Trail-Rider-1.0's posts

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/04/everest-sherpas-death-and-anger.html

A good artical ^^ by Krakauer

of course its a tradgedy for so many people to die but notice that pretty quick everyone is talking about money

the sherpas need the money and have better lives for the dangerous jobs of getting the rich sahib up the mtn in much the same way a sweatshop garment worker in Bangaladesh has a better life making walmart clothing its just that high alltitude sherpa sounds way more sexy than sweatshop factory worker

nobody sez we should quit shopping at walmart when a factory burns to the ground killing hundreds of garment workers

People definitely say that we should stop shopping at walmart when a factory burns to the ground. Unfortunately, our (western) way of life is dependent on cheap goods from those factories, so other than the most dedicated activists, the outrage dies off as soon as the 6 o'clock news is finished. No one wants to have to actually start paying more for their stuff to save the life of a factory worker, they just want to feel good by posting "RIP" on facebook.

On the other hand, it's easy for everyone to get behind the Sherpas because their danger comes from supporting the pursuits of the wealthy, an easy target for the average person.

For the record, I don't believe that the Sherpas deserve any more or less sympathy and rights than a Bangladeshi factory worker, but it is interesting to compare the reactions to each case.

ORS Rack Direct will ship to Point Roberts I believe.

I'd also recommend ORS, I got my Thule bike rack from them. Shipped it to Sumas and picked it up. Saved a couple hundred bucks over Canadian prices. They have extensive selection online.

Sorry, but why not put it into an RRSP? If he has a job, he is paying taxes. If paying taxes, then he is eligible for tax credits??

See this article..

http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/partners/free/rbc_ic08/rrsps2/articles/kids.html

This. Since he is likely in the lowest tax bracket, it should also be possible to carry forward the tax credits for a few years until he's taxed at a higher marginal rate. I would also think that putting money in an RRSP will help reinforce the idea of investing for the long term, as opposed to a savings account that can be emptied in a year for a video card upgrade. Once the money is in an RRSP, some sort of equity mutual fund probably makes the most sense for starting long term investing.

Why don't you just mount a $30 cycling computer on your bars for real-time and Strava the ride with the phone in your jersey pocket?

That's what I do now. The reason I want the phone on my bar is so I can have a real-time map for exploring new areas. I could always just pull my phone out of my pocket when I need to check a map, but who wants to go through all that trouble :P

Nich: Thanks for the link. A little bulkier than what I was thinking of, but worth considering.

Anyone have any experience with these? I'm toying with the idea of trying to use my phone as a bike computer. I realize it won't have as high accuracy as a dedicated bike computer, but I'm most interested in having GPS/mapping capabilities on my handlebar and I'm reluctant to spend $300+ on a new unit when I have the capability already in my phone. Any thoughts or experience?

Mountain bike protest in every bc park this summer. Multiple rides in garibaldi and Alice lake. Screw bc parks after this stupid bill passing. Maybe the user fees will disappear now that big money is involved.

I don't think this is the right approach. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the passing of a bill is entirely up to the government, and BC Parks had nothing to do with it. BC Parks operates on a shoe string budget and I beleive they've recently been subject to funding cuts. If anything, we need to be supporting BC Parks and telling the government that the population of the province cares about their parks and wants them protected.

At least it's a bill that almost everyone can agree on (being a fucking stupid idea).

I really, really, wish I could agree. You know what scares me though? I think there are enough (maybe not a majority, but enough) people out there who never leave the city, who have no particular attachment to our parks, and whose pay cheques are directly or indirectly supported by continued "development" of our province, to be in support of this. I fear there are enough of those people who are either indifferent or slightly supportive of things like Bill 4 because they see it as improving the economy, their chances of maintaining employment, and really, who cares if they cut down a few trees hundreds of kilometers from where I live? In their minds, the only people opposed to this type of thing are dirty, socialist, tree-hugging hippies.

I really hope I'm wrong and we start to see more backlash and less support for the political parties that operate this way.

Not to take anything away from that prognosis whatsoever, but do you do any form of massage? Be it through some other person, or something like foam-rolling? I have knee issues and a lot of it is from a ton of neglect in keeping my IT band and other parts supple. If you do get massage, and you haven't threatened to kill the person if they touch the side of your thigh like that again, you might want to check it out.

