Hey Vancouver Folks,

The mountain bike evening of the VIMFF is this Wednesday, January 27th, in North Vancouver. Here is the promo poster…

VIMFF2010_Jan-27_Mtn-Biking

Hope to see you there!

I was just out practicing today in the rain. Feeling pretty good for January. I think I’ll try to set up my entire demo course on the stage and pack in as many lines as I can in the 10 minutes or so I have to ride. Then I have to change modes and start talking about and showing video clips from all the various films I have been in throughout the last 12 years. Trying to figure out exactly what I’m going to say right now…trying to come up with something intelligent to say, but it seems slow to come Sometimes ad-libbing works better for me

Bjorn Enga from Radical Films will be there sharing some wisdom from his perspective as one of the worlds leading mountain bike film producers. Throw in some of the other carefully selected films from those that entered the festival, and I think it should be a pretty entertaining and interesting evening.

Hmmm, best I go get a haircut now, Caryn said I can’t show up that night with the crazy hair I have going right now

Cheers!

Ryan

Hi Everyone!

The 2010 Sea Otter Classic is coming up April 15-18!

My focus at this world renowned cycling festival will be to perform trials shows in the pit area (see schedule below); but as a side bonus, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be offering free morning yoga classes for anyone that is interested.

So this blog post will serve as a reference for all those riders who might be interested.

Whether you’re racing, watching, working, exhibiting, or performing, the goal of this class is to charge you up so you’re feeling amazing for the day ahead—loose body, primed muscles, and a clean and clear mind. Nothing too serious, just playing yoga!

Instructor: Ryan Leech

When: April 16, 17, 18

Time: 7am – 8am

Where: Chapparel Building in Campground B (here is a map, the building is at the north west part of the loop)

Style: Vinyasa Flow

Level: All levels All good

For Who: Everyone welcome

If you have your own yoga mat, please be sure to bring it. But I’ll have a few extra just in case.

For an interview with Ryan about how mountain biking and yoga fit together, check out NSMB.com.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments feild below, I’ll do my best to answer!

If you’d like to check out a trials show, I’ll be at booth 755 with a brand new demo obstacle set to ride on. Come on by for daily shows:

Thursday: 1 and 3

Friday: 10:30, 1 and 3

Saturday: 10:30, 1 and 3

Sunday: 10:30 and 1

(photo-Harookz, chain line from CRUX)

Looking forward to see you there!

All the best,

Ryan

PS-If you’re looking for a mountain biking and yoga holiday, check out the one I’m hosting with Boreale Mountain Biking in Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, Canada

Was up fairly early this morning, listening to the cold wind blow outside; decided I’d flow some words out on my neglected blog before I dug in to the days ‘to-do’ list.

My new demo trailer should be arriving shortly, but I don’t have anything to fill it with yet—though last week I was with my Dad and as usual, he came up with an incredibly unique demo obstacle design. See if I can describe it in words…Kind of like spokes in a wheel, I’d have a centre hub with six arms radiating outward, each about 8 feet long and at slightly different heights. Then my platforms and beams and railings would attach between each of the arms. Easy to set up, just open the arms outward and plonk platforms on top, and it would have a unique look. Whether it will work in real life and be stable, we’ll see, but  I’m pretty pumped on the possibilities.

Yoga has been a theme lately, as it has for much of the year. I am teaching three times a week. Twice at Norco’s head office during lunch, and once on Sunday morning at Trailside Physio. Teaching yoga has been more challenging than I anticipated, and I think that is part of the draw for me and why I’m having so much fun with it. I usually pratice personally three or four times a week, so the amount of personal practice seems to have gone down since teaching frequency went up; I guess partly that is because I still teach mostly from the mat while doing the practice instead of walking around just using words to teach. Starting to mix it up a bit, but I really like to connect with how it feels personally in order to express an accurate description of each posture. I recently got a little deeper in to the why’s of teaching yoga during an interview with NSMB.com, that should be posted shortly.

I got a vita-mix recently. That was exciting. The thing has a 2hp motor, same company that makes the blenders at juice and smoothie bars.

