Ending a Fine Off Week

 A ride in the Terwillegar area with Kent and his two pups. A short ride so a short write up as work looms for both of us.

Riding with dogs is awesome. Something I always wanted to was have my own trail dog. It's the natural mountain biker progression. Buy expensive bikes that don't make sense to normal people, get annoyed yourself as they ask why you paid so much for something that doesn't have an engine. Drink high end beer and becoming a coffee snob is also there. The trail dog is high up on the list but it exists.

It appears I'm way too lazy to train a dog so thankfully I have Kent> A top notch dude that seems to kill it at every level.

The ride was short and slow. Fireman and Oliskew area. Log a Rhythmic was happily avoided and will be until the snow flies.

September Supertember

Ever recall a September that was just crap for everything? Well... There was September Eleventh, 2001. That put a bit of a damper on that September I guess.. I do seem to remember the weather being quite superb that year and that's what I'm talking about.

For me September weather has always been amazing. Yes, I live in central Alberta, Canada and yes we have had September blizzards so it's not always amazing.. Well my point seems kind of lost now.

Whatever. Fuck you. September fuckin rocks!

There, got it? Sorry to swear at you like that  but sometimes I get heated for no reason. Looking back I don't remember a September being shitty. The shitty summers always ended once September hits which is the case this year. Well... Now looking back we did have a good period of rain earlier this month..

Welp.... Lets just forget about the weather chat.

The ride was one of the best of the year. What started as little promise and a quick return back to Old Timers and the Jeep, I pressed on. I didn't turn around like a little wee man like my brain wanted. Gnome trail was ridden and enjoyed immensely. I see they have a new (probably old now) addition which takes the steep fun hill/corner out of the way into a gentle one eighty that spits you back on the trail. This addition makes huge sense for people riding this trail eastward. So that addition is pretty swank actually.

I hit Six Shooter and with mild trepidation I rode the new addition thinking about the other additions that to me made little sense. A quick out and back loop and the exit up top got extended thirty meters. The older additions are what they are and yes despite sounding like a whiny little bitch, I truly appreciate the work.

As to the new trail. Ray Gun. Holy shit. Oh Lawd.... I am in love. Its a lot better going down which I learned today after riding it both ways but the climb up is smooth as a bikini models butt. Oh ya baby. That smooth. And I ain't talking about women either..

So, yes. Ray Gun is a winner and that was complimented on this ride by another roll through Raven.

Fuck me... Edmonton just keeps getting awesomer.

Trail Testing

I think riding without a bell is the local cycling equivalent to those who don't use their signal lights in traffic. It makes you a self entitled douchewaffle. Sadly that was me today as I took the Altitude out for a dip in the valley and realized I didn't have my bell attached. I did think of returning home but realized immediately how stupid that thought was so I rode on.

It was a beautiful Saturday today so naturally the valley was extremely busy. A bell would have been great. Well damn it!

I made it through on a MiIl Creek ride through Blue Man and up into the Old Timers area. Dirty Mattress was descended very slowly due to the large puddles that marr the trail. Evidence of lots of people riding had me giving up hope for humanity yet again. For the most part the trails are decent. The mud puddles are all over so if you see one use your best judgment to get through. I noticed a lot of foot traffic around the puddles and assumed the people were walking their bikes over. I did the same and noted that walking around is doing damage as well..

Way to go hypocrite.

I got tired of the mud and rode paved home. I was grumpy. Maybe it was because I had no gps or real camera and had to do everything on my phone.

summer two-nineteen

Beer Friday. Fernie Brewing, The Eldorado

Another instalment of Beer Friday properly done on a Friday. A night where I thought I would be working some overtime was thwarted as the Beer Friday executives told me this is happening tonight in a very convincing manner. A manner so convincing that I feared for my families lives. These executives do not mess around when it comes to getting a beer review done. A broken finger or two is nothing. These fuckers are savages.

So nervously I entered the beer review den and started the review. The interns. photographers and pourers had an awkward hushed tone to them as they arrived. "Son-of-a-bitch" I thought. "They got to them too.." I said to myself looking down at the ground butting out a cigarette on my new Guess jeans. One day we will rise up and defeat the evil... One day.

The above two paragraphs are the end result when you have nothing to talk about. I don't want to talk about work on here hence the babbling. Right now, all I know is work.. Sad isn't it?

