Furious3 here we come

Not dead yet!

From the state of this blog you'd think we all died in a nasty roller coaster accident. Not the case...we are all just pretty lazy and pretty crappy bloggers.

Anyways, maybe that will change since so far 3 Bananas have signed up for the Furious3 in Fernie next June. Hopefully this will give us some focus.

The Quest for the Gnarliest Fall

*****WARNING - SCROLLING DOWN WILL REVEAL GROSSNESS**********

Well, I got posting rights to this blog about 2 years ago when I was making a "get the crank team famous" video (which I didn't even end up posting). I'm pretty sure most of the guys didn't know I could do this, but I'm hijacking the blog!

I'm hijacking this blog because I came across the gnarliest bike fall picture I have ever seen (being the son of "Man Down" - this is saying something). I immediately wanted to share it with the crank team, and this is probably the easiest and most secret agent-like way to do it!

Check out this dude!

Can anyone beat this fall? It may not have caused the most damage, but he sure did "become one with his bike".

Welcome Back Summer!

It's been nearly a year since our last post ... far far too long! Last summer a whole lot of rainy weather, furious product development on Storyboard 1.0 at Crank Software and some new little people gave us a half reasonable set of excuses to explain our lack of riding.

Good news this year ... the weather's been hot and we've done more riding so far this season than most of last year! The bad news is that our local Kanata Lakes trails are being massively intersected by a four lane connector road.

To mix things up a little bit and introduce a few more loop options we've started running a small 200m connector between Pete's Wicked and the Outback. For lack of a better term, I'm calling the Crank CutOff and it lets you run a nice little lunch loop without committing to the complete Outback.

Here's hoping a few others will enjoy this little loop extender.

Thomas

Team Go Banana Sets Course Record

Team Go Banana (all graduates of the BC Bike Race) are pleased to announce setting a course record ... the longest lap in the history of Albion Hills.

The confidence was high as we entered this race. We were aiming for a personal team best of completing at least 2 laps of the long 17 km course.

Thomas (Navigator) was originally going to start the race but he was side tracked by a good book and an upcoming program on CBC. Next up was Jason (Third) but there were rumours of a bridge crossing which brought up some painful memories and caused him to pass on doing a lap. It came to the engine (Brian) to lead the charge. He was overheard chanting "I think I can, I think I can" as he slogged through the mud. The image proves a lap was completed.

The race was cut short due to weather but we will be back with a vengance next year.

See results ... http://www.chicoracing.com/html/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=319

Awesome Spring Riding

Saturday was an awesome day for ride, with temperatures of 15, so we went out to hit the roads. We left downtown and headed over the Chelsea for a nice loop in the awesome weather. The roads were as good as Quebec roads are after the winter thaw. I biked pretty much the entire ride in short sleeves and a vest. Stopped to take a quick look at the trail at the top of Notch and looks like it's not ready for biking yet, but I'm sure it will be for May 15th.

On the way home we got a little confident that the snow was off the paved bike trails so we crossed at the island park bridge and headed down the bike path back to downtown. There were a couple to 10m patches of snow and ice that where able to be biked across since we were on mountain bikes. However, once we got behind the Parliament buildings it was a different story.

Anyways, after a little walking and a little extra ridding added to our plans (since none of the locks were closed for us to cross) we made it back home with smiles on our face from a beautiful day in the sun.

Brr .. it's cold outside!

Brian managed to entice me out for one of his Sunday rides kickin' off from Goulbourn RecCenter parking lot. Brian's been out a couple of times this year, but it was my first ride of the season and I don't think I could have picked a colder day, but I have to admit the sunshine was glorious!

Brian and Joanne pulled me up Flewellyn and back down Fernbank for a nice little 30km jaunt.

Despite the cool weather, it was a nice way to welcome spring!

Thomas

In your face Big Ringers!

Go Banana has finally risen from the shadow of the Big Ringers. Since last summer when the biggest rivalry in MTB history came head to head at the BC bike race, it had been all Bing Ring. They constantly mocked us by biking faster than us, getting sponsors, keeping their blog better up-to-date and appearing in all the pictures from the race (while Go Banana didn't make any). Well... no longer!!! Go Banana got a talking spot in the Ride Guide's coverage of the BC Bike Race. "I'm starting to not like this gravel road anymore" is just one of the pearls of wisdom I dispensed during my 3 seconds of fame. You can check out the video here.

In fairness to the Big Ringers, I may have seen a tattooed arm bike by during the video, but that's like being an extra or supporting character... it's no leading role-- suckas!!

Side note : Congratulations to the Original Big Ring on the arrival of his new granny gear.

Happy Birthday Man Down!!!

