Cesar's Blog

Who would imagine that someone could get lost in Fish Creek while biking??, well, yes that was me ! midweek winter ride, couldn't find anyone to join me and finding the right path in Fish Creek was a real challenge... back and forth in a few sections, few sections of the path washed out by the June floods and some construction in the path coming back..   

This is the authentic MTB Canadian experience ! Epic race from New Denver to Kaslo in British Columbia.. I signed up for this race hoping that the nice weather was going to continue for the rest of the month of September, however it turned into winter in a matter of hours prior to our trip to BC! We had already made plans to travel with the kids and mother in law and didn't feel like cancelling it last minute due to weather.. After packing for 6 people !! (insane task) we left Calgary at around 10:30am on Friday, drove all the way to New Denver stopping along the way for feeding times and diaper changing.. We stayed at Villa Don Quixote, excellent place to stay in New Denver and just blocks away from the start line. I had pretty much everything organized and the bike and all the stuff needed for the race ready to go. I couldn't go to the pre-race meeting, but they sent me the race package to the start line.. The start was at 7:00am, bit cold but it wasn't raining...

Another MTB adventure ride with Andy. Ray and Amit started with us and we separated after 2hours.. The plan was simple "Ride for 10+ hours", so Andy suggested the following route: start at West Bragg parking lot, climb up Ranger Sumit, then down Sugar Momma, bushwhack to get to Station Flats, ride Sulphure and connect with Pneuma, all the way up Pneuma to the top of Toothless, then across onto Powder Face and up all the way to the Powder Face Ridge, then down to hwy 66 to ride the Little Elbow (43k) loop, then take the road to Station Flats, up Snagmore and Boundary all the way to the West Bragg parking lot.... It did sound pretty challenging and of course with Andy I could literally go anywhere. Not only he knows the terrain very well, but he also has a fast pace all the time. We rode with Amit and Ray from West Bragg to the top on Pneuma, as they wanted a shorter ride.. Andy and I then took Toothless (which wasn't in good shape, but wa...

How not to write about the most amazing experience of fatherhood !, wow... it is just amazing, all of the sodden nothing else matter in life, nothing will be more important, than been able to see your kids happy and healthy. So, last week Maria and I headed to the Foothills hospital for our scheduled C-Section on Thursday June 13th. We had to be there at least an hour before, so we left home at around 7:15am. After a quick stop in Tim Hortons for coffee (of course) and McGriddles for Nick we were in our way to the hospital. Quick admission and soon we were in the OR waiting to meet our twins !! The adrenaline was high, not only she is getting opened up, but we didn't know the sex of the babies !@@ Maria was very nervous, but ready like a pro in the start line (I was telling her that it probably feels like her last lap !) of course she wasn't happy about the comparison, but she knew what I meant by that ::--)). First baby's head is almost out and I was...

Wow time went by so fast that we are only a day away from meeting the twins ! how exited !@ It seems like it was yesterday when we found out that we were expecting twins, yeap this was the first picture that changed our lives.. I still can't believe it, but we are so exited about this that can barely picture how things will be in the near future. This has been a beautiful journey of 9 months long, counting every week, every day, every kick... Maria is now almost 18kg over, and luckily has felt excellent throughout the pregnancy (bit bossy and grumpy at times, but overall pretty good :-))) She has been trying to convince me to carry all day long a 18kg back pack so that I can feel what is like, but I don't think I need that, as carrying Nick (15kg) in my shoulders after every race is challenging enough.... no time for dad before or after any race, nope ! he doesn't give a sh.... about recovery :-(( I have been running home after work once a week and all he wants to do w...

Well, with an ugly forecast, rain and mud the Giver8er 2013 is now in the books ! After a quick tent set up with Andrew, I got on the bike and went out for a warm up with Leighton (bad idea...) it was only a warm up and he was already dropping me :-(( I started to wonder "when are we turning back and head out the the start??" luckily he said "ok, let's go back, we don't want to miss the start!". I lined up at the front with all the Dead Goats and at the start I was probably riding top in the 10. Erik was right behind me and I had to perform well, didn't want to show I was hurting a bit/ Lap 1 went well as the trails were in phenomenal shape, went through the pits and didn't need to refill as I was feeling ok and didn't want to over eat this time. Lap 2 conditions still alright, but could feel some drops.. Lap 3 was a bit rainy and the mud was sticky, hard to pedal through and a bit frustrating in some sections of the course. Lap ...

At first Maria was a bit reluctant to let me take Nick on the Chariot attached to my bike :-), but he was pretty keen and grabbed his bottle to jump in the Chariot without even noticing I was going to pull it with the bike ... So, of we went for a 45min ride in the North West. Probably 10 min in and he was already asleep ! I stayed on pathways all the time and even walk to cross the lights ::@@ The Chariot feels super sturdy and the bike handles it very well, these things are well designed ! We rode all the way up to Rocky Ridge and around on Country Hills.. I love the path systems in Calgary, we are so lucky to live in such a great city :-)))) It is almost like it has been built for families with kids, so many things to do. On Sunday I decided to stay proactive and worked on setting up the three car seats in the van (yeah, we bought a mini van ....). I set up Nick's seat in the third row (way back) and the two buckets in the middle row to have easy acces...