Fernie brings their brewing magic to Lonebiker for the umpteenth time.

The pour was a beauty. A dirty golden beer filled up the glass where a small one and a half fingered head stood on top of the glass. A smell of roasted malts was there along with grapefruit. The first sip was quite delicious. None of the IPA bitterness was there, a taste that chases away a lot of people from IPA's and makes a lot of people into raging douchenozzles as they profess their knowledge of India Pale Ales to the room and everywhere else that would listen. As I sipped this down hints of citrus would show up, that combined with a fresh tasting beer that makes you happy every time you sip on it. Citrus and perfect carbonation make this a winner. Again... No bitterness. Would guys with man buns be upset?

The best Fernie has to offer so far.

This beer gets 5 suds out of 5.

An Expensive Day

A ride where singletrack and a bike that never sees singletrack was going to take place and all would be right with the world. Or so I thought...

The first hit came when I took out the SLR camera for my first pic of my ride from Staff College into Go Trail. The camera will no longer read SD cards. A problem that was creeping it's way in slowly came to show its full fury today. A shame as I had wanted to show my true narcissism and have some self riding shots. Irritated cause I now have to deal with a camera repair I rode on.

I crossed the Terwillegar foot bridge and rode BDSM and Flat Pete. The trail conditions were really quite terrific, mud puddles are bad on BDSM so I did what I could to minimize trail damage (who's a good boy!?) Flat Pete was ridden and I crossed the Fort Edmonton bridge with serious aspirations of riding and completing Selkirk Knights in one roll with zero stops.
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Bah Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

I can't believe you muffballs believed that!

Wait.. Even I know that you know you know that isn't possible. So now I just feel bad about myself.

I discovered the GPS was missing at a coffee break on the bridge. No I didn't have a tether so stop your judging looks. I honestly never knew they had tethers for these things.

The ride was over after that. I retraced my steps in hope my old girl would show up.

So if anyone happens to see a white and blue Garmin Edge 500. Kindly send me an email please.. kenlindsay@thelonebiker.com

you may notice a gps attached to my handlebar in this pic, little did i know..

you may (or won't) notice there is no gps on my handlebar

in an effort to find my gps i turned over and inspected every leaf on every trail ridden

*This will be that last ride for a while. Sorry kids. A work shutdown starts tomorrow for ten or possibly more days. All on nights so it will be a short turn around time next set of days off. I'll post some tranny porn or something to keep you all entertained.

R.I.P Skyline

A short ride. Why a recovery ride if you will..

Old Timers took me on a confused ride where no destination was pre-written. That right there kids is a bad way to start a bike ride. With nowhere to ride to I rode around in circles and felt lost. Eventually I found myself on Jasper Ave and did not want to be there.

I did hear rumblings of Skyline falling more down the bank when I was hopping around on one leg. When I rode by it appeared a clear cut took place in the area. The trail was still visible through all the sawdust and wood shavings that laid on the ground. It looked sad and hopeless. Not sure what their intentions are with cutting the trees..

The ride was very lethargic and slow. Even by my standards. It was boring but I did think while out spinning I could be home right now on the iPad watching live train cam videos.

The bike ride won. The bike always wins.

i know i missed the summer but jeebus! where the hell did these shitty things come from? they are everywhere

Hero Hill

A surprise on a ride after not being in the valley for pretty much the whole Summer season? I guess these things happen. No I'm not talking about the perfectly good bridge that the city ripped out which will be replaced by a plank making things a lot more dangerous all in the name of safety. By safety I mean people not suing the city.

Fuck all lawyers.

Apologies if you read this and practice law. But you gotta see between the lines on this one right?

This post is about the hill that ended the Highlands golf course multi use. Not about lawyers ripping out bridges. Wait a minute Mr Lonebiker... Did you see the bridge? Was it built correctly? Was there welding? If so how was it? Would the wood hold up? What about the screws, will they hold up?

Ya ya... I kinda get it.

Hero Hill would always end my little trip down Highlands. A trail that sadly I have some dark memories on. The good memories were climbing that hill to get to the bridge. It was always (in my brain) done with a crowd of ladies up top impressed by my amazing climbing skills. Most of the times it was ridden up alone to no applause except for that in my head which helped me get up quicker.

