Majestic SouthWest Edmonton

It was a weird one after work as I wanted to take it easy after another dark and dirty day after little sleep for some dumb fuckin reason. I started at Heritage Valley LRT station as I assumed there were lots of wide sidewalk trails parallel to the road and I was right.

That's what one thing that is nice about new neighbourhoods other than being surrounded by ugly congested houses. There was no shortage of overbuilding everywhere I went and in some new neighbourhoods there are houses that are mini front garage houses. It's weird, they look like doll houses and are quite tall with no surprises by how close they were to each other. These developers are criminals. 

I did remember ironically there was a big fire in the area and I hunted it down and the damage was quite incredible. An entire condominium block or two with natural heavy damage to everything around it was quite the site. Houses across the street had there siding melted so the heat would have been insane. I think they were under construction but some in area took a heavy hit looked occupied. 

Bummer. 

The ride was kinda crappy. I was overtired and it gave the ride a gross eerie like feel to it. I could tell you what streets I went down on this journey but really... who cares. 

The ride sounded like a bummer but when I put my bike in the back of the car I said "Hellz yea bikes." So it wasn't that bad of a ride anyways despite the traffic and lack of scenery. 

Golden Thanksgiving

A pretty decent Fall mountain bike roll through glorious golden Fort Saskatchewan singletrack. Temperatures were pretty much perfect and a somewhat busy start with riders right after the Turner park drop in. I usually never see people on this part of the trail so I thought it was a bad sign that the trails would be busy which wasn't the case. 

There was a cool older couple not on e-bikes in front of me for a bit and they rode all the skinny features. It was pretty cool to see and a shout big out to that cool couple. 

The trails were tacky and a tad over tacky in some sections of climbs and my weak ass rear tire struggled but we made it up. That being said the power wasn't quite there in the legs on the whole ride. I got sloppy in the end and the roots owned me. 

It was kind of a pathetic way to end the day. Still a top notch ride though.

Last Ride Resort, Leduc

 A quiet and cool ride through the usual local but not local ride in Leduc around Telford Lake and then looped around the cool airplane park named after a silly politician. 

It was quiet... somewhat. A surprise wedding picture shoot and a blind corner had me blow through a wedding party shoot a bit too quickly. 

Whoops. 

Them leaves man. Glad they are going away.

Other than that it was quite uneventful. Sad to think this night was meant for an October into the dark Fort Saskatchewan foray. It could have been amaze.The way the day worked out it turned into this... sigh. 

Still better than the couch. Hooray bikes. 

Beer Friday. Whiteclaw Brewing, Tomorrow We Ride Hefeweizen

Welcome back to Beer Friday properly done on an actual Friday but not a post work Friday as some sort of insane bout of insomnia hit and I was up all night. More nightshift flashbacks? It doesn't make sense although the week has been a bad one for sleep wich screwed up some potentially great rides.  Anyways, I still feel like a bag of assholes so let's get to this beer review already.

This Hefeweizen was picked appropriately as tomorrow we hope to resume operations that require pedalling. It could be the first night ride of the season so we will see. 

Yikes! I think everytime I made ride plans on beer reviews they never come to fruition.  

Right from Golden, British Columbia we have Whiteclaw Brewing which was established in Twenty Sixteen and have the honour of living and brewing beers in the middle of the mountains. Ahh yes, finding some sort of niche in a cool mountain town and living there would be pretty great.

We poured and a beautiful dark and dirty beer filled in the Bubba Gump beer mug . It had a strong smell of wheat cause you know... Hefeweizen and a one fingered head lingered for very little and disappeared like an octopus. A small pool of light lacing stayed on top for the duration. 

This was the perfect beer to set the mood right. It was refreshing with a sour kick to it, this beer also gave me a sense of Crabapple mixed in with a little bit of Granny Smith but definitely Crabapple in the sour notes. It has a sticky feel to it in a way which is hard to explain. It's like it sticks to the sides of your mouth and hangs out for a while in a very good way of course. 

The fine taste of this one seems to hang on to the palate which ups my love for this Hefeweizen. Whiteclaw hit it out of the park on this one.

This beer gets 4.5 suds out of 5. 

Oh How the Turntables Changed

I seem to go week to week with slight sleep insomnia and it is fucking me up bad on what was a promising week of October riding.

Sorry kids. It's beyond frustrating because epicness is a stone's throw away from my drive home as I pass Cameron Heights and I drove past with a chump like feel to it as the bike and gear in the car said 'lets go.'

This song right here takes me way back and still rules. When I was a kid this album cover kinda creeped me out and still kinda does. Otherwise... great album.  One of the best U2 albums made. Just... I don't know, put a shirt on that kid or something.. 

A Sunday Afternoon Gravel Bike Extravaganza

Boom, that's three 'extravaganzas' in a row but this ride was a bit of an extravaganza as it ended up being much longer than I had planned. A short write up picture dump post. 

The ride started at John Fry park behind the saddest place in the world. A Costco on a Sunday. I eventually found the old Northlands hockey rink after riding bits of singletrack here and there but most importantly I climbed up Higher Education towards my daughters school. 

I found the weird train station at Blatchford Field and soon made a plan for home. 

It was a top notch little rip today. 

 

Roots Bloody Roots

I had stepped out of the recluse zone for a coworker post Friday singletrack extrevaganza. 

Hold on... thats two "extravaganza's" in the last two posts. I gotta settle down over here. The ride from Turner park through what I saw on Trailforks just now is now called the mountains? I mean it does have some of those mountain feels which we rolled through tonight as I finally broke the seal on a post Friday after work Fort Saskatchewan ride.

A big thanks to Wayne for finally making it happen. We dropped into 'The Mountains'... I mean did they just rename it? My Strava keeps crashing so that's not helping and I have never heard it being called that. The trails tracked well today and Wayne murdered the roots on his trance. Minimal traffic in the awesome cool Canadian Fall weather made things memorable as we rode through golden coloured leaves on epic Fort Saskatchewan singletrack. 

A root did come down and bite as we got near the boat launch. The crash from what I hear sounded quite spectacular, much akin to what a Russian T-72 would sound like blowing up in Ukraine. Oh well there I go over exaggerating again. I mean a tank exploding? Sigh.. 

In the end it sounded like a hard crash on a mountain bike. Nothing bad came about and no blood was spilled and most importantly none of the local plants or insects were harmed in the wipe out.

It's those damn roots man. They can be heartbreakers. 

A slight mechanical issue had us ride the paved for a bit after the boat launch and we turned back after high fiving the mighty North Saskatchewan. 

Good ride and we missed the heavier rain that was starting as we got back. October Alberta Rain and no rain gear is kinda lame. 

*this post brought to you by sepultura