A Mighty Xmas....part two!

There's not really much I can add to Shane's post...except that next year I'm gonna take my level from "stone cold sobre" to "warm and fuzzy". It's ok though, cause someone had to keep Lacho and Golbeck from wrecking the joint! I do however need to give a shout out, again, to our hosts and sponsors for the evening. Brett, owner of Rootdown Cafe, came through large with the location, and thanks to everyone chipping in I not only recouped on the keg but I was also able to give him a small chunk of dough for his efforts. Much appreciated buddy. Rick from R&B Brewing, obviously, for lubricating the troops early in the evening, and Liisa for the wonderful spread from the Reef Restaurant. Tanks, mon! Finally, our favourite local distributors came through LARGE with some last minute raffle prizes to keep everyone stoked. Dave Cressman (OGC) threw in a pair of Mavic shorts. Rob Bohncke at Raceface came through with an excellent box of goodies, from chainrings to shirts. Our pals at Precious Guise delivered some nice thermoses, and some amazing swag from Sugoi. The big ticket item though, the final prize, was a kick ass jacket from Gore, courtesy of our friends Kevin Calhoun and Ed Wright at Cycles Lambert. Not only did they deliver an excellent prize, but they stayed for the party and soaked up our Mighty vibe like a sponge! Thanks again you guys, and everyone that helped out! I think that was the party we wanted, no?
Here's some more pictures:


Coming off a big season with hot air to spare, Nick not only supplied the cutlery/decor/balloons, but also blew them up like a champ!


Morgan "check out my swag, yo" Taylor with his Raceface bling.


Brandon, who happens to be animal free, won the leather Sugoi strangler gloves (i want a pair of those!), and Liisa won the pink Raceface chainring right after she called me sexist for wishing it to go to a girl. Take that, suckas!


Our buddy Lawrence (Cima Coppi) won the Gore jacket. Pretty sure he bought the last ticket too....what a guy!

Happy Holidays everyone!!

Fun with Beer

Christmas party fallout... Actually, despite Liisa's request for our predictions of the evenings winners in the categories of Make Out/Pass Out/Wipe Out there was fairly little carnage and the whole shebang was an unquestionable success. I'm gonna let the pics speak (mostly) for themselves.

The most important use of

stainless steel - outside of bike parts of course.

Our wonderful host, Rick from R&B with B.

The concerned, intelligent contingent hanging on his every word...

...as opposed to Sean who is distracted easily and Stacey who was considering an early bid to win the Make Out portion of Liisa's predictions.

After sampling Rick's fine product for two hours we moved on to Root Down...

...where as you can see the beer grins were in full effect.

Two of our newest members: Meat who is just getting into racing and Basse who has been turning the pedals in anger for somewhere around 20 years. Heck, he taught me how to race and I'm an old man, so...

Some of the fine young ladies at Root Down. (Chris, it looks to me like you may be losing that $100 bet...)

Now, despite the lack of photographic evidence, our humble leader, the false prophet as Lowball calls him, had his 'pants on' for the evening and Ed did in fact make an appearance. He was last seen munching away on an ice cream in the corner.

A huge thanks once again to Rick from R&B, the Reef for providing food, Bret from Root Down for putting up with us and Liisa for getting her sidekick Barber to slave away at organizing this debauchery.

Happy Holidays kids!

Cross Provincials Wrap Up

Well cross dressing is (almost) over for another season and our mud freaks got it on this past weekend at a great provincials course on the North Shore. All sorts of Mighty representation - not many teams have riders in every single category and it speaks well to the fun we all have racing that just gets us out there to 'play'.

