Where is everyone?

A slight change of plans.

Things are underway, and looking up.

You'll be hearing from us soon enough.

Seriosuly.

Pizza, pop and chips

An interesting read about physical activity and Mcmaster students. Remember kids, riding bikes is a good way to remain fit during your time here at Mac.

Link

"Hey, where did you guys go ?"

Good question. A few things came up in the summer, so the HTPA had to go on the backburner for those of us involved, but, we're back now and the planning is starting again. HTPA guys Matt Thompson and John Vraets will getting together trials/urban rides through the Mcmaster cycle Co-Op on Fridays now, as well as some laid back XC rides during the week.

Look for the relaunching for the HTPA at the Mcmaster Cycle Co-Op 1st ever Mountain Bike Movie night night. Coming this Nov 5th here in Hamilton. Good times will follow. Check back for more info

City of Hamilton Plan for Open Space

 
 
Hi there
 
This is a link to the  city's plan for the open spaces here in Hamilton.  If you can sit through the whole thing, it's a reasonably interesting read and shows how the city is thinking when it comes to the "master plan".  Hopefully that plan can include our terrain park!
 
Summary:  http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/Planning-and-Development/long-range/official-plan-and-information-planning/pdf/Executive-Summary.pdf

Full document:  http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/Planning-and-Development/long-range/official-plan-and-information-planning/pdf/ParksDiscussionPaper2004.pdf

Public Skatepark Meeting

What's up

Theres' a public skatepark meeting on Monday to determine the future of a proposed park here in Hamilton. THe park'll be up on the mountain next to Limeridge mall, and you can betyour ass that there will be people at this meeting who don't want to see the park built. If you can, go for TWO reasons;

1) To make sure that there's more advocates of the park there than there are naysayers

2) To make a mountain bike presence heard at these meetings. Parks don't help us if we can't ride there.

When: Monday, June 14th, 7:00 PM!!
Where: Sackville Rec Park (Upper Wentworth and Mohawk)

Keep rockin' in the free world

Legitimacy and Building

Being legit when you build jumps and stunts helps. Otherwise, this can happen

Good luck to these guys and everyone up in Richmond Hill who's going to be working on getting some legit building done. If you can help with petitions etc...contact freeride_kungfoolery@rogers.com

Kelso DH Race

Ya this is late…sue me…on second thought, don’t. But the OCA Kelso DH race on May was off the hook. Believe me when I say that I’ve never seen that many DHers in one place before. And do believe me, because I wouldn’t lie about something like that. I think the official count of racers was close to 200, and that doesn’t count the numbers of family members, supportive boyfriends and girlfriends, and people like me who really had no reason to be there. The course was sick, the log gap made me drop my jaw a few times. Well not so much the gap itself, but the people flying over top of it like superheroes. Myself and the other spectators were in awe of all of you that day. Who says Ontario doesn’t have kick-ass DH riders? What a way to start out what’s gonna be a great race season!

SRAM's Crankmeister - The Directors cut?

Back in 2001 SRAM released Crankmeister, a three minute film full of power-chords, indecifierable lyric, big drops and most importantly, finger bikes.

Since then the film itself is still available on the SRAM website here . What is even more interesting is that the rumours of the extended edition of the film floating around on the web finally seem to be true. Here is the 9-min extended edition of Crankmesiter with the behind the scenes footage

Updating the site...from a cell phone?

Collaborative bicycle repair book

The wiki system is an online database, which allows for a collection of knowledge in the form of linked documents. Wikibooks are similar, but in online book form. Over at http://wikibooks.org/, a bike repair wiki has been started. The best part is, anyone can edit/add to this book. Bike mechanics is interesting, in that some technology is a near constant, and other new technologies arrive all the time. The bike repair wiki has the possibility to become a powerful resource of information. So, do check it out, and feel free to add some knowledge

http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Bicycle_repair

Onterrible available online

Looks like Part 1 of lat year's film Onterrible is out now for all to download. For those that didn't get a VHS copy, the makers will be releasing the film online in segments. Keep an eye out for the Hamilton segment too.

Download Part 1 Here

Dirt jumping with Freewheel

For those looking to ride on Tuesday nights, Freewheel Cycle in Dundas has this to offer:

We ride/jump/shovel for 2-3 hours (until sundown). We keep the rides local but there is frequently a little carpooling going on so if you own a car with a rack that is even better. Our social rides are free but you must have a current OCA Citizens License. Insurance companies are killing all of us! If you don't have a License you may purchase one here for $22. It covers you for other club's rides as well and Citizen's events too. As always, bring an appropriate bike, helmet, and water.

For more info contact: info@freewheelcycle.com

Kelso needs DH volunteers

From Pete Appleton:
We can always use and extra course marshall volunteer on race day, so if you have a girlfriend or brother and mom, bring them along. They can watch you as a marshall from the course and help out at the same time by making sure things run smooth.
Please meet at 8:30am at the registration table and email: ocupdh@yahoo.com

Hamilton Terrain Park Association is coming

photo from babak.ca

Tired of driving to Clarkson when you want legit dirt jumps?
Wish you cold just hop on the bike and ride?
Want to do something about it?

Hamilton Terrain Park Association is coming.

The IMBA Trail Crew in Toronto

This May 14-16, the IMBA trail crew will be visiting Toronto. Come check out this event and learn more about issues surrounding local clubs, land mangers, and trail building. For more information contact Bob Bonner: bonner@sympatico.ca

For those thinking in the long term, you can also apply for a visit from the trail crew in 2005: www.imba.com/tcc/visit.html

Mac Area Freeride

Even through the summer, Mac Area Freeride is out riding: macfreeride@hotmail.com If you like dirt jumps, DH, XC, urban, trials, then do come out.

Marc Landry is at it again

Marc Landry has started filming for his new project of 2004. What will it be? That I can't say....but, it will be sweet

For those that haven't seen it, Marc released Eastern Standard 2 back in January of this year. A damn fine film indeed. Here's the trailor
http://www.fasttimesinc.com/ES2INTRO1.zip

IMBA freeride guide

IMBA has published their new freeride advocacy guide: Mmmmm, good times from a very good group of people: http://www.imba.com/resources/freeriding/index.html

Mac Area Freeride has some plans in the works for the area, but that's a topic for another day.