Been riding my Norco VFR a lot recently, I love the riding lifestyle. Nothing beats having to whip down to the store on a bike to get dinner ingredients while passing all the rush hour traffic. I just starting shooting a little online video with Alex Lavigne about the riding lifestyle. While the trials bike may lay idle this time of year, my commuter bike is getting loads of action.

Well, best I get to doing some work. Have an awesome Monday folks!

Hi Folks!

The approach of the InterBike Trade Show and Convention in Las Vegas acts as the end of one riding season and the beginning of another. Over the past year, my goal was to lighten my load of demos and focus on other areas of my career; while that was more or less the case, I still managed to perform 58 shows, and many of those were full Trials of Life school presentations. Mix in a variety of sponsorship obligations, magazine articles, photo-shoots, advocacy work, and filming sessions, and all of a sudden a year blows by!

Some may know that playing yoga has been an important background activity of mine for the past five years, but recently it has come to the foreground through my desire to share the benefits of the practice with others. The 200 hour yoga teacher training program I embarked on finishes the day before InterBike starts, and I’ll be throwing myself in to the teaching world by offering a “Free Morning Yoga Session with Ryan Leech” on Sept. 23, starting at 7:30am in Casanova Room 602, at the Sands Convention Centre.

I leave tomorrow for Ucluelet, BC, the sister city of Tofino on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. This is the venue for the rest of my yoga teacher training. Though I won’t have my bike with me (except for my pavement bike), I may get out in the waves for some surfing…actually, it might be required by my teacher Eoin Finn who is huge in to surfing. Should be ten days of intensity and chillosity (is that word)…two things every yoga practice should have!

If you have some good ideas about a trials show demo set-up, please pass your ideas or drawing along to me at trials@ryanleech.com; after four years of shows on the same stuff, I’m excited to mix it up with a new trailer and a fresh obstacle design. I need the obstacles to have a quick set up and tear down time as one of my plans for 2010 is to launch another Canadian Trials of Life school tour, on which I’ll be visiting and performing at multiple schools everyday. Whew!

Project Blue Sky is up and running and looking good! If you’re curious about how much of an effect your carbon friendly modes of transportation have, then please sign up and start using the handy dandy kilometer counting widget. You can embed the widget in your blog (just look to the right on my side column), or link to it in facebook, it’s pretty cool. The goal of this athlete driven, student directed project is to inspire concrete action to fight climate change, that concrete goal is one billion kilometers of carbon friendly travel which incidentally would balance the amount of CO2 emitted indirectly from the Vancouver Olympic Games. It’s a big goal, so if you ride to work, or take the bus once-in-a-while, log it up at Project Blue Sky!

Happy September Everyone!

Yesterday marked the kick off of a week of riding in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory in Canada. With the anticipation of sunny skies and 30 + degree weather, the excitement is high.

Day one went quickly, it was only half a day, but it was full. We were greeted at the airport by local owner of Boreale Mountain biking, Marsha Cameron (the other owner Sylvain Turcotte was on a ride) and met Josh from The Ride Guide TV show and raced off to drop our gear at Yurtville, the base camp of their riding operation (more about the glory of modern yurts later). I had to build my trials bike quickly and get to the local Canada Games centre to set up for a trials show.

Arranging random riding obstacles in a trialsy way is always fun and challenging. I spend about 2 hours doing so until the local rippers and bike enthusiasts starting showing up for an evening of mountain biking. Local ripper, Kate White, member of Contagious bike club, rallied the troops and got them pumped about a helmet campaign called Bike your Brains Out, and then handed it over to me. I did a thirty minute show and after, while they watched some segments from Crux, the obstacles were re-arranged for an open riding session/pizza party/helmet give-away. Helmets are perfect for signing, and since they gave away 60+ helmets, I was kept busy and didn’t get to do too much extra riding, but it was so great just getting to meet all the locals, the best part of my job. 

For photos, check out Dustan’s offering on Norco’s Flickr site.

So much momentum in the mountain bike world in the Yukon. I’ll share more soon! I gotta get my Fluid LT built up so we can go film. 