Today I planned on heading down Hero Hill and riding Highlands but was met with a new staircase that must have taken a good chunk of time to build. It was quite impressive. A fine staircase if I say so myself. I did know that hill would be done one day in the name of stairs or another funicular. So I'm not upset.

The rest of the ride? Who cares... It was a quick multi use and paved ride all thanks to even more rain in the region.

Things seem to be on the up and up. Except when it comes to climbing that old dirty hill to get the the pedestrian bridge. R.I.P Hero Hill and Godspeed.

Beer Friday.Troubled Monk, Golden Gaetz Golden Ale

An hour and a half south of us (maybe 20 minutes extra or less here and there) lies Red Deer. Red Deer for me is always the halfway point to Calgary. Which means its always been a pit stop for bathroom breaks and quick food pick ups. A recent day trip when the leg issues started getting better showed me a whole world of surprises when we drove around Red Deer exploring things. "OMG, they have an Earls!" I exclaimed like the self entitled jackass that I am. Completely disregarding the lack of restaurants in Beaumont where the Lonebiker and his white family dwells.

This brewery opened up in Red Deer in two thousand and fifteen. A taproom is part of the flavour you get when visiting this fine central Albertan brewery which now that I think about it. I've been doing beer reviews on here close to ten years and I probably only visited a few taprooms and the visits were coincidental.

We poured and were given a beautiful golden ale which was what we were expecting. I mean the beer is named "golden." So we expected liquids of bliss filling out our beer steins. A short and feeble head tried to hang on to show its dominance but with no head, there was very little peacocking with this one.

The first sip was delightfully wonderful. Followed by more wonderful sips. It smells of doughy bread which reminded me of my childhood when my Mother would bake bread on a cold Winters day (sniff. sniff..) Once more consumed I found this well... I know I say this a lot but... The perfect Summer Beer! A good kick of wheaty hops with a touch of mini wheats with hardly any icing making this one delicious! Some would say much alike the ordinary Molson's of the world but I would say it seems Troubled Monk has figured out how to make a tried and true beer.

This beer gets 4 suds out of 5.

Day Seized

Break out the champagne. Finally a ride with no terrible after effects with the bullshit that took out the entire Summer. Cameron Heights to Fort Edmonton and back on a loop that would have made even the shittiest Mom out there proud.

The ride took the paved to the Terwillegar multi use where temptations to ride singletrack were there but I stayed with the safety of the easy doubletrack. Eventually I found my calling and rode some skinny trails down to the parking lot where I eventually crossed and rode the dirty sex trail to Fort Edmonton bridge. The trails looked beaten and tethered, an old whore in a brothel in the 1800's would look fresh and young compared to the run down trails that were smacked around endlessly by careless users in a very wet season.

I crossed Fort Edmonton and rode up through the houses and back home. A day or two of rest now and hopefully back to regular blog posting.

Happy Monday

Some updates for the few faithful remaining reading this..  I hope to start riding the week of the 6th of September. The rides will be quite lame but at least there will finally be riding content again. I had that ride a couple weeks ago which seemed to stimulate something bad in the leg but it never materialized into anything serious.

I am not turning into that forty year old who rides a quad and goes to the gym once bi weekly and lives at Costco and South Edmonton Common on the weekends. The passion to ride is still there strongly. It's been killing me being stuck at home with zero outlets.

Happy Wednesday

Beer Friday. St Ambroise, Black India IPA

"Beer team assemble!" That is the cry through the loudspeaker megaphone where at LB headquarters it reaches every corner of Beaumont and for an odd reason just off main street in Mundare, Alberta. Quite amazing right kids? People who live in town have been annoyed at the loudspeaker that promptly gathers all the workers involved with the review. It also attracts thousands of tourists who come to town in hope of a lonebiker Beer review call. All of them with their phones out hoping to catch the sound of the call that sends shudders around the worlds breweries.

We have a brewery from Quebec here for today's review which happened rather impromptu after missing Friday's planned post so the review would actually land on a Friday for a change. Oh well, so it's Monday on a long weekend. A day when most people are a bit bummed out about having to go to work. So why not a beer review to help raise the spirits?

St Ambroise you say? Ya they have been on here before. Quite a few times actually and I was quite smitten by the amount of St Ambroise beer pics done on here and now sit forever for the world to see.

