This morning I met up with pro-photographer Stephen Wilde  to shoot some photos for a story that Mountain Bike Magazine is doing about me. Their journalist David Howard has gone in to some depth about my career and lifestyle, so today we went to work on capturing that. A bit of trials, a bit of mountain biking, some yoga poses, and, oh wait, shoot, I forgot to get him to shoot me drinking tea!

I have never shot with Stephen before, so I browsed his website, and could immediate tell that he’s got an eclectic taste and style, and the images struck me as very film like. Sure enough, he used 3 or 4 different film camera’s today, in a variety of formats, and like a ‘ol film pro, didn’t use the flash once. Here are a couple images from his website.

I have been a hobby photographer for a good part of my life. Watching my Grandpa patiently take nature photos, then seeing my dad run around the mountain taking photos of me cross country racing, photography has been bred in to me. I remember my Dad teaching me about shutter speed and aperture; and then going out to experiment on plants, bugs and trees. It was such an enjoyable learning curve, and so exciting to see the results after development.

It has been a long time since I was on a film photoshoot, as opposed to digital. It’s almost weird not to be able to preview the image right after the shot has been taken. I think there is a rare confident patience that is inherent in a film photographers style, it’s almost romantic.

I have been a snobbish digital SLR user for the last few years, and was adamant that people could not tell the difference between a good digital image and a film image when put side by side. My ego was wrapped up in that argument because I had spent so much money on a nice digital camera set up. Over the last year or so I have been able to observe that digital ego, and of course, that allowed it to subside and me to see things from a different perspective. Caryn has always been drawn to film photos more than digital, part of it may be noticeable, and part may be just in the patient artistic touch that comes through in a film image.

Thanks for the shoot today Stephen!

Check out this list of interesting reasons to ride your bike. A few unique ideas are listed. The bottom line formula with all this pro bike stuff is: Bikes + Environment = Good News.

Traffic in Vancouver, like most growing cities, is getting pretty intense. Combine that with rising fuel prices, and extreme suburb commuting, and you get some nasty driving attitudes and road rage. Serving humanity and the greater whole is a key element to finding purpose in ones life. I know an old man whose apparent purpose is to help reduce the stress of the car commuter. He’s the old man at the corner of the Hwy 1 on-ramp at Hastings St. in Vancouver.

You can choose to let the old man put a smile on your face, or choose to look down upon him, and ignore him, like many do with homeless people and beggers. When passing him one direction there is no light so I just whiz by, but he always makes eye contact while waving the peace sign; coming the other way, there’s a light, at that point I see him with his broom and dustpan sweeping the curb trash and debris, I see him smiling and waving, and only when signaled by a driver does he come to the window to accept tips. The times I have signaled him, he comes along with his reflective vest on, and shares a joke that always brings a smile to my face; job done.

I started thinking about street people, and that they probably have one of the smallest carbon footprints in western societies. In a culture that values material wealth more than anything, it might be hard for them to be content with the few, if any, possessions they have. However many world travelers often remark that the happiest people they see are the ones in cultures where there is little material wealth. When I was in Peru filming for Kranked 3, we came across a small village, everyone was gathered around the fire, and they invited us over to join. They lived in little huts, no electricity or plumbing, but they weren’t embarrassed, they gave us nothing but welcoming smiles and great hospitality, and there was this unforgettable feeling of calm contentment and connectiveness. In a documentary I just watched called “Ten Questions with the Dalai Lama”, he suggested that the more you have materially, the more you have to worry about; I can certainly see the truth in that.

Back to commuting, a more sustainable method with enormous benefits on so many levels is by way of bike. Now for someone who does more riding at work than to work, I can’t be too preachy, but the times I do choose to take the bike for errands and meetings around town, everything seems better. Hopefully you don’t live too far off in the suburbs, but if the distance is within riding reach, give it a go! Careful though with your bike commuting ego, as Eckhart Tolle said in an interview I recently read, “A cyclist might have a bigger ego than the man in the SUV, especially if he hates the man in the SUV for polluting the planet and thinks he’s superior.”

Cycling is indeed an important part of the solution to climate change, especially as our savings account of oil dwindles. There is still some debate regarding climate change, but it’s hard to argue with the consensus of 2500 scientists on the intergovernmental panel on climate change, chances are they may know better than your neighbor Joe. In an audio interview I heard with author Karen Armstrong, she said “and I don’t think we’ll save the planet if we don’t’ dismantle these habits of selfishness, even with the environment, not just jumping in to a car every time we feel like it, realizing that we can’t just drive anywhere, we can’t go on poisoning the atmosphere like this, our grandchildren are going to curse us.”

