Moose Mountain / CBC Radio

Another great Friday on my bike! Well there was a minor issue - but I'll get there. Let's start from the beginning. At this week's bike club on Wednesday night, Mr. Bulmer informed me that he was off this Friday and interested in doing a mountain bike ride. Sounded like a great plan - so we met today around 11am, long after our dedicated wives had left us and begrudgingly went to work. We loaded up the bikes and headed to Moose Mountain -- for those faithful bloggers you'll know this is the training hill Katie & I did time and time again for our BC Bike Race. But unlike our routine, Mr. B and I would continue onto MoosePackers and Tom Snow Trail to enjoy the wicked singletrack.

About half way up the fire road climb, we notice a CBC Radio truck go past us. About 3/4 of the way up the hill, it comes back down and he waves us over to talk. Thinking he may be lost, we stop. He then tells us that he's up here doing a story for CBC Radio and informs us that Alberta Tourism has produced a brochure that highlights different areas in AB that have been the backdrops for movies/TV shows, etc. So he's trying to track down people who are out exploring looking for those areas. He then informs us if we knew the mountain we were climbing was used for Brokeback Mountain. We say no. He then asks us if we are gay and going to see where the the movie was shot?! Ummm...NO!

So I ask you -- why is our Government funded station wasting our tax dollars on such a lame ass story (pun intended!) And, why must they send such uneducated people out into the wilderness to make assumptions that two guys riding bikes together must be gay and on their mecca journey back to the holy land of homosexual filming making!?! WTF!

We enjoyed the rest of our ride and encouraged him to go to the closest red neck camp ground we knew of and ask them if they were camping there this weekend because it was close to where Broke back Mountain was filmed. Hahaha! A missing Persons Report is expected soon....

Bike Rally & BBQ

On Saturday, we hosted the 1st Annual Boyd Bike Rally & BBQ for a group of our friends! The rally was a mix of scavenger hunt, Amazing Race and an orienteering course -- we gave our friends a list of challenges, clues and points of interest that they had to navigate during the 3 hours, 26km course on their bikes in Fish Creek Park.

We were so excited to see our friends & family members rise up the challenge and come back with some great stories!!!

We had an award for the team who "preferred the scenic route" -- Ironically, Mark & Alicia did the course in the fastest time and got a time bonus, however in doing so, didn't rack up as many points in some of the bonus challenges.

Ed & Lindsay were our 1st Place Team and now will have to come back next year to defend their title! They came in with 3 minutes to spare, a strategy that paid off, as they and had tons of challenge bonus points to put them in the lead.

Jen & Mark got our Funniest photo award -- as they talked a couple out of their tandem bike and took time to get their photo on it. And anyone that knows these two, knows they would never be able to ride a bike like that because they'd spend all their time trying to convince the other one that they are doing more of the work and to pedal faster! haha!

After the race, we had a great BBQ with tons of food and a chance to get caught up!

Burstall Mountain -- Awesome Scramble

We planned a scramble (hike that, at points, requires you to crawl up mountain passes!) up Burstall Mountain with Ed today. But Katie got so busy at work she wasn't able to come -- but Ed and I still wanted to get out and enjoy the day - so we left for K-Country early Friday morning. What an awesome day! I've done hiking before, but to actually take the billy goat trails to the top was a fantastic experience.

I didn't really know what to expect and when we got to the trail head and Ed pointed up to the top of the mountain (and smiled!), I knew it was gonna be a long day. But with the long climbs comes unreal views, lunch at what seems like the top of the world and a decent that rivals my best experiences on my bike!

Here's Ed at the Trail Head, yup that's the Mountain in the background!

The next photo is Ed taking a break (thank God, I needed to catch-up!) in one of the three (3) shoots that you can climb to get to the saddle.

Here we are at the saddle - you can see the shoots in the darker stone just below us.
And the other photo is of the saddle as we are working our way to the summit -- you get a MUCH better perspective as to how steep those dark stone shoots are from here, eh?!

Here's Ed near the top -- amazing views!

Me near the top!

And here's Ed on the black stones on our way back down the Mountain. He showed me how to basically ski down in the loose rocks -- very cool -- this portion took probably 60 minutes to climb and roughly 6 minutes to get down & man was it fun! The first step over the ledge was the freaky part - but then it was a total blast!

I stopped a little way down to try and capture our "ski path" in the rocks and show how crazy the grade was!

Speaking of GRADE -- check out the Garmin profile for the day. At the steepest point it was 64% Grade!! And we climbed more than 970 Metres.

It was a great day out and very enjoyable journey -- what a way to start a weekend!

Breakfast of Champions...

Paul did a GREAT Story today about what USA Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps eats for breakfast when he is training. It's a story that America is following as Phelps attempts to continue to win Gold.

