I’m off on a camping trip this morning with the family. I’ll be back to my blog in a week!

Ryan

Whistler is situated among some of the most spectacular scenery, but it can still be a fairly toxic place to spend five days, especially during a gravity and testosterone fed festival like Crankworx. Participants and spectators are recovering from Crankworx in many different ways right now. The hype, buzz and adrenaline can be a bit overwhelming, and it’s sometimes hard to shake it off and bring things back to reality.

I felt nicely grounded after listening to this song today by Xavier Rudd today….

energy-song

Anyone else stuck in the traffic back to Vancouver last night? It took me over four hours to get home! I had some good podcasts to listen to though (check the side panel to the right). I think most drivers remained positive though, one guy even got out of his car while we were stopped, knocked on my window, and gave me a beer….no I didn’t drink it Thanks buddy!

We’re spending mega bucks on a new highway from Vancouver to Whistler, and they’re making great progress. There was no construction last night, but yet the delays were enormous. My former team mate and mentor Robin Coope was stuck in the same traffic jam, and suggested that the new highway may be safer, but could result in huge delays in Squamish because of the cities traffic light situation, which has grown to seven along the highway. Once the highway is complete, we could still be in store for some huge delays during busy times, such as, oh, say for example, the Olympics. Good prediction Robin, I hope you’re wrong, but I fear you may not be.

 

 

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!!

After a shoddy sleep in an overheated hotel room, I woke up, walked across the street to the bakery and bought a freshly baked croissant and cinnamon bun, then rolled down the street to the World Cup venue at Mont Saint Anne for my third day of demos here in Quebec. After a fairly quiet first show in the morning, I hung out, ate some healthier food, caught up with e-mails in the press room, and watched some of the DH preliminaries.

Second show was great fun, rode a couple hard lines, and because I purposely started the show early, the audience, and myself, had time to watch most of the women DH action. Congrats to my teammate Fionn Griffiths who took a 5th. Solid! She later snatched up a bronze in the 4X, she’s gotta be all smiles tonight.

I caught up with my buddy Marc Landry from FastTimes, he was shooting for Shimano, and I shadowed him for a while to catch all the best views of the mends DH, which was well under way at that point.  Close to tend, I had to race back to the bottom, but still saw the top few guys blow away the rest of the pack, with Minaar, Hill, and Atherton rounding out the top three (if my memory serves correct that is). Right at the same time I got a call from Caryn who had just finished her first mini-tri back home in BC, nice work love!

My 4:30 show was the busiest yet. For some reason it still lacked the magic from four years ago when I was here with my mentor and friend Robin Coope, but it was the kind of show that still left me smiling. I miss Robin’s dedication to his french rhetoric!

I rode my trials bike back to the hotel room, showered up with the intention to head back to the hill. But my hotel room was changed, and I had this beautiful room instead, with a large living room that just begged for a yoga session. So I decided to put on a yoga podcast from Eoin Finn (the Tragically Hips one), because when I flow naturally, I just don’t push myself as much, and after this practice I was sweating and tired and feeling incredible. At that point the weather was sketchy, and I ironically decided to watch the 4X live on freecaster from the hotel room, while multi-tasking with a few other ‘puter chores.

It’s raining a little right now, so with a full belly, a happily tired body, and a day of shows tomorrow, I’ll think I’ll skip the famous Mont Saint-Anne party (which goes until 4am), and catch a good night sleep.

 

My voyage to Quebec has been very worthwhile so far. More and more I am judging the value of my trips against the emissions that were released to make it possible; its gotta have purpose

The first thing I am happy with is my involvment in the production by Velerium in downtown Quebec City last night. It was quite a scene that incorporated my trials show, along with a flow show, a jumping competition, street running (parkour), breakdancing, and live music. I was happy with my shows, but more so there were a few special moments chatting with the audience between shows. As a Canadian, I am also quite honored to be participating in part of the celebrations for Quebec’s 400th birthday, Bon Fete Quebec, content d’etre ici!!

Todays show at Mont Saint Anne was really quiet, not a lot of people around, tomorrow should be the big day. I was glad to have the time to sit down for an interview with David Howard after my show, he’s the Story Editor for Mountain Bike Magazine. As an accomplished journalist in a number of different fields, I’m really glad to have had the opportunity to have some deep conversations about not just riding, but life in general. I’m excited to see how this article unfolds in the magazine, perhaps a few month down the road.

I’ll leave you with a short clip from one of the street runners from last night, whew!!!

