Marc Kitteringham
Fish n Chips poutine from Edmonton's La Poutine.
We just finished the climb and the sun was beginning to go down. Myles and Kevin were on singlespeed cyclocross(-ish) bikes, Shane on his carbon all-road bike and me on my racked out drop bar mountain bike. The hill was a gravelly beast winding up from the depths of Edmonton's river valley, finishing with a nice super steep part that left us in a panting heap at the top. I passed around my water bottle and we stood there silently. It was one of my last days in town and we were trying to squeeze as many rides in as we could.
I had worked at a local bike shop for about a year at that point. I was hired on as a salesman who sometimes did a few builds. Soon, I found myself gravitating more and more towards the shop, helping on safeties and pit stops, doing minor repair work and eventually becoming a full-on service mechanic. It was here that the world of cycling really opened itself up to me. When I started, I did not know what a groupset was, what the different styles of mountain biking were or generally anything except what I could glean from my "Zinn and the Art of..." books. Eventually, my friends and I were going on rides together, getting silly in the parking lot and I found my home in the cycling world.
For my second last ride in town, the idea of cyclocross was being thrown around quite a bit. I didn't have a cross bike (still don't) and the next best thing I could think of was my randobeest. We took off from the shop parking lot and headed to the nearest liquor store. After figuring out a way to strap a sixpack to a rear rack, we were on our way. We stopped across the river, pulling into a camp site and cracking our first beers. It was one of the first summer evenings and we were damn sure going to enjoy it. Soon we got back on our way, skidding and hopping over the dusty dirt trails.
Kevin trying to be a bit too silly going backwards on a sscx bike...
What I love most about our little crew is that even though everyone is into a different kind of riding, when we get together we just get the stoke up and everything is räd. People are stoked on everything, and every kind of bike is allowed. We've gone on silly cruises with four BMXs, a cyclocross bike, a carbon roadie, my randobeest and a few dirt jumpers. This was all on the same ride. That is what I love about it, everything is encouraged and everything is awesome.
We were nearing that big hill, the guys on SS were getting a bit worried. I let them blast ahead of me, knowing that they needed the momentum to make it. I, however, calmly shifted into my lower gear and easily spun up the hill (I say easily, but what I mean is my friction shifters lost friction half way up and when I finally got to the top, I was a panting, sweaty mess.) We looked at eachother and said one word: "Poutine? Poutine."
There's nothing better than sitting down at a greasy restaurant and ordering an artery-clogging mess of fries, cheese, gravy and whatever else the chef decided to put on that day. The sun was beginning to sink down as we ate.
Good ride boys.
See you on the trail.