Happy Days,

Ryan

I’ll keep this post short and sweet….

BC Bike Race:

The most beautiful, challenging, and well run adventure mt bike race in the world is happening in BC this week. On Friday, July 3rd, I’ll be doing a show at the Squamish Stage at 2pm. 

Port Moody Trials Park Grand Re-Opening:

If you live close to Vancouver and would like to try riding trials, come out on July 4th at 10am to the Port Moody Trials Park under the Murrey Street Overpass. Bring your bike and come ride some new obstacles, learn from the local pros, and eat some free food.

Yogathon:

Come join thousands of people at Thunderbird Stadium (UBC) on July 11th to raise money for kids impacted by HIV so they can go to Camp Mooba, a weeklong Summer Camp. Before and after the largest yoga practice in Canada, I’ll be doing some trials demos. Should be an incredible atmosphere! I actually just visited the kids at the camp which is close to my home in Port Moody to teach some yoga and do a trials show. They’re having some great adventures and making some good friends, smiles all around. 

Project BlueSky:

The official launch of Project Blue Sky will be happening next week, and I’m glad to be endorsing and helping spread the word. I’ll talk more about how great this project is soon, but feel free to click on the link for now…

Norco’s 2010 product launch is coming up in a couple weeks, should be a blast. Then I’m off to the Yukon for a mountain bike adventure with the Ride Guide Mountain Bike Show.

Ride On!!

Hi Folks!

As part of the warm up for Bike to Work Week (May 11-17), I had planned a visit to a school to show them a few trials tricks, then take them for a ride. I certainly didn’t want to be a hypocrite and drive, but how was I going to get to the school with two different bikes? Knowing that my example is more powerful than my words, I decided to borrow a bike trailer from my friend Dimitri, and just tow my trials bike and high jump bar to the school. It was only about a 35 minute bike ride, so no big deal. I, along with 95 students, rode their bikes to school-NICE!!

(Big rig vs Small rig—could this be a sign of things to come?)

If you’re a Vancouverite, the Trips for Kids DownBeat Slideshow and Silent Auction is coming up on May 7^th. I’ll be doing a trials demo, Sterling Lorence and Kari Medig will present slideshows, and there will be some incredible auction items up for grabs. Check out all the specifics here!

The desire to progress and push my riding is at a momentary plateau; but I am inspired to progress and push my persona, and to use this brief period of my career in a responsible way to promote the joys of cycling and to contextualize these joys in a way that may help to serve the everyday challenges of life. This is the broad brushstroke of a vision I have for the next season or three or more. How these thought patterns evolve and materialize is yet to be determined, but I’m quite excited about the possibilities.

Mr. David Howard, author, father, and executive editor of Mountain Bike Magazine met me last year at the Mont-Sainte-Anne World Cup to hang out and spend some time talking; the resulting article has just been published in their June 2009 issue. The article is titled “Ryan Leech’s Toughest Trial”, and captures part of my thought process as described above. FYI, after the main body of the article, it is continued on Page 81, they just forgot to add the “continued on” part. Also, the articles referenced in the story titled BikEcology, were written for the now inoperative Mountain Biking Magazine, not Bike Magazine, but are nonetheless available on my blog.

The Sea Otter Classic in California has come and gone, so the riding season is officially on in North America (did it ever end in Vancouver?!). But for those that have winter knocking on the door, I hope you take advantage of some great rides before the weather finally turns.

Have fun!

RL

POV of young kid giving me a high five

The Sea Otter Classic attracts some seriously enthusiastic cyclists. Whether they are racing or just soaking in all the action, the energy is positive—I”m doing my best to contribute to that vibe through my trials shows in the expo village.

Yesterday I had three shows. Had a fairly early start to the day to set up my demo area and get it looking good, had a couple breakfasts, one at the house, and one at the venue to get some extra calories for the day, and was performing by 10:30 under bluebird skies and perfect temperatures. 

