Cuyuna

The weekend in pictures...

ThNR

BIG TIME changes are brewing this ThNR.  This week we’ll take our post cycling festivities to a new venue, the ABES barn (aka the Harms barn) located in the Altona village.  BYOB.  YeeF'nHaw!

The stupid fun trails and good times in Cuyuna are still making me smile.  So much goodness.  David has some pictures?

Reminder - we are volunteering at the McPhillips Street Station this Friday from 5:50 – 9:30.  Bidness casual attire required.  We’ll finalize carpooling arrangements at the ThNR.

Coming soon: The new ABES winter jersey.  PK submitted this...

ABES Bulletin

I was psuper-psyched to see 18 folks come out for the Saturday morning mountain bike ride.  How cool was that?!  It was no double rainbow, but it was still pretty great.  Cindy won the Best Crash award normally won by David – way to go Cindy!  Charles won the Best Hitch award - very drool worthy.  

Is anybody around for a Saturday morning ride?  

Dan cycled up Mount Rushmore and played "I crush your head" with the presidents.

ABES Casino Night - I need 4 people to confirm that they can volunteer with me at the McPhillips Street Station on Friday, May 22 from 6:00 – 9:45.  We’ll need to leave by 4’ish so we can grab a bite to eat and be ready for 6:00.  Please let me know before this Friday as I need to confirm names for the MCA ASAP.

The May extra long weekend at Cuyuna is gearing up to be stupid fun.  Wicked good trails, lakeside cabin, pontoon boat, Louie’s Bucket of Bones and the wildcard factor, ‘Merica!  If 4 days of awesomeness is intimidating, you could come for 2 days and still get a lot of biking and good times.  

Thursday Night Ride - Last chance for a group giggle as we ponder all things cuyuna.  

Cuyuna-esque

One more week!

ThNR Report

Jonny, Gavin, Paul, David, Steven, Steve B and me met early to go do some mountain biking.  It turned out, in Jonny’s words, to be, “One of the top ten ABES rides of all time so far.” It started with the threat of rain, but we went for it anyway, and rode one loop of Tinker before the weather got wetter.  Instead of doing the cowardly smart thing at that point and heading home, we hung in there and went for a ride along the high line.  It was raining, but not too wet; the mud was sticky but not too bad.  It was getting dark, but not too fast, and it was crazy, but not too nuts.  As we paused to regroup on our second time through, out of the mist appeared Charles, who joined us for the rest of the ride.  We got back to the van and thought about what we had just done, and the sun broke through and gave us a double rainbow.  We all wondered what it meant.  Maybe it was a cliché, a reminder to

“Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.” Lord Byron

 I doubt it though.

 I won’t presume to say what it means for the other riders last night, but for me it was a reminder that timing matters, and sometimes you have to go for it.  If we had quit when we should have, we would have missed not only the better part of the ride, but also the show that came with it. Go for it. That is what I’m taking out of last night’s experience.

This Saturday, I’d vote the breakfast club meets to drive out to Tinker and ride it all again.  I am just one voice though, and I’ll happily defer to someone with a different plan.

Franklin

ThNR – Mtb Edition

This week we'll head to the Tinker trails to mountain bike.  There as so many good reasons.  

We'll meet at 6:30 and go to the Trans Canada trail off of highway 201.  If you can drive and have room for a bike or a brother, let it be known.

If you don’t like knobby tires or can't get away, Shaun will meet you at 8:00. 

Albert found this beauty during his bike vacation/choir practice/bike vacation

ABES Bulletin

Only 24 days (May 14-18) to the ABES May Schlang Weekend in Cuyuna!  Car-pooling - if you are willing to drive and have room for a biking brother, pass it on.  If you need a ride, let it be known.
  

Saturday morning road rides have begun.  This week, meet at ABES headquarters David's house at 9:30 and we’ll see which way the wind blows.  Sweet Cheryl Koop Dufus has agreed to tend the tots if you need childcare.

Sunday was Bicycle Day… it’s not what you think.  We may have a new sort of bike trip in our future.

Because...bikes!

I love how the peloton moves like a school of fish.

ThNR: Franklin is preparing to have a short race this Thursday - a handicapped time trial.  Individual start times will be determined by age and the weight of you and your bike - old, fat guys get a head start.  I’ve been not training for this race my whole life!

ThNR

Bike, beer, Jets!

Good times start at 8.

ABES Bulletin

Pink Bike is having a photo of the year contest.  I submitted "cross dresser" but the judges failed to comprehend the disturbed bravery this image required.   

Check out the wicked good photo finalists here. 

From the For Serious Files...

a 36'er and a 26'er

Because people are awesome...

I must have been feeling nostalgic when I recently made this guilty pleasure purchase from ebay...

Thursday Night Ride - m'hmm.  See you at 8.

ThNR

A Star bicycle was photographed being ridden down
the steps in front of the United States Capital in 1885

Post ride BS will be held at David's house at the south end of the Altona village.  BYOB.

ThNR

Spring weather in Manitoba is weird.

Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug.

See you at 8.

ABES Bulletin

The ABES Winter Bike Festival was sweet.  Highlights included: a family ride with 30+ people cycling around town enjoying the good life, Coen forgetting that he shouldn’t walk through mud, a photo finish sprint at the last-man-out race where Paul held off Evan, Dan K and Shaun winning the relay race, t-shirt weather at a winter bike event, Maxine helping alleviate the parents guilt by being our babysitter, Steven debuting his beautiful carbon Cannondale 29’er, Bruce generously donating a box of bike goodies, and enjoying pizza, chips and beer at the sExchange with great people.  Good times y’all.  David took these pics...