There were so many races i'm just going to list our results:

Elite men: Nick 5th, Morgan 12th

Elite women: Stacey 5th

Masters A men: Matt Drown 6th

Masters B men: Pat 13th, Russ 14th

Masters C men: Horacio 5th, Jay 6th

Citizen women: Haley 1st

Citizen men: Meat 1st, Barber 7th, Meshkat 13th

Some notables: Lacho skipped the all important vets ride to make a rare cross appearance, both Nick and Stacey were on the extended podium behind winners from Rocky Mountain who are some of the fastest in the world, Barber and Meat showed they are ready to go up a category, we have great if somewhat drunken fans and perhaps most concerning, a pantyless rider in our midst... See you at the Xmas party and good luck in Portland to those crossers who haven't had enough.

So THIS is Christmas!?

Alright jerks, it's time for us to have a party! Liisa and I put our heads together and here's what we came up with. Hopefully there's something you can all enjoy...if you like beer, food, and your Mighty buddies!

DATE IS FRIDAY DECEMBER 11TH 2009.

R&B Brewing (54 East 4th Ave, 5 blocks from the Broadway Mighty) has graciously offered to give us a tour of their fine beer making facility between the hours of 630 and 8 pm, followed by an all you can drink tasting "seminar" in a dimly lit room with nothing but a table, a few chairs and a dart board...with no darts.

After that we'll stumble up to Rootdown Cafe (128 East Broadway), which our buddy Brett has kindly offered up to us for the night for us to conduct our..business.

8pm till whenever. Food will be provided by the Reef, and beer will be provided by R&B, set up in an all you can drink scenario. Bring yoself, then after 930 tell your muddy buddies, bf's, gf's, and one night stands to come hang.

$10 at the door gets you all the food and beer you can drink, as well as a raffle ticket to win some awesome prizes from some of our favourite suppliers. Rumor has it there will be games (hot laps?, pin the tail on the nerd?), and some extra special Mighty Riders Year End Awards.

So, bring your party panties or your mighty tighty whities and let's make this the party that last year was supposed to be. 2009 has been an awesome year. We've experienced an unprecedented growth spurt, kicked ass, argued, sweated, crashed, gotten up early, gone to bed late, gotten drunk, gotten mad, gotten dumped, gotten engaged, and had fun doing it. Let's put the cap on this year that it deserves. Let's get weird.

ps. there WILL be baby carrots.

pps. please, please, please RSVP via this blog so we can get an accurate idea of how much food we need.

pps. ha!

Podium Party People

The whole gang jumped up on the podium on Saturday at the EV GP of cross. Morgan took a fine win in the B's (his first in the B's!) with a crazy last lap close on the leader. Haley also jumped onto the top spot for the C women. Stacey won the Masters women and was second in the open women. Nick Berry was second in the men's A race after a great battle with the evil Rocky Mtn duo of Guthrie and Calhoun. And Barber grabbed what I believe was his first podium with third in the men's C race. Must be all those Johnny Cakes.

Get your spin on!

Sean is hosting some coached indoor workouts down at On The Rivet for all those who are getting tired of the rain and cold. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6:30pm. Get in shape for next season so we don't have to hear all your excuses.

Hard Men/Woman

Our cyclocross contingent has proven once again to be harder than an 18 year old virgin with a bottle of viagra. South Surrey was the location of this past Sunday's mudfest in some ugly winter conditions. Nick Berry was 2nd in the A's, Morgan Taylor was 2nd in the B's and Stacey Hutton was 2nd in the Women. In the C's Hornland was 2nd and Barber was 5th. I need a beer just thinking about how hard that was.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Ok, ok, let's not offend the vegetarians in our midst. Let's amend that to 'Winner, Winner, Tofu Turkey Dinner!'. Whatever. This past weekend saw the Bare Bones three day track race out at the Burnaby Velodrome. Our newest teammate Claire Cameron showed she still has some speed after returning to racing after a few years off by winning 5 of the women's races to go on to win the women's Overall Omnium. She also competed in the Men's B Omnium where she finished 9th. Good job. And the fastest vegan we have managed to pry himself away from wedding planning (congrats Brandon!) to compete in only two of the four sessions but finished 7th overall in the B Omnium. Nice.

She's so new to Mighty she doesn't quite have full kit yet but here's Claire striking the fear of god into National Track team rider Steph Roorda at post race sushi. Mmmmm, sushi.