The One Planet Two Wheels campaign tells us that 60% of the pollution created by automobile emissions happens in the first few minutes of operation, before pollution control devices can work effectively. 24% of all trips are made within a mile of the home, 40% of all trips are made within two miles of the home, and 50% of the working population commutes five miles or less to work.

Carpooling has been an important initiative in many big cities, but increasing the number of multi passenger trips has proved difficult. A recent study illuminated the reason why; turns out that because of the fast paced modern lifestyle, the car commute is the only time individuals have to themselves! If you go by way of the bicycle you still get that personal reflective time, you save the planet, and always get to the top of the climb first on the weekend mountain bike ride. Sounds like an extraordinary deal to me! Ride ON!! 

If you have ever seen unicycle trials, or mountain unicycling, you have probably watched Kris Holm. Through his passion for unicycling, and his incredible skills, he has helped fuel and create an extraordinary network of unicyclists, you’d be surprised at how many people around the globe are enthusiasts.

Kris holds a masters in Geology from UBC, and splits his time between being out in the feild as a geologist, and running his unicycle business called Kris Holm Unicycles. He has always said that “Unicycles are simple, building good ones is not”, that is why he has basically redesigned and re-engineered the entire thing from scratch, based on his real world experience (watch vid below).

I have known Kris for quite a long time now; we have performed dozens of shows together, and we have had some amazing sessions together on the beaches around Vancouver. So I just wanted to give a shout out to him and plug his new website; if for some reason you haven’t seen Kris in action, check out the youtube video below.

Way to go Kris, you’re rocking it!!!

When it comes to deciding whether to take the bike to the grocery store, to do errands, or to ride to work, it’s pretty easy to come up with excuses to take the car instead. 

The photos below, found at this site, may help you re-think excuses like - my bike’s not good enough or I have too much to carry. Don’t know about you, but after looking at these, my excuses seem quite princess like!

While googling for these photo examples, I came across a fantastic article that address’s all the common reasons someone might have as to why they don’t commute to work or school. It’s a fantastic article, and very thorough. The intro encourages you to be honest with yourself about the reasons why you don’t commute; honest self reflection always goes a long way. Here’s the link to the full article, and the intro is below:

“More people indicate a desire to get to work by bicycle than ever try. There are three kinds of reasons given for not trying: unsolvable problems, unresolved problems, and excuses. While some would consider any problem resolvable, I don’t. Some hardy soul may be able to trailer three kids to daycare before riding another 35 miles to work, but most people can’t. While I will be providing solutions to all kinds of problems, I do not expect all solutions to work for all people. Excuses are at the other end of the spectrum, but most people’s interpretation of an excuse is incorrect: an excuse is given when we don’t know (or don’t want the other person to know) what the real problem is. I’m not going to accuse anyone of making excuses. This is between you and yourself. But look at your own reasons for not riding with a hairy eyeball. Perhaps the reason you have been giving yourself is not your real reason at all. Discover what your real reason is, because bike commuting will be impossible until you identify the real problem. Finally, there are the resolvable problems. I’m going to include a very wide spectrum, not only practical problems but social and mental ones as well. I can’t guarantee that these solutions will work for you, but they may give you ideas which can lead to something that will work.

Unlike my usual practice, I am going to list all the problems and excuses for which I think I have solutions, and you can click on your problem and jump straight down the page to it (don’t do this if you intend to read them all): Bicycling to work is too dangerous. The trip would be too slow; you don’t have that much time. There are no usable routes anyway. The distance from home to the job is too far. You have to take the kids to daycare or school. You could die of heat stroke, freeze to death, or be drowned in torrential rains along the way. If you ride a bike to work, you will arrive too dirty or smelly, and you have no place to change and clean up. Besides, you could have a flat along the way and be late for work. You can’t carry your important papers, your laptop, and/or extra clothing on a bicycle. There’s no safe place to park the bicycle. Bicycling is socially unacceptable anyway.”

Please read the full article here!!!

Happy Biking Everyone!

Ryan

I took advantage of some time at home and rode a local trail. Caryn and I snuck out with our friend Francisco and rode a classic trail called Acadamy on Eagle Ridge. We live close enough that we were able to ride from home, which makes it that much better, and the icing on the cake is that the trail ends at Buntzen Lake, so we got to jump in to cool off. We are so fortunate to live in such an amazing place!

