Hey Folks,

Happy to announce that I’ll be offering two free yoga classes in Whistler during Crankworx!

Thursday: 7pm at Lost Lake (ride your bikes along the valley trail to get there!)

Saturday: 8am outside the Lulu Lemon Store in Whistler Village

Both classes are free!

Mats are provided by Lulu Lemon, just bring your friends!

No experience necessary, everyone welcome, all levels all good!

Style of class is Vinyasa Flow

Length of class is 1 hour

Hope to see you there!! Spread the word!!

Day 2 of the 200 km Ride to Conquer Cancer from Toronto to Niagra Fall is under way for over 4000 cyclists. They collectively raised 16.1 million for cancer research and prevention. I had the pleasure of performing yesterday in Hamilton at the mid station party, such a humbling but yet positive vibe.

I have now been on the road for 49 days, travelled 12311 km’s in my truck and trailer, presented/performed at 31 schools, performed at 10 bike shops, taught 3 yoga classes, did a mtb xc race, and of course last nights RTCC. After the show I drove up to Toronto, dropped my truck and trailer off, and am now waiting for my flight back home to BC. Yup, a mid tour trip home! A good friend at Norco is kindly driving my rig 3800 km’s back to Alberta where I’ll pick it up in 9 days to continue my adventures toward Whitehorse in the Yukon. I am again feeling so grateful for so many reasons, it’s almost overwhelming!

Peace!

Got spoiled during breakfast at a B&B, great way to start my day off for my day off! The last ten days has been incredible, I presented at 10 schools, performed at 3 bike shops, taught a fun yoga class (plus some solo practices), and went on three mountain bike rides. I am feeling so deeply grateful to have met and learned so much from all the amazing grade school students, shop owners and employees, teachers and principles, police officers, bike enthusiasts, and everyone in between. Smiles all around!

Hello from the GTA, hanging out in Pickering right now, trying to get some serious ‘rest on’ so I’m ready for a show at one of the biggest shops in Ontario, Bay Cycle, tomorrow. (Noon sharp for anyone that is local)

Crashed during the last school show today, slipped out on the back wheel and landed on my now bruised sit bones. First proper bail of the tour, but I’m fine, finished the show, and might do some yoga to limber up…maybe I’ll play my didgeridoo partly to vibrate some healing blood flow to my low back and sit bones, but mainly to acknowledge my jealousy that Caryn is going to see Xavier Rudd play in Vancouver later on tonight!!!!

What a great week though! Yesterday, one of the police officers on the Pedal-For-Hope team came up with a skit for an elementary school. I pretended to be a photographer during their presentation, then he pretended to set up to jump over a couple staff members, making it sound legit, finally, the bike was taken away from him out of fear and they asked the audience if anyone else might be able to do it instead, I jumped in, pretended to be just a novice, and then leaped over them. We scared everyone because no one new I was going to be at that school! Good times!!

I watched at least 50 kids get their head shaved this week, many of them were girls! Lots of full locks to be made in to wigs.

I also put one of the cops on the spot and made him sing “listen to your heart” by Roxette in front of a thousand high schoolers because earlier he was joking around with me about one of my quotes in my presentation. He stepped up and busted out in song, it was great!

Nine schools in total this week, plus an awesome mountain bike ride with the Shimano crew in Peterborough. Gotta rest up!!

I feel so grateful to everyone I have met while on this tour, it has been epic in every way so far!

Ryan

A different kind of juicing that is in the cycling news right now. It’s green juicing I’m talking about!

Just finished blasting 8 apples, 1 head of spinach, 2 stalks of kale, 3 carrots, and a lemon in my vita-mix, then squeezed out the juice through a nut-milk bag.

I quickly chugged back a bunch to counteract the heavy feeling I was left with after choking down the free ‘hot’ breakfast the hotel offered up.

Stay tuned for a geeky video of how to juice with a blender in your hotel room…

You know you stay at too many hotels when you check in to a room in the middle of nowhere and the check-in attendant said you stayed there four years ago?!

Hey Folks,

I am posting daily on my Facebook Fan Page, check it out for tour updates, stories, insights, and thoughts. Love to have you join in and ‘like’ the page!

Just posted a couple pictures from my cross country race today. Not sure what I was thinking racing 26km’s immediately before having to perform a trials show!

For those who are ‘friends’ on my personal Facebook page, please click the link and ‘like’ my new profile because I’ll soon be deleting most of the ‘friends’ leaving only close friends and family on my personal page.

Right on!

