Well it's the first Critical Mass of the season this evening... I've never ridden in one although I do like the idea. However, I will not be riding in this one either, but if your interested you should show up at:

5:30pm at Phillips Square, Ste-Catherine @ Union

OK my bike is ready, where's the snow? I've setup my touring bike to carve through the snow. I've put permanent fenders and studded cyclocross tires on it.

I'm looking forward to trying my hand at some winter cycling. Regretfully I didn't do too much of it last year. It teaches you some good bike handling skills.

My race bike may now sit 'til spring in the trainer :(

Slow Twitch is a great site for triathlon articles and reviews. I highly recommend looking through it.

Bikes, gear, reviews, and general interest.

I brought my camera with me when I went cycling around the Grand Prix Race track, and it turns out the every tree at the Casino is covered in white lights. Half of me thinks it looks cool, and the other half thinks that they're idiots for wasting so much power on a stupid display. However, it was the brightest place around so I took a couple of photos.

I live in an apartment and I don't own any indoor drying racks (although I guess I could buy one), and since I don't machine dry my aesthetics wear I always end up draping it over my bikes. The 3 bikes I own already take up a fair amount of space, and it must look strange to the untrained eye when all three are covered in damp sports gear. The bike in the photo is my Giant OCR Touring bike. I'm currently outfitting it for winter riding, although snow has yet to fall here in Montreal.

There really isn't that much good bike time left, and it looks like this weekend is going to be a rainy one. I'm hoping that I'll be able to squeeze some in some cycling tomorrow morning when there's only a 40% chance of rain... But it might be hard getting started after going out tonight.

Oh well, I do plan to do some outdoor cycling on my touring bike this winter. I've outfitted it with studded cyclocross tires and fenders, so i think it will be able to do the job. I had it out once two years ago and it seemed to handle the situation fine.

But I really do have to pick up some new cold weather cycling and running gear. Last winter I spent way too much time in the gym and not enough outdoors.

I also plan to get some trail running in this weekend. With night coming so fast I'm pretty much limited to doing it on weekends now.

The ING New York City Marathon: Lance broke 3 hours placing 869 with a finishing time of 2:59:36. So now I'm going to set that as my goal marathon time to beat by the end of next summer.

Cold, hail, and wet ground.

I started off going through the grave yard, but being Sunday it was a bit too busy with folk visiting the dead. Instead I used it as a short cut, zipped down Camille Houde, then I went up through the upper part of Outremont, around the University, through Cote des Neiges, up the backside of Camille Houde, and back down through the graveyard. I went through the graveyard because I didn't want to test the downhill turns of Camille Houde once the ground had gotten wet. I was going to head just head home, but at the last second I decided to bike up the dirt path of the mountain and back. NOTE: hail stings when you're biking fast.

I had a retarded wipe out when I was turning around on the mountain. I should have known that a narrow turn in the mud with race bike wheels would result in a slow motion tip over. Wipe outs like that are just plain funny and embarrassing.

Oh, and I feel healthy and fairly strong today.

So my FSA/Vison Tech Mini Clip-Ons arrived yesterday I gave them a spin today. They feel quite different from the other aerobars that I've used, and it might take some getting used to. The pads contact the arms just above the wrist, and my watch made that a little uncomfortable, however, I think I'll be able to adapt to them. I couldn't do laps around the Grand Prix race track so I haven't had the chance to stay in aero position for any length of time, but soon they will get a good test run when I set my bike up in my trainer.

Hopefully the weather will permit me to take my race bike out a few more times this year. I'll be writing an extensive review of my cycling setup before winter hits full on.