Breakfast made, I gingerly awoke The Clairebarian from the deepest slumber with the promise of cut fruit and almost-but-perfectly-not-burnt toast. On most days, she’s quite jazzed to go to school, but this, well, it was not most days. Today was the first day of school for the ’25-26 year. The promise of two straight hours of busy work and administration.
After food, a coffee for me, and her piano practice, we set about packing our gear. Gear? It’s becoming a bit of a first-day-of-school tradition that I pick her up with a consolatory baked good {today’s flavour: a Lemon Curd Cruffin} and we head out for some forest time. Power to the pedals, and smash out the day.
Two full-face helmets, three water bottles, armour, gloves, sweets, and a pair of bikes. Both single-speeded at the moment. Tire pressure set {Claire bottomed out on her rear rim for the first time today, so I guess we’re going up a pump or two}, and then yet another reminder that we’re due a couple of fresh bits of rope for our well-used NSRack.
[Aside]
Vic “Live Like Vic” Gioia, father, friend, mountain biker, prolific trail builder, and “Dudes, that old guy is catching us again!!!” from my teenage years, passed away yesterday. I had the privilege to ride with Vic a few times, and I’ll always remember how well he could spin a yarn and his wry sense of humour.
{I’ll be telling the story of him grabbing the holeshot and stalling out an entire pack of single-speeders on a steep climb, right after telling us the story of doing just that in a long-ago moto race, for the rest of my days.}
Maybe it’s weird to be writing this as an aside in another piece, but like Jeff ‘Rabbit’ Carr, Vic was an absolute legend, and legends live on. I know it won’t be the last time this week, this month, this year, this decade, and so on that I write something about Vic, I just want to mark this moment with a so long and thanks for the trails.
Next time I have a day, I’ll be heading out to Burke Mtn to ride Upper & Lower Vic’s and Bean & Nescafé {Vic: “Good to the last drop, then, when I finished the trail, I realized, oh $#!& that’s Maxwell House!“}.
If anyone would like to make a donation in his honour, his family suggests TORCA, the trail association, which will be advocating for Vic’s legacy trails long into the future.
[/Aside]
“That two hours felt like six.“
I heard this statement as the pre-teen equivalent of ‘this meeting could have been an e-mail,’ and Claire half-stifled an epic yawn as we pulled away from school. All the time in the world, but it was going to be a grind. Should we plan a shorter ride? Nope, sticking to the plan, up Good Sir to Asian Adonis.
The Clairebarian set a blistering pace up Old Buck. Both in terms of her pedaling and her water drinking, and it was cramp town before we hit Christmas Corners. Perfect excuse to pull over and chat about the day. And, try to remember if the first day pedal was this much of a mash last year. Then she’s down to push-through-the-pain {which is just en français for bread} and before we know it we’re descending fresh trail work* by Matt Smith and the crew at Obsession: Bikes.
*{Asian Adonis is running awesome. Thanks, folks!}
So here we are on the evening of the only ‘New Year’s Day’ that really feels like a new year to me. School, hockey, and mountain biking are all returning to their routine, albeit new routine, schedules. There might even be some Fromme Fridays in my near future.
I had planned to park-and-ride tomorrow – if you can’t ride from home, ride from somewhere – but instead I’ll be starting my cheeky free-miles training program on Thursday. I have some grand aspirations to wear out some six-speed drivetrains on V1 this year.
As for Where’s The Meat, I’m currently planning to keep up the routine of SBTISAOAF {usually live on Friday?!}, Monday Musings, and then tossing in a review here and there. I definitely have some overdue content to crush!
Yeah, so. Happy New Year! That is, the ’25-26 school year.
Welcome to MEATengines, I hope you enjoyed this piece. If you did, please consider buying me a coffee. Any questions, concerns, or comments; feel encouraged to drop me an e-mail, or join us at r/MEATengines.