 

Last Fall I travelled to Edmonton for the United Cycle bike show; while waiting for my flight in Vancouver, I met a fellow named Mike Spinner. If you’re not sure who he is, watch the video below, and you won’t forget. I didn’t, I was just looking for videos that showed resi-ramps, and thought I’d youtube him, and the vid below is his latest. Apparently he just pulled one at a contest last weekend too. 

I got to hang out with him a bit in Edmonton out of all places, because he was there for MirraCo. He is a world class, groundbreaking BMX’er, but what is more important is that he is a humble, down to earth, nice guy. He’s clean cut, doesn’t drink or party hard, and is just out to have fun, meet cool people, and push his sport. Simple ideals that are taking him all over the world. Keep spreading the good vibe Mike!

 

One year ago at the Norco 2008 product launch, I remember seeing deep foundations being laid for the new Peak 2 Peak gondola that will span the 4.4km between Whistler and Blackcomb mountain. This year, the cable is in place, and it looks as crazy as ever, amusement park like, and it will be ready for opening in December of this year.

Two world records will be broken:

1. longest span between two towers (straight line) at 3.02 km.

2. 1427 feet high above the Fitzsimmons Creek

Still haven’t decided if I’ll be brave enough to ride it?

Watch some of the constructions videos here, some pretty impressive human engineering going on! As Norco guru Pete Stace-Smith would say, “They’ve got guys with glasses this thick (finger gesture) working on that”.

Dorothy had it right by saying “there’s no place like home”; just arrived back with Caryn last night from a long trip from MUC to YVR via YYV. Our flight was delayed leaving Munich and they said it was because of some bikes they were loading, and since they missed their push off, the delay for a spot over the ocean(600 to 800 at any one time)  was now 90 minutes; terrible they actually blamed it on that because it was obvious to many passengers who the family of six, who had been on a bike tour through Europe, were. Luckily they snuck us off without the full delay. 

So it was great to hang out with Thomas again, here’s a picture of us beside his new demo trailer. He was rocking it on the bike, he was doing a high jump thing with a small kicker and made it up 16 pallets, so smooth!

I met up with Mark from Singletrack magazine while in Kaprun, and he was with my buddy Sanny from Scotland who hosted me in Glasgow for a film festival a few years back. We were hanging out for dinner and Mark was brainstorming ideas for a top ten list of things Austria has contributed to the world for his blog; I think they did a pretty good job!

By the way, I think the fact that per capita, Austrians emit only 2.34 tonnes of Co2 compared to Canada’s 5.46 should make the list….although they have much work to do, their footprint still requires more than two earths to sustain if everyone adopted their lifestyle.

Caryn and I met some pretty amazing people during the last couple weeks, we truly are fortunate to experience the culture and see the sights of such an amazing part of the world.

While traveling in Germany and Austria during the last couple weeks, it became obvious that the culture has a lower level of stress than we do in North America, this is a generalization, but I think it holds strong. Rarely have I seen an obese European on this trip, the number of cyclist commuting and out for recreation is extraordinary, and the general pace of work and life seems to be one notch slower and thus intrinsically more satisfying. There is time to go out for a run and still spend quality time with the family; in Europe you can have your cake and eat it too! My observations seem to be supported by a recent article I read from WorldChanging on working habits. Read through and you’ll see the stats listed about European work habits and the results from that.

 

“I argued that the long hours we in the United States work — some 300 more per year than western Europeans — mean we are more likely to rely on “convenience” and disposable items, such as heavily-packaged fast foods and single-use goods. I told my audience that many people had told me they were “too pressed for time even to recycle.” Moreover, our long work hours allow us to produce and buy more and more “stuff,” resulting in a greater pressure on resources and an inevitably stream of more waste.” MORE

 

 

Caryn and I are hanging out in Kaprun, Austria, a village in the Austrian Alps that is big on mountain biking. The event we’re here for is called Bike Infection, and I’ll be performing with Thomas Oehler and Petr Kruas this afternoon.

The first day in Kaprun, Thursday,  I did a show for the local school, got to ride on gymnastic equipment.

The students seemed to have enjoyed it, and now many of them have signed up for the bike race during Bike Infection this weekend. Nice!

Then later on I had a hair cut, my hair is now the shortest is has been in about 15 years, but to make up for it my facial hair is the longest it has ever been.

Here is another link to my friend Mark’s photos, these are from our visit to the Krimml Waterfall a few days ago.

Ciao….