Norco Fluid LT ‘09 at Buntzen Lake

I decided that the only mountain bike I needed this year (except my trials bikes of course) was a Fluid LT. Sure I am a spoiled sponsored rider and could have a special bike for every kind of riding, but the Fluid LT seems to do everything I need. I was playing at the SilverStar bike park the other day, and today went on a three hour cross country ride, this bike will do it all. It keeps life a little simpler as well, in the past, with special bikes for every kind of riding, it seemed that I was always up late the night before a ride fixing and maintaining bikes, but with just one to keep dialed, it saves so much time. I was telling the ‘09 Norco Launch guests that having one bike is like being a bachelor and having only one spoon, bowl, and plate to keep clean; keeps it simple!

July 17

Just finished a half-day at the Whistler Bike Park, and good thing it’s just half a day because my forearms are pumped! Funny that I can ride trials all day, but make me hang on through brakes bumps and ruts and I can hardly hold on!

Jay Hoots helped me tune my suspension in for the bike park, and I think that combined with a second day of practice really helped a few things click, I was on the offense on the jump lips instead of on the defense. It’s really enjoyable letting my body learn and adapt and remember these movements and techniques; once again I can see how people get stoked on riding this mountain.

There is a future shop convention happening at the same hotel as the Norco launch; I’ve been watching them come and go and do their thing. Seems like they’re in meetings all day long, and it sure makes me glad I’m in the bike industry, we get to play on bikes for most of the day!

July 18^th

I went on a fantastic cross country ride this morning through all the Whistler Valley trails, about two hours worth of singletrack, without all the huge braking ruts. Then after lunch I went and had one run at the bike park, but couldn’t hold on to the bars, again my forearms are shot, I guess they’re sore from yesterday. Chasing riders like Jay Hoots and the two Austrian Norco stars (and such nice people) Flo Gottschlich and Angie Hohenwarter, proved just too much for me today, so I thought better of it before the mountain got the better of me, and instead chased back to the condo for a very short yoga session, and now I’m quickly typing this blog, and will then go up to the top of Whistler for an interview with my trials bike for CTV’s evening news.

If you’re living in Kamloops BC, I have a show there on Sunday at the River Festival, come say hi.

Happy Friday!

No sure if I’ll have time to find internet today; seems that Norco’s 2009 product launch is keeping me quite busy! Norco sure is spoiling everything with great food and amazing riding. Whistler is the perfect venue for this event.

The first couple days Norco hosted the top Norco dealer’s, the last couple days they are hosting international distributors and media. On Tuesday I went out with about 14 dealers and rode the short loop of Comfortably Numb. On Wednesday I went and shot a podcast about the Fluid on the same trail, then went up to the Roundhouse for lunch. We rode from the top all the way down, then back up to film with the Ride Guide. Then I went to get set up for a trials show that I did later that evening at the Longhorn.

Riding the bike park is always a steep learning curve for me. Last year I had one run down the bike park in Whistler, and about half a day at Silverstar, the year before about the same; so after a couple runs yesterday, the first of the season for me, I’m hoping to build on my confidence, and hopefully start to get the feel for jumping. When I do manage to hit the jumps just right, it sure does feel good, I can see why so many people get addicted to the scene up here. I think it would be easy for me to get carried away, but I’ll be keeping it safe, I’ve got loads of shows to do still this Summer! Perhaps I’ll get more specific with the new bikes later, but I’ve gotta go get my gear on right now for the next ride. Ciao!

A good friend of mine, Francisco Gatchalian, was recently invited to test the new 2009 Shimano Saint components up in Whistler, BC. Being that he is a physiotherapist, running two clinics called Trailside Physio, many of his patients may be as a result of components failure, so having his two cents of feedback is valuable and honest. Here is his run-down….

“July 7, 2008 (Whistler, BC) - In June 2008 media representatives from around the world gathered to attend Shimano’s Saint 2009 press launch in Whistler, BC. Our task was to test ride the all new 2009 Saint components. With little fanfare and no sales pitch, the Shimano staff kitted out my ride and turned me loose on the Whistler Bike Park. 

I tend to be hard on components, so I was anxious to see how the new Saint set-up would fare. Every Saint component is a little bit lighter, the new gold graphics are eye-catching and each piece has been redesigned with adjustability and compatibility in mind. But would it all survive the abuse of the Whistler Bike Park on some of Canada’s toughest terrain? ” Click here for the rest of the article.