Paul goes out to a NYC diner and attempts to eat:

• Three fried egg sandwiches
• One, five egg omelet
• Three pieces of French toast with powdered sugar
• Three chocolate chip pancakes
• One bowl of grits
• Two cups of coffee

Can Paul go the distance with Phelps Breakfast?

Go to www.insideedition.com to watch the very funny video!!!

Wednesday Night DESSERT Club!?!

Our group riders are becoming more and more creative in what they contribute to the pot-luck dinner on our Wednesday Night rides.


Last night we had awesome Farmer's Market Sausages, Pasta salad with beans, peppers and Italian dressing and Schwartzee was in charge of dessert.


He made a trip to Crave Cupcakes and brought triple chocolate ice cream. As you'll remember, Scott used Crave Cupcakes to propose to Katie - so she has a weakness for them...as did everyone else!

We joked that anyone "looking in" on our dinners, and more specifically, our desserts would wonder if we were a bike or dessert club. But heck we earn the right to treat ourselves after burning the calories on the bikes, right?!

Spell Check...

As I was reading the online papers this morning, and I came across this article that is sure to make my dad cringe! It's a proposal from a British University professor who wants to have society start accepting more slang, short hand and misspelled words. Due to texting, the Web and our fast paced society, he claims it will enhance communication, as young people are more apt to use this form of language.

What do you think of this proposal for the English Language?

I say - For shame Sir, you soil the term!
These new forms of communication do have a place in society tho. For example, when ur lol with your bffl about w/e and she ses she's sori the sob dsnt luv u! tyvm.

We need to have an appreciation of the English Language before we bastardize it. Proper language skills will always be required in society.

Katie bought this shirt the other day, so she may have a counter-point.

Day Of Fun!!!

We had a great day just being out and about today. We brushed up on our batting, as we spent some time @ the batting cages to get ready for playoff slo-pitch. Katie got her swing back after a few tokens and smoked the batting cage pitcher machine -- a great line drive back at it! Scott hopes he didn't waste his best hits in the cage, 'cause he was on fire today!

We then went to Bowness Park for a nice walk and some Frisbee golf. We just make up our own course and challenge each other to see who can do it in the least amount of tosses. Last year, Katie was the Champ -- but Scott may have been secretly practising ' cause he didn't let Katie get close to the winner's circle today.

We had dinner at our favorite German Restaurant in Bragg Creek and then took in the Cirque Du Soleil show that is in Calgary. If you get a chance to see it when it comes to a City near you, it is worth the effort -- a great array of acrobatics and strength acts. The show has some midgets - that you actually get to toss! Nothing politically correct there -- it should be seen to be believed. Katie was brave and attended the show, despite her fear of clowns. But did make Scott sit on the aisle seat, just in case. The whole show was really amazing.

All that fun squeezed into one day. And you thought we only biked!?! Speaking of, we're meeting up with some friends and gonna bike tomorrow -- like you're surprised!

Inside Edition - Boyd's Blog

Paul has been tasked with trying to inspire more web traffic to the Inside Edition web site. He's created a daily blog that seems to have caught on with viewers. Check out his blog on the front page of http://www.insideedition.com/ And be sure to email your comments to let the show know what ya think!

Wednesday Night Bike Club

So this is the group. We thought we'd take a funny group shot to show ya how much fun we have.

I know the first rule of Bike Club is that you don't talk about Bike Club but...Bike Club is held on Wednesday nights and consists of about a 30km ride followed by a pot-luck dinner and storytelling on the deck! Sorry neighbours! But this is our payback from when you mow your lawn @ 7am on a Saturday...anyway...back to bike club.

Tonight we did hills & had turkey burgers, potato salad, green salad, and oh don't forget the chips & ice cream!

Good laughs -- if you are ever in the hood -- come and join us for some fun & food.

Organizing the Chaos

Since we have neglected our home for the last few months, this long weekend we needed to get a few things sorted out. First on the list was bike organization! You would think that a family of 2 would have no trouble finding room to store their bikes without them getting in the way at every turn...but...when the family of 2 owns 6 bikes and currently has 7 in the house, well you can imagine the storage nightmare this family of 2 might be facing!

So...after a quick trip to Home Depot we were ready to install our new wall mounted bike rack!!! Now we can store 5 bikes on the wall and 1 resting up against the wall mounted ones. It's also really easy to access!

In the picture you can see that we need to add a kicker board so the tires hanging close to the floor don't rip the vapor barrier...that's tomorrows job. Welcome to our lives post BC Bike Race...we apologize for being rather boring :)

Girl Got Game!

Scott finally got to see Katie play soccer!

Katie is playing with some friends from her uninversity team - who now play in a leagure in Calgary. She joined the team mid-season because they were short on women & Steph finally wore Katie down until she agreed to play.

So there are about 5 more games in the season and then Provincials which are in Calgary this year. Scott & Ed cheered on the sidelines. Katie says she suffered thru the game, but it didn't look like it -- as she set up a goal and had a couple scoring chances herself as they won 5-2.

Nice work, babe!