Spud Island

I've been off the computer for over a week now: on vacation. It was a really nice break. Quite busy though. Lots of riding. :) The weather was all over the place, but we managed to get rides in regardless. There were 11 of us and we rode most days all together. A few days we split into smaller groups or did individual rides. Visited my grandmother while on the island. Spent a day at the beach. Ate a lot of fish. Here are some photos. Perhaps I'll be inspired to write more later...

Gone Riding

OK. Yes, I've been absent. Sorry - I know the summertime is when you are likely taking the most breaks in the day surfing the web at your desk, pretending to do work. I've been busy with nothing much, but lots at the same time. Just life: riding my bike, riding my bike, cottaging with Mir and the fam, riding my bike, oh yeah - working a little - riding my bike... you know. The usual. I was looking for photos of a sign that said, "gone riding" to put in the post, and came up with this one which is kinda funny, considering it depicts pretty much exactly what happened to me in May:

Looks like someone may have actually hit the sign itself!

I was also looking for some photos of the guy I'm rooting for in the TDF this year: Valverde. I'm rooting for him, mainly because I watched him dominate the '06 Vuelta over and over, only to be beat by someone I'm not that fond of when I was on the trainer all winter (I have the DVD). So he became one of my fave cyclists then, but for real cycling reasons, not because he's super hot like Tom. But Tom was a dummy and got kicked out of the tour, so we don't get the pleasure of his eye candy this year. Oh well. Anyway, my guy is a favourite to win. I hope he does. I think he deserves it. Just because I think so. I haven't actually followed him long or anything.

I'm also totally addicted to google earth. I had installed it quite a while back, but then didn't know what to do with it until now. I can actually map my rides from my garmin data on google earth!!! OMG! So tonight, for example, I got home and forgot to eat because I was playing with the map, looking at my ride from different angles, at different points, on various climbs. It's just sick! I thought the data from the garmin was bad. Now this!!

Vacation is coming up soon. I'll be off to ride around my home province for a week with a whole group of my cycling friends. I expect we can get a good 400 km in over the course of the week. I've mapped out (and previously ridden) several rides. It should be super fun! Looking forward to it. More posts on the vacation. Maybe I can get some photos of me on my bike. I love my bike still. LOTS! That would be cool. Lots of cool things on the horizon.