If you are not familiar with curling, look at this video. It's shotmaking at it's best.

4 years ago, I was at the St. john's Curling Club for a Red and White party. The tradition is that when a club team makes it to a national championship final, the club is opened up to watch and cheer and hope for another national. Except 4 years ago, the red and white were national colours, and the prize was olympic gold.

Enter 2010 in Vancouver. Kevin Martin is our version of say, Nolan Ryan. Experience, and still able to get the job done.

The significance, this is gold number 13 for canada. tying the record from 1976 by the Soviet Union. That sets up the gold medal game tomorrow between Canada and USA in the ultimate winter sport, hockey.

If your free tomorrow night, watch the game. It will be awesome.

So I have been noticibly absent this week. Work has been crazy, I have been training like mad, and I have come down with a case of VANOC Flu. A rare condition. Maybe only susceptible to it once in a lifetime. Brought on by a severe case of patriotism, scinicism, and a fucked up time zone. Yes four and a half hours is a long delay.

In any event, catch local comedian Shawn Majumder at a press conference with Sidney Crosby. No doubt he thinks Canada will win the gold in Mens Hockey.

BTW Womens curling final tonight, Mens saturday.

Later PEEPS!

This one always cracks me up.


These guys have more guts than an olympic skeleton racer!


Sacre Blue! How Terribly French. Mathieu Crepel.


Whoi says Rednecks can't skate?

I was asked to review the web site for Makaibike. The site is a cycling website that features thousands of bicycle related products including: bicycles, components, accessories, bike frames, cycling clothing, and more.

I have to admit, my initial impression was that it wasn’t for me. The opening page featured some retro looking cruisers which are not my thing. For me, If it’s not part of my extra curricular activities, I am not interested. In other words, if it’s not a road, triathlon, or mountain bike, I am really don’t care.

However, when I started to dig deeper, I found more than I bargained for. As it turned out, this site is huge, and from what I could find, includes most everything you can think of bike related.

There are two links, one for “Road Bikes” and one for “Race Road Bikes” I started through the race road bikes first, and found that it was a combination of every bike you could race, not just road bikes. Then I went to the link for “Road Bikes” and found 7 pages of road specific bikes,. Then the site went dead, and I couldn’t load it up again.

I then went searching through the accesserries. You can get a slew of nick nacks and gadgets from baskets bells brakes, bearings for bicycles, and bike stems. 41 categories in all, on 6 pages. I don’t know who still uses toe clips but if you want em, you can find em. At first, I couldn’t find wheels. However after a little searching, I was able to find them under components.

As for the search window, I managed to get hits on specific items, that then showed links to the sub-categories so you could browse further. Unlike other web sites internal search windows where you type a keyword and get 500 hits of stuff unrelated to what you are searching for.

What I didn’t find was a clearance area, however, there seem to be deals. especially in shoes, and especially mountain bike shoes.

They do offer an affiliate program, but currently are not accepting applications for new affiliates, which is a bummer because given the size of the site, I would have certainly given them a shot since my other cycling banner has netted me a big fat goose egg in the revenue coulumn.

So the good, bad, and ugly? In reverse order

UGLY. The front page. I know there is a sub-culture who think the retro scene is where it’s at, but as I stated in the opening paragraph. Not my thing.

BAD. Couple of thigs, No clearance, Closed affiliate Program, and the size of the site which can be a little overwhelming.

GOOD. Huge! Everything you can think of. Just be sure you have time.

Overall Impression? I am looking at a set of Zip 303’s. How’s that for an impression. This will be the first place I visit when I go to price shop.

Musical Monday. Forgive me for being late. I am a still recovering from the weekend. Olympics in Vancouver? Yeah great idea. That’s a 4 and a half hour time difference. The lighting of the flame was so late, I fell asleep, woke up, fell asleep again, then woke up again. By the time I went to bed, I could have very well got up.

That plus a 2 hour trainer session, while watching the “Bourne Ultimatum” a couples core ball workout on valentines day with my honey, and then a 3000m masters swim on Sunday night. I am still ready for a nap.

By the way, check out my new Olympic blog. It’s my place to cheer or vent for the next two weeks.

Today’s post will be “The Good, The Bad, The ugly,” of the opening ceremonies. Or at least the parts I was awake for.

And the Goodest of the good for me, was K.D. Lang, and her rendition of the Leonard Cohen Classic, Hallelujah. The Shrek song.

Of course, I couldn’t find a clip from Vancouver. I guess it’s property of someone who wants it kept exclusive, but I found another clip of K D, singing at the .

My Olympic blog

After yesterdays post, It’s definitely time to lighten things up. I know it’s a few days premature, but here is some valentine humour.




And don’t forger, today is the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancover. In addition to the opening ceremonies, the first event goes today. The preliminary round of ski jumping on the Normal Hill starts at 10:00 PST.

GO CANADA, and Happy Valentines!

Funny what sparks memories. I remember watching the 2008 Olympics in Beijing with keen interest in the men’s road cycling. The memory that sticks in my mind was defending gold medalist, Italian pro Paolo Bettini, dropping back from the peloton to the support caravan, in the early stages of the race, clinging to his support car as he chatted away with some dude sporting sideburns and chewing gum. Bettini just clung on to the car as the two chatted away.

What struck me was that nobody, including the commentators actually made much of a fuss about it. I guess, hanging on for a ride for a couple of kilometers really is no different than being dragged along in the Peloton, and as long as he gained no advantage there was no problem as long as it didn’t happen for the entire race.

I remember wondering what the heck they were they talking about. Were they discussing race strategy? Was Bettini complaining about what a crappy bike he was forced to ride? Was he talking about how sore his butt was? Or were they discussing what they were going to eat after the race, and where they could score a decent bottle of Chianti in the middle of China? And who the heck was the dude in the car.

Turns out the dude with the sideburns and gum was the Italian national coach, the late Franco Ballerini.

Franco passed away this past weekend after crashing in a car during a local rally. It likely won’t receive much press on this side of the Atlantic, but the cycling world will truly miss the former Paris Roubaix champion. To read more about Ballerini, check out Pez.

I gotta say, I have been surprising faithful to the core sessions that I planned for my early to mid winter routines. With the exception of last week, (Recovery as well as Schedule issues) it’s been consistently 2 times per week, every week. Sunday morning, and Tuesday evening. Sunday is reserved for the p90X Core Synergy, but Tuesdays are reserved for yoga.

A big reason I have been able to stay faithful is that I try to keep variety in my Tuesday session. I swore off Tony Horton’s Kick Ass Yoga a while ago, opting instead to stick with a video from my wife’s collection. So last night at I dug down to the bottom of the pile, and found this gem.

Interested? Go here to read more

So what’s this song got to do with Triathlon? Absolutely nothing, except it’s a good little tune to have on in the background during a gut wrenching spin session.

This Great Big Sea tune is featured in the Russell Crowe movie State of Play , during one of the opening scenes as Crowe’s character Cal McAffrey is driving along on his way to the scene of a murder, his radio is belting out “Paddy Murphy” as McAffrey sings along and slaps to the beat on his steering wheel. Not a bad flick, and certainly a deadly tune.

Apparently, Crowe, and the boys from GBS have become tight drinking buddies, in fact GBS front man Allen Doyle makes an appearance in Crowes new version of Robin Hood .

This is a live version of the same tune. Listen and enjoy.

I attended a coaches clinic last weekend, and the head facilitator showed us this video to show the spirit of Triathlon. If this don’t get you fired up, nothing will.

Keep in mind, these guys just swam 1500m, and then cycled 40km.

Awesome! I really miss being able to watch these guys live in Corner Brook.