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

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

We made it all the way to Santa Cruz on Monday, it was about a fairly easy 14 hour pull from Salem, OR. That made for a relaxing pace on Tuesday. Woke up, had coffee, jumped on our bikes and cruised the Cruz sea wall on our bikes, watching the surfers, and enjoying the sunrise. Grabbed breakfast at a wicked little Brazillian restaurant, and headed for Laguna Seca to drop the trailers off, got them washed, and organised some gear.

The Norco crew is staying at a house close to the venue, so we all got settled. A couple went to get groceries, another worked on the computer, and I took advantage of the late afternoon and set my yoga mat up in a sunbeam to grab a session. 

Today we’ll set up at a leisurely pace, and feel the excitement build for the Sea Otter Classic which starts on Thursday. You can find my schedule right here! Hope to see you there!

I figured I’d acknowledged that I had a blog and share my whereabouts. We started the drive (or should I say swim-heavy torrential rains) south to Monterey, California today for the Sea Otter Classic cycling festival. I’m caravanning my truck and trailer along with Norco’s truck and trailer.

Hmm, that’s about all I have to say right now. Okay, I’ll share a thought. We were watching the movie Old School in the hotel room tonight (we made it to Salem, WA), and a Walmart commercial came on advertising a handheld vacume cleaner. They claimed to be green because this product was made from 50% recycled material—then they went on to say how good it would if every customer, all two million of them, bought one of these, how much material they’d save and how “clean” that would be.

It’s great that they’re endorsing products like this, but no matter how green the product, we can’t consume our way in to a green world—and no, don’t replace your vacuum cleaner that is perfectly good with one that is made partly from recycled material to be green! 

Okay, it’s late, gotta wake up early…

While down at the Sea Otter Classic, I had a few moments to catch up with my team mate Fionn Griffiths. She is a 25 year old pro DH and 4X racer, and after 7 years on the pro circuit, she’s at the top of her game. The 2nd place DH finish and 3rd place dual finish at the Sea Otter is a testimate to that. If you’d like to hear more, have a look at the 10 minute interview below….though I appologize for the poor audio, it was hard to find a quiet spot, the helicopter half way through didn’t help either.

Ride On!