DAGMAR.... Is finally ( almost ) back. I week to go SEPT 12th

One of the old school G.T.A. mtb destinations has been resurrected.  Official Press Release:

Uxbridge: September 1, 2015: The Durham Mountain Biking Association (DMBA) is pleased to announce the Grand Opening of the Dagmar North Trails on September 12, 2015. The new 13 km of trails in the Dagmar North Tract (DNT) are the culmination of eight years of planning and 5 months of building. The building was accomplished with over 200 volunteer builders investing over 5,000 hours of sweat equity in the project. This is one of the largest volunteer trail building projects in Canada. 

In the meantime here is " some " of the trails sped up into a 18 minute sample video.  There is a lot more and tons of options and can't wait to add this to the mix... officially


 

The Bikes of the Retro Revival

Derek took some good bike pics pre ride.  Carbon & Ti 29'ers not pictured :)

Retro Revival Pics..

First Annual Kris & Phil's Retro Revival Ride - Durham Forest

Bill's IBIS, Phil's Rocky, Kris's Klein, Paul's Trek, Derek's Kona

Kris and I have been floating this idea around for a while and the ride finally took place this past Sunday at Durham Forest. 

It was 8 degrees when we rolled out at 9:30 ish but the trail conditions were mint. 

We have lots of ideas and venues for future rides ( think Mono Center, Seaton, Mansfield etc. ).  We had a mix of old and new rides and all ages and levels out and everyone had a blast. 

We did 2 loops so everyone had as much as they wanted.  No major mechanical issues even though I kept expecting the air upgrade kit in my Judy XC to project upwards at 180 psi :)  Paul's Trek put the rake in RAKE.  Good Times !!

Tom Ritchey - The 40 year ride.

Jaybird Films really did a good job with this video. Forgot just how involved Ritchey was back in the day and how deep their racing roots went. Lusting over the P21 and the P23 with a budget for a GT Avalanche.. Sound Familiar ? The red white  & blue was the iconic brand of the hand built steel hardtail. Recently we were looking forward to testing out the WCS carbon 650b fork but that will need to be another time due to some post mount brake issues but its not hard to find a host of other components on our bikes as well as some old 26" rubber kicking around the parts bin.

Re~building Brodies c/o Dathan R.I.P.

July 24th, 2006 was a bad day, we lost a great friend and amazing rider. Dathan was primarily the guy that got me into collecting old Canadian Handbuilt bikes and after he passed away his brother made sure some of the collection made into the hands of those that would truly do the bikes & Dathan proud.

Enter Juice, sent me a email link to the Brodie Blog and it was a post from another friend of Dathan's that had just finished a classic Sovereign. Build came out mint and it was even better to see it on the trail.

I was one of the fortunate few that Juice gave frames to and I restored my eXpresso with a new paint job, original decals, a Gatorblade fork and it has seen a few good events. I decided I could not risk thrashing this particular bike so retired mine to the bike room wall.

Have a read on the Brodie Blog and in the meantime, here's another bike. Thank's Dathan......

Retro Days, Retro Rides...

For those that know me personally also know I like anything old school and also anything unique. Digging through some old pictures and came across some old bike photo's. I don't know how many years this spans and this is not a complete bio of bikes long gone by a few bikes not pictured at least but a fun look back.



It all started ( the serious addiction for high end bikes that is ) with the Rocky Mountain Cirrus. I had to talk my dad into driving 2 hours to Precision Bikes in Niagara Falls USA to get my hands on all the 3-d Violet Ringle & Cook Bros parts I could save up for. I still own a fully built Rocky Mountain Altitude T.O. complete with Tioga Disc drive.



Then came the ProFlex a.k.a Slow Flex ( which lived up the nick name ) and the bike I still wish I owned, The GT Xizang with the fork I still wish I owned, The Lawill Leader 3. The Nuke Proof carbon hubs, snowflake twisted front wheel spokes were all trademark parts that carried over from frame to frame.

More pics and Retro posts to follow....

Bump.......

Well we took a break from this for 2008 but it is going to happen this year hopefully with better conditions than what Kris and I had in 2007. Going to float some dates as this will be a mid week epic so let me know if any time's are better than others for you. Going to keep the ride small and the distance is 100 km.

1986 NORBA National Championships

What a blast from the past. I just took the mens race in small clips. This was mtb in it's glory. No suspension, steel 30 pound bikes with toe clips.....