Designer & bike rider in British Columbia, Canada

Sports

  • Classic Vancouver Cycling Routes

    Looking over some of the classic road cycling routes of Vancouver I’m starting to see some patterns and shapes emerge. When I see the GPS tracks for these rides on a map I feel like calling them by their birds-eye views rather than their usual road / area names. Example: Rather than say “Let’s take…

  • Cycling Vancouver to Blaine, USA

    A combination of bicycle riding and public transport. View Vancouver to Blaine in a larger map Total round trip is about 4.5 hours, including lunch in Blaine: Ride from home to Commercial Skytrain Station Take Expo Line (heading east) to King George Station, $5 (or take the risk of riding for free Get off King…

  • Silver Circle Bicycle Diary

    A day-by-day account of the 2,000km, 14-day bicycle touring route that loops across British Columbia from Vancouver to Banff and back. This particular trip was undertaken June 14-27, 2009. Part 2/2.

  • Silver Circle Bicycle Tour

    [See Part 2 Silver Circle Bicycle Diary for a personal day-by-day account of the trip, distances, times, etc.] Silver Circle Bicycle Tour Route in a larger map Route The route is a circle with the first half following the Trans-Canada and its prevailing tailwinds north through the Fraser Canyon and then east to Kamloops, through…

  • Cycling BC Road Online Calendar

    A quick and fun pro bono project for the organization I raced under for seven years. A kind of giving back to the community feel. I was in charge of the frontend design of their new race calendar and results website, working with the VP of Road as project manager and a racer/programmer who developed…

  • Temporary Public Objects

    First assignment, Modules 1-2-3, Man and Public Space, Design Academy Eindhoven: Investigate temporary objects used in public space (or objects used temporarily). A collection of initial photos.

  • From Java with SMS

    SMS messages I sent during a trip to Java, Indonesia

  • Vacation, Education and Moving Plans

    This is a notice about what’s happening with me regarding changes to work, school and living arrangements. The short of it is I’m leaving on July 18 and when I return in September I’ll be living in Vancouver to attend school full time. Any projects I’m currently involved in will be either wrapped up this…

  • Bastion Square Grand Prix 2005

    The 14th annual Bastion Square criterium road bike race in historic downtown Victoria Canada, 2005, was great as usual. An annual event I’ve attended over the past eight or nine years, both as a competitor and (as today) a sangria-swilling, chicken sandwich-eating, patio-lounging spectator. Team Symmetrics Cycling had about 100 guys in the race. Their…

  • Where’s my wireless shifting?

    And other bike technology we’ve been waiting years for? Come on, chains on bikes? Cogs? They were using chains in Ancient Egypt. Alistair just realized road bikes have 20 speeds. We agree that’s still slow progress. Where’s our infinite-gearing, internal-shifting rear hubs? Bicycle Technology We Should Have By Now: Single belt drive Wireless electronic shifting…

  • Cost of Bike Races vs. Squash Tournaments

    After playing in a few squash tournaments this year, from the small, club-only events to this weekend’s provincial-level, 160-entry bash, I have attempted to sum up the discrepancies between entry fees for a squash tournament versus a bike race in British Columbia in the following diagram: Squash Pizza dinner Muffins, oranges and coffee breakfast Gala…

  • Mountain Biking in Sooke

    Shawn, Héctor, Melissa, Scott and I have made a pact this spring to ride our mountain bikes together every Sunday, and for the past couple of months we’ve met nearly everytime at the Starbucks or Tim Hortons, rain or shine. On April 3rd we had a particularly good ride up and over (2x, in fact)…

  • Nary a Hair: Why Cyclists Shave Their Legs

    Male cyclists–road racers in particular–have shaved the hair from their legs for decades. The following are the reasons I’ve heard of, and justified to myself and others, why.

  • Slap A Number On Me

    There’s an old joke in cycling that says if you want to slow some guys down, just slap a number on their back. Because on the weekend club ride they’ll attack and drop you on Lands End, or put the boots to you up the Malahat. But enter them in a race and they’re pack…

  • 2004 Vancouver Island Open Squash Championships

    October 1-3 Cedar Hill Squash Club My first squash tournament and I won a match (3-0) but lost two (4-1, 3-2) in the Mens C Category. Winning was good, loosing to a twelve-year-old was almost inspiring, but man I should have won that last match. If you’ve played either sport, FYI: Mens C in squash…

  • Victoria Squash Club – Lesson 1

    Summary

  • Hurricane Ridge

    I boarded a ferry to the United States on Saturday morning and rode my bike up a mountain to Hurricane Ridge with a friend. We got back by dinner time.

  • New Squash Shoes

  • Squash BC for Beginners

    An email, with response in CAPS, I sent last week to the governing body for competitve squash in BC. Helpfull if you want to get into competing, and an interesting exercise in website usability: Hi there, I’ve been playing recreational squash in Victoria for a year now and I’m thinking about entering competitions this fall.…

  • The Sound of shoulders snapping

    Watching some quality CBC Olympic coverage on the TV this eve, 4am in Greece, and they (CBC) featured a Sounds of the Olympics segment, which was a real treat, the most incredible sound coming from a weight lifting competitor who just barely got the bar above his head until his left arm kinda wobbled and…

  • Hands back on the bars

    Two weeks since bike crash. I’m commuting on the Gardin again, which needs a little derailleur and/or derailleur hanger re-alignment, some new bar tape, and maybe a new saddle, but is otherwise OK. The right knee is also OK until I try and swing it out to the side while adjusting my bits and pieces…

  • Victoria Squash Tournament

    Took in a good three hours (spectating only) of what I assume was the city’s top Squash action on Saturday, the finals of the 2004 Victoria City Squash Tourney at the Vic Squash Club, 1811 Cook St..

  • Squash BC photo

    Not to be an aesthetic tyrant all the time, but the header image of a squash player on the Squash BC web site bothers me. First impression is that of a disability squash association, and the person pictured is a disabled athlete. Which makes a critique of the image seem more insensitive. But the awkward…