A Fond Adieu

 Time to say good bye.

With the former thelonebiker.com url now powering some terrible Asian gambling site and a long waning desire to end things I decided now is the time. 

Thanks for the 15 years kids. It is going to feel really weird going for a ride now and not writing about it. Maybe in the future another form of lonebiker may appear but for now I am done. I was waiting to do one final ride post to end this but I am just gonna close the curtains now. 

All of the lonebiker content should remain on Blogger until the platform dies off which will be another sad day. 

It's a shame most who read lonebiker won't see this and will probably move on. To the few who came across this post. Thanks for reading, 

Good bye kids. 

Whoa Boy, We Got Fucked

 A dead email brought down the demise of the lonebiker.com and this week had me quite stressed. I never knew I cared so much about it but I guess it's been 15 years so yes, lots of posts. What is my post count as of now? 2751. This post makes it 2752 which is pretty impressive I'd say and now the interns are currently standing and applauding as a sign of respect. 

It's been a bad week. As of Monday the entire blog was wiped off the face of the earth. It was gone. That was when the biggest freak out happened. There was no evidence it existed on my Google accounts which run lonebiker, it was completely wiped out. The next day driving to work I was wondering what I should do. Youtube? Start another blog? Or just go through life not posting about bike rides and what beer I like to the internet?

The next day I got into the lonebiker administrative page which was a huge relief.  Everything was there but it just wasn't showing posts. Even the backup Blogspot account which the blog currently exists now wouldn't work. 

Things were still fucked. 

We tried buying back the URL three times and it took payment and still have not got it back. So something is very fucked still and Google is of no help. I did find a very old email account which was the back up and saw the warnings. They were warning me since October and I had no idea. An apparent credit card change happened and I needed to update it. 

Finally on Thursday the Blogspot url came to life with Lonebiker being back on the internet. It was a very happy moment. 

So here we are for now. I do hope to get it back and that go daddy page goes and dies. My phone took a direct face hit and cracked one morning when I woke up and hoped it was back and saw those douchy fucktards from go daddy  trying to sell my url. 

So anyways, a boring fat bike ride in Leduc happened. See what you would miss out on if lonebiker went away forever?

So go write an angry letter to google. I'm not even giving them a capital letter cause I'm so angry. 

Long live Lonebiker kids. 

The Orange Bike Takes on Wet Gross Snow

 The two inches of wet sticky snow that sat on my driveway after it snow/rained last night were not much of an indicator that the trails would most likely be quite crappy. I think I even risked harm in just driving there as the roads were quite terrible. Even the bad roads should have been a huge sign but nope. I kept it on course for Fort Saskatchewan.

I had the idiot mindset of 'fat bikes can go anywhere' which I had the first year I rode one. 

I parked at the boat launch and assumed it would be dicey so I rode the easier stuff and was delighted to see fat bike tracks leading the charge. I was kinda excited. 

I came around the corner and saw signs of trouble like maybe wipe outs and the tracks ended. They turned back and I decided to try and be the hero and lay first tracks, my front tire was washed out repeatedly and I knew I had to bail out so I found an escape route up to the paved trails. That soupy wet snow was a real menace.

I was no hero this day.

Fort Saskatchewan paved trails was my day.  The snow was super sticky and even the paved was a bit of a struggle as it felt like an adhesive was slowing you down. As crappy as it sounds I did enjoy the ride as I slowly lumbered my way around the Fort Saskatchewan river park trails.  

Global Fat Bike Day

 Riding was not in the cards today until I opened that once great app, Instagram and learned it was Global Fat Bike Day and I knew what I had to do. 

The bowling alley was all booked up so I decided I'd ride my fat bike instead. It has been two weeks since the last ride as work has gotten quite busy. The good news is it shouldn't last for long and I can try to resume some form of riding again. Today was a bit of a teaser as I don't think I'll be out much this coming week.

It was raining in December yet again in Edmonton Alberta and people still are not freaking the fuck out.

 Rain in December is kind of getting normal here and it is quite fucked. The rain wasn't that bad so I kept going and it did die off for most of the ride and eventually got quite hard on the drive home. Thank goodness. Getting caught in winter rain on the bike really sucks. 

December rain really is lame kids. Like.... so lame. 

It was a Millcreek Velodrome start where a short trip entailed leaving the ravine and looping up with the Low level and Tawatinâ bridge. I rode mostly Mill Creek Muts and paved with a couple hundred metres maybe of singletrack. I did feel the lack of riding quite heavily most likely thanks to the fat bike and its big dumb wheels. 

On the singletrack it did rule quite greatly. The pocket marked multi use was kind of annoying.

Happy Wednesday

 As stated in that hideous excuse of a beer review last Saturday, work has taken over which is keeping me off the bike for the time being and I am not sure what will happen on the weekend. 

We will try and do the best beer review ever if need be. 

I think I caught the horrid grammar on the last one a couple days after it was posted and wondered why I give zero fucks about the beer reviews when I finally read it again.

Hang up the old beer review cleats maybe? Hell no kids. We are gonna try and turn this ship around. 

Beer Friday. Aecht Schlenkerla Eiche

 Well here we are on another semi hardcore type of Winter day. It was cold and kind of snowy day and what did this piece of shit bike blogger do? 

Absolutely nothing. I barely entertained the idea of a ride for about ten minutes and then I went and tested what it felt like outside and I ran back inside like a little bitch. The decision at the time felt good but as the day went on I started becoming a bit stir crazy. Yes me the judgemental douchecanoe even envied those Swift guys for some reason. Is it Swift with an S or a Z? 

I mean a ride is always right there in a weird sort of way. At least they are getting their steps in. 

As far as riding goes things will be very light as overtime has been happening at work quite a bit and will continue for a week or so. An after work ride this week would be a bloody miracle. 

This German brewery might be the oldest on record on Lonebiker. It looks like 1387 or 1405 was the year. The brewery still is in the same spot since its inception in Bamberg Germany. 

We have the pourers here and we are on the way to the tester lab to pour this smoked beer and it poured a darkish smoky looking  beer with an attitude and at 8% this one has is angry so beware. It barely held onto a half fingered head and had a very heavy smoky smell. It almost smells like sauna wood that was burned and it is quite strong. 

I can tell already before sipping this would be an acquired taste. Smoked beers are definitely for a certain type of crowd. We sipped and yes it tasted quite like I thought it would. Smoky. It's almost like the taste of this one hits your tongue as you draw it close to your face to take a sip. It's the strong smoky aroma that does that  and I don't know if I like it. Smoked bacon with spices that I could not name fill this one out. Obviously the smoke completely dominates this one. 

This beer gets 3 suds out of 5. 

Hail Ye Oh Great Fatbike Season

Finally breaking out the fat bike after flirting with the idea for a while but this time I had no choice.

It snowed quite heavily here as of yesterday making things a tad shaky as cold fresh sugar like snow swallowed the bottom of my tire. 

It was very short ride at about 6.66km which felt like a rough 69. The very loose snow already laced with footprints were more of a challenge than breaking fresh snow and there were lots. The short multi use took me from Goldstick parking lot to the Dyer footbridge where a ridiculous short fight with snow had defeated me. I was not ready for all out Winter today and figured a loop around Rundle park would at least warrant some sort of ride. 

Uhg.. that was a rough start to the fat bike season but it was a start. 

Here we go kids, whoop whoop.