Ryan

Just a quick link to a blog post I wrote for PinkBike. Click Here. It’s the first of three posts I’ll share on that site during my tour…

Ryan

I would love your support! Here are the details: http://bit.ly/9MVJsk

The Cops for Cancer crew in Peterborough, ON, are trying to raise a million bucks for pediatric cancer research and prevention. They are setting a healthy lifestyle example by riding their bikes on a ‘Pedal for Hope’ tour visiting various schools.

My contribution is to give my Trials of Life presentation to the top three fundraising schools. On top of that, I have agreed to have my head shaved by the Cops on June 1st at one of the schools…that is if I manage to raise $1000 toward this cause.

Are you willing to skip a haircut and put that money toward a great  cause?

I have set up a donation page through the Canadian Cancer Society, and set an example by donating $20, the money saved by skipping my last haircut; if you’d like to do the same, or just have some spare funds you’d like to give, please visit my page at:

http://bit.ly/9MVJsk

Here is a quick youtube blurb about I posted a couple days ago too:

Ride ON!

Ryan

It’s snowing! I’m in Wolseley Saskatchewan staying at the Banbury House Inn, a 105 year old mansion with quant old rooms. Did a quick yoga on arrival to stretch out my stiff and cranky driving body. Making quick progress toward Winnipeg where I have two school presentation on Monday followed by a poster signing at Bikes and Beyond at 4pm.

Stayed with a friend last night in Eastend Saskatchewan. He is a multi talented dude, trials is one of them, and another one of his passions is building and playing the didgeridoo. I’m traveling with one that he made, and so we got to have a little jam last night…well at least he jammed and I made a bunch of disconnected noises that would scare a dog away (as one person on FB commented). I did  have fun and learn a few things though! Many thanks Kevin!!

For any yogi’s, coincidentally, this uber small town, of like of a few hundred people, is the home of Dr. Georg Feuerstein; and my buddy Kevin is taking yoga classes with his wife Brenda. So cool!! Both are brilliant brilliant human beings as far as I can tell. Here’s a quote by them.

“Tread lightly on this Earth.
Be kind to all creatures.
Live simply.
Consume less.
Avoid air travel.
Find alternatives to car travel.
Delight in a vegetarian diet.
Grow your own food if possible.
Use water sparingly.
Lobby for a saner, healthier world.”

My road trip candy is dried mango. I bought a $45 bag of it. It is so sweet and yummy…to bad I made a mistake and it is instead papaya, lame.

Did I mention it’s snowing and is very very flat here.

Still on the yoga thing….I’m teaching yoga in Fredericton next week. Here’s a blurb from the studio owner Stephanie:

As you may remember, I mentioned earlier this winter that we were having a guest Yoga teacher from BC arrive in Fredericton to perform a Bike Stunt show at Officer Square, and it just happens to be next weekend!  Ryan Leech will be landing with all his tricks in Fredericton for May 8th, to perform a crazy wild stunt show that simply must be seen on Saturday, May 8th at 4pm in Officer Square, free for all to come and enjoy!  Then, once he’s rested up, Ryan will be leading us through a Vinyasa Yoga class on Sunday, May 9th from 6:00-7:30pm here at the Satori studio.  As you know, space is limited, so sign up as soon as possible to join in on this one time opportunity!  Ryan doesn’t come to town very often, but hopefully Satori and Savages Bicycle Shop can be a home away from home for him when he does make it!   To sign up for Ryan’s class, email me at enlighten.satori@gmail.com

Seeya’ll!

Knocked off a short 4 1/2 hours of driving today, the first warm up drive of my cross Canada tour. I’m in Penticton, BC right now, I have two school shows tomorrow, plus a yoga class in Kelowna in the evening—busy first day! (Yoga is at OranjDance starting at 6:45pm and is a fundraiser that benefits Pediatric Cancer Research-check out my fundraising page-more to come on that)

So I pulled up to what looked like a clean cozy hotel, it was pretty late so I didn’t want to be too picky. First odd sign was that the attendant at the front desk didn’t know how to swipe my credit card. Hmmm. Anyway, got my key, grabbed my things from the truck, walked in the smelly room and looked at the caved in bed, hmmm, pulled the sheets up and spotted a bed bug, eeeee. Caryn and I had done our research from previous encounters, there was no doubt. Not good. I booked it out of there and put myself up somewhere decent. Might do some camping this tour!

I’m just downloading a couple new songs right now to add to my yoga playlist for tomorrow nights class. It’ll be a 75 minute long session, I think it might be a hard class, I have to go over my routine after writing this blog. I always like to mix my yoga classes up a bit, different each time, some spontaneity.

Well, I’ll sign off for now. More soon….and hey, don’t let the bed bugs bite…

Ryan