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Kiteboarding & Cycling

// August 17th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // sports

I’ve spent another great weekend outdoors doing fun things like kiteboarding yesterday at Oliphant and cycling down Leslie Spit today. Above is a photo of Allen who now gets up on his board kiting! Although, he was underpowered on my 9 metre and says that next time when the winds are the same, he’ll go on his 15. Actually I was underpowered on the 9 yesterday too. We need to buy a 12 metre soon and use the 9 on windier days.

I was kiting as well, although since Allen’s board was out on the water, it was the one I used. His board is awesome, but WAY too large for me. I found the stance really wide and that made kiting right (my weaker direction) difficult. I got going on my left fine though. Next time, I’ll be sure to drag my board out too.

Our friend Natalie also made the trip up to Oliphant with us. She took some photos, flew the trainer kite on land and generally had a good time.

Today I wanted to bike back out to Leslie Spit as I really enjoyed the ride out there last weekend. This time I rode out to the lighthouse and got some photos looking back at the Toronto skyline. I took this photo from there (but on my iPhone, so the quality isn’t as good.) Still, check out this view:

New Bikes

// April 20th, 2008 // 6 Comments » // sports

Yesterday, Allen and I both got a brand new Norco Charger for city & trail riding. Here’s the Charger specs from Norco’s site:

New lightweight triple butted front triangle and butted rear triangle with semi-integrated headtube – RockShox Dart 3 fork with magnesium lowers, Turnkey lockout, rebound adjust – Shimano RM-65 centre lock disc hubs with WTB SpeedDisc rims and DT Swiss stainless spokes – Shimano M443 cranks with Octalink bottom bracket.

It’s a good all-around mountain bike for trails, street and cross country racing and we totally love the smooth ride they give. My only complaint is the rock hard seat. My butt hurts! We’ll probably replace the seats sooner rather than later.

We got them yesterday up at Silent Sports in Thornhill. They have them on sale for $699 off from $1099. All bikes under $1000 are PST exempt in Ontario right now as the government is trying to get more people on bikes, so it’s a good time to buy a bike.

We rode part way home and finally understood Toronto cyclist complaints about people driving in cars. A lot of them gave VERY little room for the bikes. One Mercedes right in front of me was so close to the curb that I couldn’t go by on the right. So, we left the main streets and instead took little side roads where the biking was safe and found some really beautiful neighbourhoods. We were about to go on some trails by Bayview when Allen ran over something sharp and got a puncture in his tire. We watched helplessly as his tire deflated and then had to walk 45 minutes to the subway and take the train the rest of the way home. Poor Al barely had his bike an hour before he got a flat. He bought a patch kit today, so he’ll be back on it shortly.

I went out again today on my bike along the lake shore out to the Toronto Windsurf Club, then did a bit of light trail riding near Cherry Beach. The wind was insane, so I wasn’t surprised to see 1/2 dozen windsurfers out on the water dressed in steamers. There was even 1 kiter out decked out in a dry suit complete with hood & gloves. The water has to be chilly right now. It’ll be another month before I’m out there kiting. Besides, I’m having too much fun on the Charger right now.