If you want to take part in the no-stake action of the March Madness basketball tourney, you can! DSwank has set up an account so we can compete against each other (the password is Altona2015).  Fill in your picks (guesses) and let the computerizor do the rest - easy-peasy-Japanesey.  The more the madness-ier.  Bragging rights hang in the balance.  According to some dude, the odds of you filling out a perfect bracket are a staggering 1 in 9.2 quintillion. That's a nine with 18 zeroes or 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 if you're not into the whole brevity thing.  The 1 in 9.2 quintillion number is straight mathematics - it figures out how many possible ways the 63 game results on your bracket could be filled out (two to the sixty-third power), but it doesn't account for standard basketball logic, like No. 1 seeds have always advanced in the first round or tournament champions usually having a top-four seed or Duke's dual advantage of having a legend like Coach K and never getting called for a blocking foul. If you know something about the NCAA tournament, the odds of a perfect bracket are more like 1 in 128 billion.   It should be easy for me because I watched the Harlem Globetrotters play against a team of robots on Gilligan’s Island.  True story.

Breaking news - The MCA offers registered bike clubs an opportunity to do fundraising and I jumped at the chance.  We need 5 volunteers for Friday, May 22 to be at the McPhillips Street Station from 6:00 – 9:45 to assist with selling bingo cards or pull-tab tickets or something like that.  The evening will net our club some easy money but David and Franklin guaranteed to double it playing Smash the Pig.  Check your schedules and let me know if you can help the team. 

Interesting bike idears...

ThNR Report

Jonny, Shaun, Steven and I met to ride on a beautiful, warm, March night.  We headed off to find David and then went to pick up our dry cleaning.  After a bit of riding we ended up at the creek and sat in the quiet low rumble of Bunge and enjoyed the end of winter and the stillness of the water.  We resumed our ride and finished at the clubhouse where we were met by Albert, (who wasn’t curling) Duker, Lyle and Lorne.  The minutes included: Olaf is a snowman and Oleg is a drunkman, the ABES have been officially invited to the Okanagan and are definitely going to go, MCI, glasses vs reading glasses vs laser eye surgery vs contacts vs bifocals, and this year’s winter bike fest is going to be the warmest ever.  This is the second week in a month where I participated in or overheard a reading glasses conversation at the ABES table, just saying.

We ended the night with a cultural and personal examination of the role of bikes, church, community and ABES in our lives.  “Life, we learn too late, is in the living, the tissue of every day and hour.” Stephen Leacock

This Sunday is the Winter Bike Fest.  Come out for bikes, in a church, community and ABES at 2:30 and live a little!  See the posts below for more info.

Cheers,

Franklin

ABES Bulletin

ABES Winter Bike Festival - This Sunday at The sExchange – coffee and yarba will be served at 2:30.  We’ll begin with a family bike ride so everybody can enjoy their bikes, then proceed with the rest of our day.  Maxine Penner has agreed to tend the tots while we gallivant.  The forecast is for 15 degrees so it should be the warmest winter bike fest weather ever!

Random act of pastor Dan - President and lone member of the Bring Back The Moose Club, Dan will have his wish come true as the "much anticipated" return of the Manitoba Moose 2.0 seems to be a reality.  Why do good things happen to bad people?

Random Files...I love watching great soccer goals, but great soccer saves are even better.  Check it out If you like cool stuff.

Thursday Night Ride - On.

ABES Winter Bike Festival

The AWBF plan is to meet this Sunday at The (s)Exchange at 2:30 for a pre-ride coffee, hot chocolate or wobbly pop, casually ride around town in a big, beautiful group, enjoy a two-person relay race at the park, high-five our efforts then return to the (s)exchange for supper.

This time of year the weather can vary from balmy to blustery.  Environment Canada is calling for a high of 14 for Sunday - we’ll see.  Cycling on the ice rinks/pond could be sketchy, we’ll probably all have mucky bike butts after our ride, and the chances of hypothermia will be minimal barring a polar bear swim at the pond.  Technically it’s still winter so it’s on with the show…

Kids can stay at the exchange to watch a movie if they prefer.  A babysitter or willing adult is needed to tend the tots - anyone…anyone?

Price of admission is a salad or dessert or bags of chips to share.  Pizza will be sold by the slice.  byob.  Everyone is invited to this family friendly event.  JS

ABES Bulletin

so many great faces in this picture

Quiz Night takes place this Friday and there will be 28'ish teams trying to take down the smrtest bike club in Altona as we defend our title.  We'll throw our collective kanowledge against the wall to see if it'll be good enough for the win...even if it's only by 3.

Save the date: the ABES Winter Bike Festival will take place on Sunday, March 15.  Ride, race, beer, pizza, good times.  The more the merrier - stay tuned.

In case you were wondering...Here’s a Spring Classics guide for dummies  

Better late than never?  Thursday night ride is on of course.  Prepare to endure Dan gloating about his Sens.  Boo-urns.

this did/did not happen.
oops.

See you at 8.

ThNR

Feel free to watch the 1st period at my place.

ya'll'r welcome.  JS