Lake Minnewanka - Spring Bike Ride

Me and Marty drove out to Banff yesterday to ride at Lake Minnewanka for an out and back trip to the Warden Station resulting in a picturesque 22km spring ride. We lucked out with the weather as the forecast was cloudy with sunny breaks, showers and a chance of snow (I offer my thanks to the weather man for that insight). But after driving into what looked to be a day drink pints on a covered patio in Banff instead of riding, we arrived at our destination with break in clouds and they weather stayed that way for most of the ride. The first KM or so was slush and mud but as soon as we turn the corner after the climb the trails where dry and we had a great day of ridding. If you haven't ridden here before it's a nice spring ride before the loop has a lot of tourist, dries quickly, doesn't have too much climbing for the winter legs, and is a nice intermediate skill level ride (nothing to technical a beginner/intermediate rider could probably get through the trail with only some small hike a bikes.) Anyways enough chatting and here's some pics.

Endless Ocean of Air?

"We look into the sky it seems to us to be endless.... we think without consideration about the boundless ocean of air, and then you sit aboard a spacecraft, you tear away from the Earth and within ten minutes, you have been carried straight out of the layer of air, and beyond there is nothing! Beyond the air there is only emptiness, coldness, darkness. The "boundless" blue sky, the ocean which gives us breath and protects us from the endless black and death, is but an infinitesimally thin film. How dangerous it is to threaten even the smallest part of this gossamer covering, this conserver of life."

Vladimir Shatalov, The Home Planer

and on that note I'm off to Banff to Mountain Bike this weekend, if I remember to take pictures on the weekend I'll post some pictures.

A Couple Quotes About Our Balance with Nature

"We must convince each genereation that they are transient pasengers on this planet earth. It does not belong to them. They are not free to doom generations yet unborn. they are not at liberty to erase humanity's past nor dim its future."

Bernard Lown and Evjueni Chazov

We are at the beginning of the third millennium. With explosive speed, we have been transmogrified from a species like most others that live in a balance with with their surroundings into an unprecedented force. Like a species introduced into a new environment free of constraints, we have expanded beyond the capacity of our surroundings to support us. It is clear from the history of the past two centuries that the path we embarked on after the Industrial Revolution is leading us increasingly into conflict with life support systems of the natural world. Despite forty years of experience in the environmental movement we have not yet turned onto a different path.

David Suzuki

New Wheels!!!!

Just a few pics of the new ride






Intense Tracer VP - Medium Frame
Fox 36 Float
Fox RP23
Hope Pro II's/Mavic 819's
Maxxis Ignitor UST 2.35
Avid Elixir R's
X.9 Shiters, Rear deraileur
XT Front Deraileur
SLX Cranks Dual Ring 22/36
Selle Italia SLR Gel Saddle
Raceface Evolve Bars
Raceface Ride Seat Post
Weighing in at 30lbs, 1 Ounce with Maxxis Advantage Tires and Tubes I'll update the weight with the tubeless tires.

A shout out goes to River Valley Cycle for the Bike the and Build

A few pics from the Yamafest at Revy

Just a few pics from the weekend at Yamafest, ahh a hard day at the office

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Could Photosynthesis Solve our Energy Woes

Currently the world consumes 15 Terrawatts annually; by 2050 however scientist estimate we will consume 30 Terrawatts annually.

So what would we currently have to do to meet that demand?

• Building a new 1 Billion Watt nuclear plant every 1.6 days till 2050 would yield 8 Terrawatts
• Consuming all the vegetation not used for food to make Biofuels would yield 7 Terrawatts
• Covering every inch of land on the earth with wind turbines would yield 2 Terrawatts

Hhm not much luck with today's Technologies. However MIT's Daniel Nocera believes the solution is the Sun. The Sun beams down approximately 800 Terrawatts on the earth daily. However, our current solar technologies have some issues.

For one the technology is still quite costly. But first and foremost is the storage of energy for evenings and periods of extended cloud cover. Currently it would take approximately 2000lbs of lead batteries to store enough solar energy to power a household for a whole evening. This is where Professor Norcera pulled from the theory of photosynthesis to essentially recreate the process of electrolysis you experimented with in high school which uses electric currents to break down H2O in to Hydrogen and Oxygen. Using this process you can then store the Hydrogen in a fuell cell. However, this process is also expensive and isn't the most efficient, which is where photosynthesis inspired them. By infusing Cobalt and Potassium Phosphate into the water the process can now be recreated using only a volt of power bringing the storage cost down from thousands of dollars to tens.

So how does it work. Essentially throughout the day Solar panels would power your house and the excess energy would be sent to a small container of water where it would split the oxygen and hydrogen. After the sun goes down the Hydrogen and Oxygen would be re-combined in a fuel cell to power your house, charge your car, etc. There's obviously still a lot of issues to be ironed out , but this sounds like the first truly promising process in while.

If this process proves to be successful this could

• Solve the storage issue as a gallon of water would replace 2000lbs of batteries.
  
• It could provide decentralize the solar power.
• Would lower the cost.
• Provide a clean form of energy

I'll definitely be watching Professor Norcera's developments closely.

Spring Training

We'll with everything that led me to Edmonton over the winter I'm a little (ok a lot) behind on my cardio. But as thing settle training has begun both on and off the bike.