Charlie's birthday is today and as part of his celebration he got inked. Charlie held off getting tattoos up until this point in his life since he always figured he'd end up and jail and get them for free. As he keeps getting older and no sign of jail time he finally sucked it up and paid for it himself.

Happy Birthday Chuck!!!

Just a little 8 hour race ...

It has been a relatively slow summer for the Go Banana bikers. After our spectacular finish at the BC Bike Race we seem to have only managed to get out on the bikes a handfull of times ... more often than not doing some damage to ourselves.

So I was pretty excited when Keira proposed that we take a short day trip down to Kingston and ride the J & J Cycle Eight Hour Mountain Bike Classic. I figured even though I hadn't ridden in a month that the bike karma gods would cut me a bit of slack for the the six months worth of training and seven consecutive six hour bike days I had in BC.

... in short I thought "Pfffttt ... 8 hours, two people ... piece of cake!".

I've never done a tag team before but I can tell you for sure that riding a fast rolling, twisty, turny 10Km course like the J&J Classic is tons of fun ... but way more effort then the head-down zone out riding we were doing in BC. Since the course was short, I'd just get out there and power my way through, coming across the finish (through a barn!) and gratefully tag Keira so that I could head off the course and start my snack time in an attempt to re-fuel the body for the next speed round.

... of course speed is all relative. While I thought I was burning up the course, I occasionally was being lapped by these youngin's who were pretty much flying through with 30 minute lap times.

We were hoping for 10 laps, and managed to get in 9 but with the sun and the heat we couldn't have asked for a better day!

... and now a word from my tag team partner Keira:

Thomas and I decided we hadn't really spent any time along together in a year and a half so a mtn bike race seemed like a good 'together' activity. We clearly weren't thinking as tag-teaming means you get about 10 words in every 45 minutes and they're usually along the lines of "any major falls?", "did you pass team 203?". Team "Go Banana's" training regime clearly helped t-man on his laps. Unfortunately, I've never been asked to be part of the team (even though I bought Thomas his first mtn bike, make him gluten-free energy treats and supported his 6 month BC Bike Training plan, but I digress) so I don't have access to their secret training methods. I am privy only to their bacon eating secrets - which resulted in an extra ten pounds for me to carry up the hills.

Anyhow - fun race. Other riders were super friendly and the atmosphere was great. Trails are pretty rooty so the day after you remember you're not 18 anymore and that you wished you splurged and bought a full suspension bike. Actually had to wait a few seconds for a cow to get off the trail so I could pass.

New Man Down - And Out!!

My Bike Karma has run out :(

Since the snow has melted we've been biking non stop getting ready for BC Bike race and put on lots of kilometers. Throughout all this time...no injuries. Then we biked the BC Bike race, 500km of biking filled with treacherous BC singletrack.....no injuries, not even a flat (except for very sore worn out ass and whole wack of tired).

Last week while in Kanata Lakes I got a flat and my seat busted (thank GOD that didn't happen during the race), that wasn't that bad but it was foreshadowing my bike karma might be running out.

So today while going a simple ride on O'Brien in Gatineau it started to rain on our way back...not that big an issue (it was actually very refreshing). However while crossing a simple 4 foot wide bridge everything went wrong. I lifted my front tire to get on the bridge and had a little slippage of my back tire so when I got on the bridge wasn't pointing all the straight...no worries, I was a little tight to the right side of the bridge but nothing to worry about. I braked and went to put my right foot down just to make sure I didn't do anything stupid.....but when I did stupidity happened. Hard soled bike shoes on a wet wood bridge can sometime slip...and it did. My right foot slipped off the bridge and every thing else followed.

The drop was about 3 feet but from the top of my bike it's more like 5 or so into a swampy rocky stream. Due to me experience falling (both in mtb and snowboarding) I'm usually pretty good at it. I almost never put my wrists out since I know they will snap. So I brought my arms to make a cage around my head and save my face, however this caused the entire force of my fall to be taken by my elbow on a sharp rock. It cut deep! lots of blood. Luckily I had some good friends to help me up from under the bridge and patch me up. They also were nice enough to join me in a 4km walk back to the cars dragging my bike along for me and drove me to the hospital (Thanks guys!!).

The rest of the day was spent in the hospital. The Doctor was very impressed with the depth and amount of dirt in my wound. It took almost an hour to clean all the dirt out of. After that came the stitches, since the wound was so deep they had to do 2 layers of stitches one for the skin and the other for all the stuff I tore underneath that.

And then after all this...just to top it off... I got a tetanus shot.

Anyways...it sucks and my arm hurts...a lot.

If anyone wants to go for a pleasant walk in the next week or so instead of biking...I'm in.

Jason