Digger's Cliff? Not today...

Took a trip up to Vancouver this weekend. I wanted to do the Crud to Mud in Whistler, but decided to hit Fromme instead since Glade and Jen didn't feel like doing the race.

Fromme has some stupid crazy stuff. Air supply, Oil Can, Digger's Cliff and more. With my XC bike I have a hard enough time biking around these stunts let alone trying to go over them. I mean... Digger's Cliff is over 23 feet high, so I think I'll be needing a new bike and an extra pair of shorts before trying that one out.

Well, I blew a tire 10 minutes into my run, and then my valve broke on my spare. Glade then blew his tire and his spare had a hole in it... So within 10 minutes we went through 4 tubes... Carrying a bike down these trails is not anywhere near as fun as biking down them.

Unrelated... As I was looking around the web for North Shore videos I found this video of mt. bikers doing stupid stuff.

Joe Satriani held my guitar...

And then he signed it.

Joe Satriani came to Bellevue Music (where I take guitar lessons) primarily to tout peavey amps, but in order to do so he pumped up the volume and played some of his most popular songs from Surfing With The Alien, as well as some songs from his new CD: Is There Love In Space?. The last time I saw Satriani was in the Paramount theatre alongside Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai, and the time before that was in the Moore theatre with Stu Hamm, and the next time he comes to Seattle it will be in Key Arena, so hearing him play to less than 300 people in a Bellevue store for free is totally unreal. Then when he took questions from the audience, spent time talking to everyone and offered to autograph something for everyone in the audience I was really surprised.

Anyhow, we talked for a few seconds, he signed my guitar, and commented that he thought it was pretty sweet. I was going to ask him to pluck one of the strings so I could say that Joe Satriani played my guitar, but I left it at the autograph :)

Mt. Seymour and more Mt. Seymour

Went up to Mt. Seymour on the North Shore of Vancouver this weekend. Thought I was going to actually find the Bridal Path trail, but again missed it and ended up going down Team Pangor.

Now Pangor is a mere single black, and some may consider it closer to a blue run, but on a XC bike it's certainly not something you can just shoot down with reckless abandon. I took it relatively easy this time and didn't even end up going over the handlebars once. I made it over a good portion of the structures in place, but did have to bypass a couple.

Saturday night I saw Supersize Me which I thought was actually really good. Before hitting your next fast food joint you should stop off and see this movie. While we were in the movie Cheryl's car was broken into. They broke the lock on the left door. The week before someone smashed her back door window (there goes another $150), so she's kinda getting used to it now, but it still sucks to have all those papers thrown around the vehicle. There's still a hole where someone tried to pry open the right door lock some time ago as well. Let me tell you, I'm going to avoid parking in downtown Vancouver whenever I can.

Sunday I determined that the trail marked 'Horses Loop' was actually the start of the Bridal Path trail. So I took it the whole way west, took Willis Way, looped around and went back East on the Bridal Path to end up right back where I started. I met some local folks who were kind enough to bike with me and show me the loop.

Didn't get back to Seattle until 1:30am or so... I was tired from all the biking, but still woke up on time this morning.

It was an 'All Tiger' weekend.

Hit Tiger Mt. on Saturday, and took a decent spill over the handlebars, landed on a rock and stared at the sky for a minute or so before starting back toward my bike. Picking out the rocks and dirt from the scrapes in my leg kinda sucked, but the rest of the ride went without incident. I may buy some shin pads or something.

It dawned on me that I have not done a full XC trail with my new bike without wiping out at least once. I decided to go out again Sunday to see if I could break that streak, and I did!

Whistler mountain will be opening up the Garbanzo chair to mountain biking this summer. I may just head on over there to check it out.