I do foam rolling to work on the IT band and I'm going to start getting some massage work done as well, on the advice of a knee specialist I saw . I definitely struggle at keeping those parts supple too.

I've seen a lot of short term faces in the gym. The high majority of them do general-fitness. The few people I've seen long term are doing something specific with obvious goals in mind.

I say it's 'impossible' because without specific goals the gym becomes an incredibly boring place and you will quickly find other things to do in that time. Furthermore without those goals, and if you don't have a good trainer, you'll likely not take the initiative to learn what you need to do in order to stay balanced and continue progressing, which sends things further south.

Understood, I can relate. I have dropped off the wagon in the past and stopped working out regularly, and in hindsight, a lack of goals and routine were probably a big factor.

I think I'll take syncro's suggestion to put together a circuit and focus on upping my consistency and frequency of workouts.

Thanks for the feeback!

If that is your only motivation I'd suggest you focus on cycling and skiing as those will work out your muscles that you use to cycle and ski. As for general fitness, that is something that is impossible to pursue in the long term.

As someone who trains pretty extensively, I can say that I didn't get my resort-powder legs until early March (and I'm of the minority that looks forwards to leg days over upper body days).

If you're looking for other, more tangible reasons to strength train there's a bunch of us here who can offer suggestions.

There are a few other reasons I work out. I hope that additional strength training will provide cycling benefits (both road and mountain) in terms of speed, endurance, agility, and injury avoidance. I've also had some knee pain which my physio suggested is partially due to muscle imbalances in my legs (likely due to having strong "cycling" muscles from a lot of miles on the bike, but little else in terms of strength training). I'd like to avoid any further complications from working certain muscles excessively while completely ignoring others.

What do you mean by general fitness being impossible to pursue in the long term? I realize "general fitness" is pretty vague, but I don't know how else to express the concept I'm getting after. As a full time desk jockey, I can feel my body deteriorating every day I spend staring at my monitor. I want to stay strong enough to continue cycling/skiing/etc. I guess just doing those activities regularly would probably be enough, like you suggested, but I'm curious why you say general fitness is impossible to pursue.

Thanks for the responses!

Looking for some feedback: I'm in decent shape, 5'11, 160 lbs. My primary motivation for going to the gym is for general fitness and to build/maintain strength for cycling and skiing. My current routine is only 1-2 days a week at the gym, because frankly, when I'm not chained to my desk, I'd rather be outside. I wouldn't mind putting on 5-10 lbs of muscle, but I'm not going to spend sunny summer days in the gym when I could be on my bike instead.

Because I go to the gym relatively infrequently, my thoughts have been that focussing on squats, pull ups, and bench press will offer the most effective work out given my goals. I'll throw in a few other exercises for arms and core work, but I spend most of my time on the big movements for legs/chest/back. I'm also thinking of getting dead lifts back into my routine.

What does NSMB think? Am I wasting my time working out so infrequently? Should I be getting more variety? (I do squats/bench/pull ups every time I work out).

I guess riding an electric bike [HTML_REMOVED] no bike, but I think the tag line on that link says it all "Stay active with less effort." Missing the point much? I'm sure they're fun for some people, but I can think of a lot of things I'd rather spend $1600 on.

Stay away from Hollyburn. I was up on Sunday and it was awful. The freeze-thaw last week coupled with the tree bombs that heckler mentioned made conditions akin to sking over bowling balls frozen in place. Wait for more snow.

I had a good Cove N as well, but werent some of them flat because the bottle did not work with the N2? Something about the big bottle not working as well as a small one or widget loaded can. Not to slag them, just what an employee at a store told me.

Interesting. I had a 650mL of the Cove nitro stout and it was flat out of the bottle. I wasn't sure if I poured it wrong or something, but maybe it was a problem with the bottle.

I was up Seymour this past weekend and noticed there are a few prominent signs saying that backcountry skiers are not allowed to use the maintained runs. Did I just not notice those signs before, or are they new this year? How exactly do they expect people to get back to the parking lot, ski down the access trail and play human bowling ball? Do they have any right to fine/prosecute people who ski down the runs without a pass? Help me understand this craziness…