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2020/07/05 – “shawnigan east” with Mladen and others.

I still can’t believe we only had four riders show up when Mladen volunteered to lead a big bike ride on a Sunday. I had thought Jeff was going, but he was a no show. The two of them, in my books are kind of “the” local big bike riders… but I’m no racer, so my perceptions are probably whacked. Anyhow, Josh, Scott Mc, Mladen and myself made up the four riders running around Oliphant this day. Scott and Josh tired fairly early, and Mladen’s partner (Bobbi) was leading a “girls'” group aroound, so he and I let Scott and Josh run for home while we joined with the girls group.

While few would have called Josh or Scott fast, the girls group was _way_ slower. Still, I had fun and did get to see a new viewpoint I hadn’t seen (mid lake), and which is worth knowing. And as always, you get to work on different skills when forced to a different pace. Malahat was _slow_ with southbound (homeward) traffic, and so was Finlayson/Munn Rd. Spent time chasing cars while riding on the shoulder looking for ramps (sshh).

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2020/07/01 – 13km in 4 hours with Chris and Brad

Started off easy enough…

But Chris wanted to try a trail that looked pretty hellish on the topo. Even the level parts were pretty techical, but once it started to climb we were pretty f*cked. Brad made it up on his 450EXC with good tires. The guys used the rope on my bike at one point, and quite a bit on Chris’.

Anyhow, the “13km in 4 hours” comment was Chris’ … I haven’t verified it, but we were two hours later than desired getting out, and we headed straight out from the trail head (after a stop to get our breath back).

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2020/06/30 – greasy fingers – +1 pivot works swingarm bearing kit – DRZ-400

Just wanted to make a note that the pivotworks bearing kit kicks the all-balls kit. It comes with a real thrust washer instead of just a teflon ring, and the shoulder washers are similar to Suzuki’s instead of the confusing big flat washer and spacer ring in the all-balls kit.

Oh, and I tried to cut one of the “collars” (inner race) down (on the lathe) to use as a bearing driver… not going to happen with HSS cutters. That’s HARD metal… despite the fact they always come out rusted all the heck. However, with either an old bearing or a bit of tube, the collar DOES make a good driver for getting the old bearings out (and LOTS of heat).

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2020/06/21 – Pete’s Pond to Robertson

Rob and I were debating whether or not there was a connection between Stoltz Main and Robertson Main, consequently we made plans to go scouting…

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Societies change their minds faster than people do …

An article on CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/climate-stocks-investment-1.5348282

… raised some interesting points, the key one being the summary of the economist article, which is the title.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/10/31/societies-change-their-minds-faster-than-people-do?frsc=dg%7Ce

The gist is that some ideas/attitudes literally have to die out. Some ideas are so pervasive in your formative years that you just don’t loose/change them.

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GPX tracks hard/medium/easy (Oliphant)

Colin, Chris and I were talking about having some “calibration” tracks, which folks could use for comparing track difficulties, and possibly testing themselves.

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