Oh well, the first race of the season just before the twins come !! Yeap, with Maria is only 5 weeks from the scheduled C-section and I couldn't go away for too long so I decided to drive to Salmon Arm early Saturday morning (4:30am) and back to Calgary right after the the race on Sunday ouch(*&/ Craig M. couldn't quite get his head around the idea of driving that early and probably me either, but Mani is an early riser and so I am, so it ended up working well for both because we got there early enough to have a nice pre-ride of the course and have time to socialize and catch up with friends over lunch. At the campground all I did was thinking of Nick and Maria as I am used to be chasing him around and playing with him before and after any race.. So, I was a bit sad that they couldn't come with me this time. After an afternoon nap we went out with the Terrascape team for diner (pasta) and had a great time including an Oreo Blizzard at DQ :--)...

Who said it is impossible to train in the city??? I have a 20km commute to work each way and living in one of the best locations of the city I can either get to and from work in my road bike (on a nice paved path), run or hit the trails (mostly single track) in my mountain bike. It is up to you to make it harder or to take it easy. Some times I even find faster riders on the path to chase and make it even harder! Last week I started riding my mtb to work and the trails by Bowmont are in amazing conditions. They have a bit of everything, up hills, down, skinny sections and even some rocky stuff to make it fun. Not only Bowmont, but I can now connect with the south side of the river right behind shouldice and ride more single track all the way down to Crowchild, which makes it almost 15k of fun single track each way. There are so many option around that I never get bore... So, I guess I have to be optimistic about this because with all the time limitations these days due to ...

I definitely own these shoes a review, a good review ! I have always considered myself a runner, ever since I was 13 I have been running everywhere and for any reason (after work, before work, to and from work, to and from school, to the mountains) especially back in Venezuela I was always running, on my own, with Eduardo with Maida, with anyone that wanted to run. My favorite place was in the Avila, I would spend hours just running up and down and across that mountain.... Anyway, I bought these shoes last week only because they were on sale $80! and because they look flashy. I run 10k on Monday to break them in and man they are fast ! they feel like a glove, they are light and have a nice and solid grip! my best shoe ever, I am loving them and I am looking for another pair :-)

As usual, thanks to Craig Stappler who manages to suck people into these great bike adventures we were able to ride one more time the Water Valley loop in 2013, only difference (at least for Kate and Me) is that we rode it twice in three days OUCHHH! Yeap, when Craig said in his email that he was going to ride it on Thursday I sent him an email asking about his plans, it turned out that he was riding it with Kate so I decided on a suicide mission to join them as well !!@### We left from Kate's place at a nice social pace and 3 hours later we were already having coffee in Water Valley... Until then, I was feeling pretty good and ready to keep going. That is where the gravel roads start and most of the climb too (up to 1,600mts at the top I think, bit higher than Banff). It was a nice climb, then down into some muddy sections where Kate found a nice frozen line to ride, but it wasn't as long. Finally we got to what I call my nemesis (the intersection with hw...

I was mentally writing my blog in the first 30 minutes of the ride after climbing the COP hill and all I could think of was F#$@ F@#$ F@#$ what was I thinking when I showed up this morning at Cadence after Craig warned me that it was going to be a faster ride, 160k, 5 hours none stop....???? The riders for Saturday were Craig , Pat , Gary, J and me. Craig warned us all during coffee that the group might split into two as he was planning to hammer.. Anyway, I was up for the challenge and agreed to survive for as long as I could. We headed out west towards Jumping Pound on the back roads, then north on private land through the gas plant until the “owner” blocked us with his truck and made us turned around and climb all the way back (we were probably 5 min away from the limit of his property if we kept going, but he didn’t let us continue, instead escorted us all the way back). Well, it was a nice road and very scenery, too bad we could not finish.. Road back to the main road and headed...

There is winter riding, there is also night riding, but there is winter MTB night riding in Canmore !! yeah, after Craig M. invited me last week to ride Highline trails all I can think of is mountbiking all winter !!! I didn't know there is actually a guy that shovels most of the highline trails in winter, that is crazy !@# The temperature was +3c at 7:30pm when we parked at Quarry lake in Canmore. Going up the switch backs was a bit hard, and I was already doubting it will be a fun night :-(, but once we got to the top of the trails it was fast, flowy, tacky. Excellent trail's conditions all the way across and down to Lowline trails. This Lowline was indeed a bit icy and very difficult to ride which is really nice for my skills anyway. We finished at around 9:15 pm and it was still +3c in Canmore, even warmer in Calgary ! I got to go out again and do some more mountbiking soon.