be a ride on the road day!! Woo Hoo!!! The 3 feet of snow along the roads has been melted off the tarmac quite nicely with four days of above zero sunny skies. However, it's still a bit sketchy and not ideal for the proper road bike, so I've spent the afternoon cobbling together a winter beater bike, which I like to call my Cervelo chaser....

Disregarding Weible and his fancy pants Cervelo, I like to see how many overtly wealthy Calgarians riding $6000+ bikes I can spin past on the old knackered Trek (which in sentimental value is absolutely priceless by the way). It's a bit of a sad, egotistical trip on my part, but I get a kick out of it - I just struggle to harbour that niggling, inate competition when I begin to pedal things with two wheels - even on a Sunday spin to a coffee shop.

Here's Mrs. W. on our now weekend ritual "hike to Java Jamboree" for the Saturday morning Latte. Last week's walk to the coffee shop was a tad on the chilly side...

But as you can see below, the cold made for a good short cut crossing the river..

And Bragg Creek has got a plenty of ski trails on the go too. We had a good few hours over there last weekend, I'd stopped here to take a piccie of Brina because I was trying to see what parts of my body I thought I had broken having crashed into the trees about 2 minutes earlier (as usual the little goat like Canuck skier glides through the trees like a whisp, giggling at my cumbersome efforts to maintain a modcium of dignity with my brutal helicopter arms style of ski-ing whenever the trail gets technical) - needless to say, I didn't crash just the once (and the misses just didn't crash - cocky little bugger she is!).
Trusting that all of your 2009s have started with great aplomb, and lets see where we go from here.
Back on Track
S&S.

The 11th Hour at 10 O' clock

Gotcha! The 52nd post that is. For some reason unbeknown to me (or anyone), I set myself little goals that I have to achieve - one of which was to get 52 posts on the blog this year - and this is the 52nd (a good two hours before the year is out - woo hoo, how we party on a New Year's Eve). If it wasn't for my curious obsession with meeting targets, I most certainly wouldn't be writing a blog right now - I would in fact be tucked up in bed, sound asleep, safe in the knowledge that although it's a New Year tomorrow, bugger all will be different and the calendar will also change every day from now until the end of time (so what's all the fuss about?). Brina and I went out for a New Year's Eve meal - yesterday... figuring it is always too busy and overpriced on New Year's Eve (and the days aren't that contrasting).
Today has seen a fun time out in the back country at Healy Creek on the split board with Brad (not on a split board - very wise!).

Here's a shot of Weible ski-ing out as the sun was setting. There was plenty of snow, and the trail back was narrow enough for some sharp turns in the trees (and a few close calls).

Not that I want to subject you to the horror of funny faced, oddly speaking Englishman in the cold, atop a mountain, here're a couple of videos from the top of Healy Pass - It was cloudy as sin and we couldn't see much, so you don't get the sense of the rather majestic mountains around us and you miss out on the notion that we have gained any major height up in the Rockies - and I'm sure it was the cold that made my face contort when I'm talking to look like I was holding in a bad un.

A quick flick back at one of September's posts shows Brina and I hiking up in the larches on Healy Pass (so that gives you and idea of what it's like up here).

After a good day out playing in the snow and a bite to eat and a drink at Brad and Julie's, it is most definitely now time for bed - I must be getting old if I can't even make it to 11pm on a New Year's (but I'll just be up earlier in 2009, to see how much everything has changed - maybe my bike will go even faster then!!!).

Happy New Year to you all,

say hello to midnight for me,

S&S.