One Bike, Any Trail

For the past two seasons, I have been riding my resurrected GT frame from 9 years past. It did a valiant job of getting me up and down Yukon singletrack, but eventually a crack developed, forcing me to retire it and move on to a new ride.


Most of the parts from the GT frame were still in good working order, so I only had to find a nice frame to hang everything on. In came the Turner 5 Spot. This bike is pretty amazing. I can climb better and descend faster than any bike I've ever had before. It is pretty much my dream bike and has been getting a lot of use during the past few weeks of spectacular fall colours. Turner is a boutique brand out of California, and they have been building top-end mountain bike frames for as long as mountain biking has been around. I had a couple of other options in mind (including a Canadian brand, Banshee, but my size was unavailable), but in the end this bike is a great match for the type of riding that I do. Plus, I've never owned a red bike before.


If you are curious to know what the trails are like where I live, then I suggest you download this magazine article to see what I get to ride.

The Takhini River

(This picture will likely be my desktop image for quite some time)

Our canoe trip on Sunday was to revisit this beautiful river just outside Whitehorse. A few of the pictures below (the ones of Jenny and me -- in the red and yellow life jackets) were taken by our friend Kate.

It was surprising to see just how slick and cool a Ford Focus can look with a canoe.

Much of the river was nice easy paddling.

But there was a small section of rapids affectionately known as the Jaws of Death.

Luckily and skillfully, we all managed to cheat death and show Jaws who's boss.

Autumn Has Fallen

Wow. Has it really been 4 months since my last post?! The funny thing about blogging is that when you've been doing things worthy of a blog post, you rarely have the time or inclination to actually post about the events. Since my last entry, I have done everything from look for gold near the backwoods town of Trout Lake, BC, to diving into a pool after spinning fire at a friend's wedding, to entering my first ever downhill mountain bike race, to submitting my biggest and most important thesis chapter to a journal. It's been a lot of fun. Now that the weather is cooling and the days are growing shorter, I'm sure I'll start sorting and posting the myriad of pictures that have accumulated from Jenny's and my summer adventures.

If I had to choose 1 picture to sum up the past 4 months, I'd have to choose this one of Jenny and me in front of the Takhini River with the Ibex Valley in the background. We're happy about the summer we experienced and glad to live in such a great place. The colours around Yukon are absolutely amazing right now, so last weekend, we went for a short drive away from Whitehorse and did a bit of 4x4ing to find this secluded spot. It was so beautiful that we rented a canoe and spent today paddling down this same river. Our friend Kate took pictures of us shooting the rapids called "Jaws of Death," so you will soon be able to see how we made out...