Carpe Dinner
Sunny Walk
Small Night in the City

meet me down by the skating rink…

for those not here delays in finishing the captioning are largely the result of some very nice weather we have been having here and associated activities that such a climate brings. highs in the 30s for the next few days as well… aw yeah!

More to come as I get more time to add captions…

Anyone wanna buy a bike? Mate’s rates of course!

the pineapples here are in season and super awesome!

Looky here for photos of last friday morning arund my place (the higher elevations of east van) and on the drive to the hill (i had planned to take the day off after a crazy work at the pickle factory).

Once again vancouverites freaked out on the roads with these conditions… what is it with the locals. they live in sight of mountains of the stuff, it happens every year, yet they all go Cah-Ray-Zee when it falls. They lose all ability to be sensible on the roads… it’d be funny if it wasn’t slightly scary…

The snow was super extra magic and my buddy John and I got some great lines all over the backside of the hill that you normally can’t hit up. Then the sun hid for a bit and it cooled slightly firming the snow for them to open the newly remodeled big terrain park. Fun times with some of the crew there… tired legs and further onset of my head cold later when we came down though. ooops!

The venue was the old warehouse deep in DTES a place I’d spent NYE two years ago at, wherein it was everything a warehouse shoud be, a spectrum of sounds, great people, multiple floors of different chaos and good times. Friday night there was a smattering of art (some great, some average) and the main room for the bands.

I was planning to ride my 24″ bmx down to the action but it seems winter was not good to him and he was sporting a go-flat-fast puncture i had not planned on, so off on ‘frank’, dawn’s old bmx, and my old-old bike. 20″ of raw power… not. weird to be back on him and how small he seemed! i got there late, but in true S.T.R.E.E.T.S style the first band was only sound-checking 1.5hrs after doors opened. ah well… time for beer!

the first band ‘a javelin reign‘ were fast, technical metal of the sort that scares the less strongly minded. amusing to see some of the less well prepared attendees run for their lives when the first blast-beat kicked in.

second up was arguably one of the best local bands… the affable gents of ‘ladyhawk’ given they dont actually have any music released its always interesting to see so many people singing along. i guess its a testament to how damn catchy them tunes are!

unfortuntely the local boys in blue didnt agree and shut the show down about 2/3rds of the way through their set. apparently the place only has capacity for 100 people, and 350 tix had been sold. personally i think 100 was about teh number of your average chronically obese mall and tv-addicted citizens that could have fit in the main room, but as for the crew that were in attendance, and far less well nourished… well this isnt the first time i’ve questioned the fire laws here. 4.5sq ft of space/person? sure….

anyways… i decided to hang around til i was asked to leave in sterner terms. mainly ‘cause i thought that if this was the last show they werent going to go out like that, and it may easily be moved to any number of kitchens/living rooms in the strathcona/east van area. i got talking to some rad kids i’d seen around town as we waited to see what would happen. well i guess enough people thought it was really over, or got put off by the police who were lurking heavily at the back, that someone slammed the door to the art room closed quickly locking the rest of the stragglers out and it was back on again. not without some serious complaints from what i heard later though… but what can you do?

needless to say the rest of the show was the sort of epic metal/thrash voyage that validated every effort id put into that night. smiles, singing, dancing, fists/skateboards/beers raised. bros up, fools down. people looking out for one another. all the great songs… dedications to their longtime fans, guest vocals from the crowd… it all became an amazing blur.

and then on the way out i managed to get a copy of their unreleased new album ‘invaders from gnars’. well worth the 2yr wait!

pics here…

The feeling of 30-50 bikes riding on mass down some of downtowns busiest streets (W.Georgia for the locals) was amazing, especially since most of the competitors were on brakeless track bikes so to make sharp speed corrections you make little skids by locking your pedals up. The start can be seen in the gallery of shots I took and the map and manifest/task list are also there.

It would take far longer than I’ve got to type up the experience but highlights include the high-speed ascent/descent of a 8 or so storey carpark, the mass bunch start/race to the first checkpoint that blazed along the streets and through light after light and down several cobblestone alleys, seeing competitors around the city and getting a thumbs up or grin as we passed each other, the teamwork between competitors sharing clues and tips for finding articles (though i hear at the top end of the field it was pretty cuthroat!), running down three blocks of a sidestreet to find a copy of the vancouver courier when i knew 5mins ride away i had 3 on my front porch, the finish where everyone from first-to-last hung out, geeked on each others rides and swapped stories.

My end comment… scary, fast and freakin’ fun!