Toward the end of the day, I was cleaning up my demo area; I was inside my trailer at one point and the doors blew closed, so I walked over to open them again, but before I got there I heard it being latched closed and it then went pitch black inside. I called out “hey I’m in hear, can you open it up!!”…..nothing….then called out “I bet that’s Ben Boyko out there, come up, funny joke, but open up!”…still nothing, nothing, nothing….I flipped my phone open to find the light switch, and got it on. Probably more than a minute passed and I decided someone had thought they’d be nice and close my trailer door to keep things safe. I was just calling one of the Norco guys on my cell to come let me out when, sure enough, Boyko let me out. When he plays a practical joke, he’s thorough!!

I thought I’d pedal my bike (my Fluid LT) back to the house we’re staying at so I could make a late afternoon cup of tea, do some yoga, and maybe read a book until the rest of the crew arrived. I got to the house, but the key was missing from the hiding spot; someone had taken it to the event by accident. No worries though, a little yoga in the backyard on the patio carpet, and a little reading on the deck chair to a setting sun was nothing to complain about…I did miss my tea though!

I’m quite tired today as I type this, not sleep tired but muscel tired. Another three shows today, and then perhaps a cross country ride with the Marzocchi guys will finish me off quite nicely. Good things it’s sunny out, because just like my wife, I’m solar powered.

Have a great weekend folks!

Ryan

Just at the hotel room resting after the first day of the Toronto Bike Show. I rode to and from the event with an extra long seatpost in my bike, it’s only takes about 20 minutes in a granny geared fat tired bike, so it’s pretty close. For some reason it makes me happy to be able to ride the same bike to the show as I perform on. 

The performing went quite well. I am always a little nervous that after at least ten years of performing at this show that my riding isn’t go to keep up with expectations. But I have to remind myself that I can only do my best and that will have to be good enough—today it seemed like it was. Perhaps having a challenge in my demo set up beyond the routine moves and obstacles makes it more interesting to me and hence the audience. There is an old pick-up truck that I’m riding on, and my challenge is to ride from the roof to the edge of the bed and balance down it. I got on it today, but not off the end. I’ll have to work on that through the weekend. Fun.

I also had a seminar today on the Mind Game of Riding. Quite a few curious folks listened to my 30 minute speech on a topic that is both deep but simple at the same time. It went well from my point of view, but will need some fine tuning to make my points as clear as they are in my mind.

A few days I visited a school in Mississauga as one of the winners of my Trials of Life contest. Here’s a little article from that.

Here are a couple photos from the school I visited in Burlington. The first is Matthew’s family-the other winner of my Trials of Life contest. The second is him and I being interviewed before my presentation by Matt Hayes, a popular host of the local news.

I had my first official outdoor demo yesterday at a local bike shop, just 10 minutes from my home. The shop’s called Sharpey’s and it was season kick off/fundraiser for the BC Childrens Hospital.

Here’s a link to the incredible story of Ryder, the shop owners son, and the reason behind the  fundraising efforts yesterday at the shop, and just one of the many ways in which the family is giving back after all the support they received during the last year. What a beautiful family.

It’s Sunday now, I’m getting ready to go to Toronto. I’ll be visiting some schools as part of my Trials of Life contest. I’ll be performing at the Toronto International Bike show. I’ll also be giving some workshops on the Mind Game of Riding, a topic of much importance. Here’s the little blurb they’re using to promote it at the show:

No matter what kind of cycling you enjoy most, it is always desirable to progress your riding skills. I am frequently asked to describe and break down techniques step by step, but I often feel uncomfortable doing this because it encourages an over active mind resulting in disconnected movements.

My goal for this workshop is to share an approach to riding that will allow your skills to progress naturally, safely, quickly, and ultimately with more enjoyment-I will share my experience on topics such as visualization, fear, and mind/body awareness. The items discussed can be applied to all styles of riding no matter what level you’re at, so please join me!

So I’m just trying to finish some preparation for that workshop (but got distracted writing this blog post), and also get some washing done, go to the farmers market with Caryn, and also go to a family festival with the family, and also go over a proposal with Joan Jones for the reno of the Port Moody Trials Park. Whew! I think the rest of the day is going to go by pretty fast! 

All the best everyone!

Ryan