ABSOLUTELY THE LAST VIDEO OF 2008

Right here. Yup, last one of the year. Take a look. Mostly the boy and the wife. In fact, that's all it is. Bikes, skateboards, guitars, various and sundry tomfoolery and shenanigans. Please enjoy.

2008 CHUCKANUT 50K VIDEO

This vid follows buddies John Clark and Scott Young in the 2008 Chuckanut 50K.

AREA DUDE'S WIFE SHOWS HIM WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER; DUDE SURE TO ANNOY FRIENDS WITH NUMEROUS VIDEO POSTS

As the headline states, Jen turned me on to Movie Maker. Lots fun. Here's a video containing some of this year's rides, albeit just a mere fraction.

Happy New Year, by the way! Hope we have about a million or two million more of 'em.

SNOW WAY

For a place that doesn't get a lot of snow, Bellingham gets a lot of snow. In fact, here are past blog posts of snows that we don't receive a lot of: http://mcqview.blogspot.com/2006/11/snow-day.html and here: http://mcqview.blogspot.com/2006/11/snow-daze.html and here: http://mcqview.blogspot.com/2006/11/memories-of-school.html.

Kids, whose winter break started two days early because of the snow, were of course bummed, but made the best of it by partaking in experiments involving sliding bodies, gravity and slope angles.

Another six inches of snow, which we don't often get, is expected on Sunday.

SNOW RIDE, ... TAKE IT EASY

We're at the start of what's supposed to be the longest cold stretch of weather (or coldest long stretch, or stretchiest long cold or something) that we've had in these parts in almost 20 years. Since 1990. Woke to 20 degrees, three inches of snow and wind chill of minus three. So we went ridin', 'of course. John (Boy) Clark, Glenn (not Rickey) Gervais, and me, Mike (not Rowe) McQuaide.

Probably six inches up on Galbraith which, when it got gummed up in your pedals and cleats (see below) made riding just about impossible. Still, it was beautiful and quite a nice morning to take the bikes out for a walk. I had about three inches of hard-packed snow on the bottoms of my feet; I looked like I was wearing Herman Munster shoes.
Cedar Dust was in great shape and I was even able to clip into my pedals. Rock 'n' Roll though, was pretty nuts but we were breaking trail in the fresh pow, as the snowboarders like to say.

Then across and down to Padden, then Fairhaven, into a brutal headwind on Taylor Dock and home. About three hours in all. Great fun. Forecast says this is supposed to stick around 'til at least Sunday the 21st, so we may be doing this again.

LOOK--WE'RE ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE SEATTLE TIMES!

Check out today's Seattle Times for my story about our mountain-bike session with Simon Lawton of Fluid Ride: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/outdoors/2008491879_nwwcoaching110.html

GETTIN' FLUID

Had an epic ride today through the clouds stuck in the Chuckanuts with one Steve Noble, who put the hurt on my big time. Climbed Fragrance Lake and Cleator roads to the top, Double Black Diamond down, back up to Lower Ridge, Hush-Hush and back. Video is from near the top of Cleator.

Check out tomorrow's Seattle Times (www.seattletimes.com/) for the story of Bake's and my session with Fluid Ruid (www.fluidride.com/) mountain bike guru Simon Lawton of Seattle. Really a cool guy, and I'd highly recommend his instructional DVD: "Fluid Ride: Like a Pro".

GALBRAITH VIEW FROM THE EAST

Click to enlarge, as it were. (Thanks to Baker for dem arrows.)