hooray for mrs. dr.

it's mrs dr.'s birthday today.

no gifts being exchanged today, but a much larger project is in the works - a new ride for the good mrs. dr. what's in the works is another custom frame project form mr. truelove that will lead to a lifer (in my vocabulary a lifer are those special bikes that should last a lifetime - currently i own two lifers) for mrs. dr. planning is currently in the beginnig stages, we're looking at something that will be versitaile, very comfortable, and something that she can use for light to medium touring. current bikes that are being used as models are the A.N.T. light roadster and the Heron Randonneur.

the ANT light roadster

the Heron Randonneur

now some of you will undoubtedly accuse me of being selfish with regards to this project. 'all he's doing,' you'd say, 'is satisfying his need to build yet another bike;' and you would be right. hey, i have an addiction and i am the first to admit it and like any junkie i need my fix.

friday fun file

brilliant

even more brilliant

to be continued

managed to get some more of the siding up on saturday with the help of gianni and tinker tim. maybe my christmas present this year will be the completion of this phase of the project.

spamming

i don't know if i should laugh or cry

housing crisis

okay, the price i must pay for all of my play (bike racing) this fall is that i, well myself and the unfortunate souls that i convince to help me on this project, are now forced into uncomfortable environments while working on the house. last monday was warm so we got out the halogen work lights and took advantage of the comfortable temps.

cutting the hardie board

fastening the board to the north side

saturday was the day to tackle the insulation of the attic. we contemplated cutting an access in the gable end and loading the insulation into the attic that way, but nixed that idea when we saw there was shiplap underneath the plywood siding. so we had to go through the access which is located in our hall closet, this went much more smoothly than anticipated. in 4 hours we had the attic insulated.

insulation waiting to be shoved up into the attic

aiden putting isulation down

the white stuff you see is styrofoam pellets which is what the previous owner used to insulate the attic. the energy audit showed that we should increase the amount isnsulation so rather than trying to remove the existing insulation we used a rake to smooth out the styrofoam and move it into the corners, we then laid batts of insulation on top of this. this should significantly improve the heat retention of the house in winter and keep the heat out in summer.

supercross and provincials

two races in one weekend with a pizza party throw in the middle meant for a rough monday. the races went surprisingly well for me.

in the provincials race i managed to hang with the lead group until olli decided to up the pace. this spit me out the back fairly quickly which put in no-man's-land for a few laps. i managed to bridge up to dylan and brian and dylan and i took turns at the lead until the sprint for the line. second in the 40+ and 5th overall.


as per tradition, saturday night was the annual pizza party for those who volunteered, or committed to volunteer and help with the course clean up, setup and take down.

supercross was again a spectacle to behold. the course was built for the bike handler and included, again, the fan favorite mud bog to beat all mud bogs. i was skeptical about doing well in this race having spent everything in saturday's race, but things turned out well. i big part of that was due to the fact that somehow i managed to avoid crashing on this very technical course. guys that were riding really well and always give me a run for my money (luc, allan, tom, and daniel) all went down at one point or another, some more than once. this allowed me stay ahead and get 4th overall which was a huge surprise.