Winner!

Nick Berry is getting stronger each week and showed it at the Coastal Cross with a great win in the Men's A race. Showing some great form with Provincials at the end of the month...

Morgan was 4th in the B's race and Barber was racing like he needed beer money and finished 6th in the C's. Good job ladies!

Pumpkin Cross

Proof that Morgan is the best at 'getting it up':

And a scary, scary picture for Halloween:

Pretty boy and the Three Stooges

Chairman Ting - Bicycle wall art from carsonting on Vimeo.

Might May at World's

Mighty Riders very own May Jung headed down to Sydney, Australia to race in some beautiful warm weather at the World Masters Games. She was a very respectable 8th in the Road Race and 14th in the Time Trial. These results are quite impressive as May is in her first full year of racing. And like most of our athletes, she manages to balance training and racing with a busy day-to-day life. She has her own business (personal trainer) and is a busy mom - her son, Curtis 'Crazy Legs' Jung, is one of the fastest young riders in BC.

Congratulations May! You are an inspiration to all of us as we head into our winter training.

Climbing 101

This past long weekend I decided to go for a mountain bike ride. I was invited by some of the old school racers to do some 'hilly' trail riding up past Pemberton at a hidden little gem called Gun Lake. Insert 2100m mountain passes and a former multiple Provincial Road Race and Hill Climb Champion and you have the recipe for some aching lungs/legs and a broken fun meter. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but Mighty needs to go on a road trip here.

Jim Horner GP....in pictures.

Day two of the Canadian CX Nationals was the Jim Horner GP. Slightly different course, but just as cold and snowy. I missed Jays race in the morning because I was getting my beauty sleep, and I didn't take any picture while I was actually racing, but I managed to catch the A race:

Our wonderful hosts, Ted and Lisa.


"A" staging. Spot the carrot!


Jay Loder, the man with the bag full of gifts.


Ted's shoes were so hot they were melting the snow.


Our RACEFACE equipped bikes kept us racing and had our backs in the pits.


Your photographer.


Nick, out of the bowl, back on the bike, sayin NO THANKS to the pumpkin pie and whipped cream hand off.


HONK!


Nick rides while the Green Hornet runs.


1:07:56 of 1:07:59


Thumbs up!

Cross Nat's

Our own Jay Loder made a visit to the podium in Edmonton finishing in third place in the Masters C Men proving that beer and T3's are the best of training partners. In the Elite Men, Nick Berry rep'd the Mighty colours well with a 12th place. In the additional day of racing, Jay followed up his podium with a hungover 4th place, Nick was 18th and Matt Barber was 14th in the Masters A Race. No word on whether Barber left the contents of the previous nights drinking and debauchery on his top tube like he did last week... I believe we all need a Crown and Coke to celebrate a good Edmonton Nationals weekend Alberta style. Sounds like we need a team meeting.

He wants to ride his MTB

The big H dissin' roadies everywhere. Including but not limited to: their sissy shaved legs, no drop rides and their stuck up demeanor. May I point out there be no shaved legs on this humble blogger...

Helltrack Owned.

They call it Hell Track. Morgan owned it. Look at that trophy. And cold hard cash, merchandise and BEER was won. Perhaps it was all the cross dressing...

BC Senior Games

Bill rep'd the Mighty colours well at the BC Summer Games in Richmond. He came home with all sorts of hardware: Silver in the HC, Gold in the RR, Silver in the TT. Great late season performance!

Baker Hill Climb

The best way to end your road season. 40k hill climb with 700 participants over two start times (recreational and competitive). Our very own Chris Squires showed some late season climbing form to post a 15th OVERALL. Awesome (especially for such an old man).

And big props to the crew that came down for the Cross 542 Race. Hayley won her women's race, Meat was second in his C group race and Morgan had one of the craziest closing sprints I have ever seen to finish second in the B's. The only low point of the weekend was the American beer.