We poured and this one delivered on it's intent of being badass and dark. I held the beer up to my and looked at the sun and saw no sources of light coming through. Wow! Incredible eh? Would you get this kind of top notch research on any of the other blogs doing beer reviews nowdays? Hell, they even have an app where any hoser can post their thoughts and reviews on a beer with no training.

God help us all...

Once we settled down from the pour we started the testing sessions. It was at first a fearsome event as some of the interns did not like the look of this one. I slapped the back of their heads and took control. The beer has a strong scent of hops and malt right out of the gate. Once sipped it showed us that its more than just a super dark beer. It was a Friday night in a glass. Ugh! why am I not posting these on Friday's anymore!?

We found hints of black liquorice which would send some people running  but it was done quite well. I hate black liquorice and the review kept running which says a lot. The last beer which tasted like coconut resulted in an odd and untimely studio explosion. The malts are strong with this but you can detect hints of dark coffee and toffee. This isn't a beer I would recommend on a hot summer day which this is. It would be perfect in the fall or winter but don't let that dissuade you if you wanted to try it out now.

Go ahead champ, you deserve it.

This beer gets 3 suds out of 5.

Happy August Bike Day

Parking at the edge of mill Creek and not even entering Mill's cavernous welcoming opening is the life equivalent of ending up at the hot high school crush's basement room and choosing not to touch her. Instead you just creepily stare at her and smell her hair when she glances away.

That's what I did at Mill /Creek today. I parked and avoided it but hung out so close you could feel her breath. You could smell her essence. It was beautiful and frustrating as I would not let myself down there. Only rode around the ravine like a thief in the night looking for a dark house to break into.

I didn't feel like I was ready for trails as this ride comes after hobbling around with a terrible nerve pain issue in my leg.

I did survive 84 hours of work in 7 days so a bike ride today was impromptu.

The ride? Started from my old school parking spot and skirted around the ravine like a shy band leader afraid to go into the group and chill out. The ride was shit. Not a great return to the glorious streets of Edmonton.

In the end no leg pain. Although right now there seems top be some issues which will surely put the next planned ride in limbo. 

Not gonna lie. Quite sick of this bullshit already.

See you later for some beer.. 

Happy Monday

Beer Friday. Moosehead, Prairie Honey Wheat Ale

Back again on a Beer Friday done properly on a Monday cause I can thats why!

Sorry to come off angry to start this. I mean I could have gone with all written caps to show just how fired up I am but I didn't. All caps guy is too much for a lot of people. Especially office email all caps guy. He (or she) nah.... Its more annoying if your a guy that does this.

 Is this the nicest day of the year? It sure feels like it kids. A fine day spent touring around with Lonebiker Jr one & two in a topless Jeep taking in the sites and sounds of Edmonton's amazing downtown and surrounding countryside. That's right. Even the usual Edmonton riff faff seemed to be in fine spirits as they pushed their heavily packed shopping carts down 109 st towards their tents in the river valley.

As far as the leg issue goes I am cleared to work. Some amazing news after six weeks of pure frustration. The plan is to go back, work my week and then start slowly riding. I would have been leaving tonight for Fort Macmurray but that job is coming to a close so it will be local work for a while which could not have been more perfect.

Moosehead brewing. Located in Saint John, New Brunswick started up shop in 1867 and is still privately owned. Quite the unreal story but they stayed around and fought the big breweries, prohibition, world wars...

The pour for this one was done in the enclosed Lonebiker beer review studios. The large crowd that showed up exploded into a violent cheer when Andre the head pourer showed up and the opening ceremonies started. It poured a huge three and a half (fat guy) fingered head and looked very drinkable on a very hot and sticky Canadian Monday night.

First sip was nothing but relief from the heat. So was the second and third. Once we started sipping for the review we found a nice and easy drinking honey wheat ale. Tastes of golden showers all over my mouth was nothing but... Hold On!

I'm talking about drinking beer people. Focus!

This one tastes of honey and well... Not a lot else to say here. The honey is nice, don't get me wrong but asides from the honey it's hard to detect notes of anything else. If you really want to know of anything else as I feel like you, the readers are holding a sharpened sickle to my head. I'll just give the bullshit answer every beer reviewer uses from time to time.

This one has bready malts.

There. Done.

This beer gets 2.5 suds out of 5.