I'm riding a bike to Montreal!!!!

My intention for this blogspot was to showcase my photography, which I have done in a few of my posts as you can see.  This year for the blogspot I wanted to post something a little different.  From the heading above you can see that I am riding a bike to Montreal.  Now for people who know me they may think that this task is impossible.  Not so much!  I've proved to myself in the past that I could run 2 half marathon's back in 2008 amd with the proper training, your body can do anything.

The Bike Rally was introduced to me last year as a volunteer and I am glad that I did it.  It opened my eyes to what capabilities I have and what I feel is important to me and how I can help others.  In the final day of the rally, a large group of us were waiting patiently for the 300 plus riders to cross the finish line.  A sea of purple jerseys came towards us with a police escort and proudly awaited their audience.  The tears, the hugs and the joy that these riders just finished cycling 660km from Toronto to Montreal was incredible.  I wanted to be a part of that in a big way.  I made it happen in 2011 with a lot of support from my partner Bob, my family and friends and of course me.

My first was of course the registration which I did at Woody's bar in Toronto along with many of my peers and then I was to attend a few important seminars and workshops to make sure I was up to the challenge.  The next big step for me was to buy a bike.  It had been 30 years since I purchased my last bike and because of inflation, I'm sure I would be shocked.  The bike and accessories were quite expensive but going forward I have a fancy, smancy bike with some sexy spandex and tight shirts (lovely!!!).

FUNDRAISING

Definitely not my strong point!!!! This part of the journey I'll be honest with you is not something that I have favoured.  As a minimum, each rider has to raise $2200 by June 30th in order to participate and thank you to some wonderful friends and family I have reached this goal with a few more bucks to get to my ultimate goal of $3000.  Thank you again everyone for donating to this wonderful cause.  I would do things a little bit differently the next time if I decide to participate in the following years.  Let's just put it down to a learning experience.  I'll wait a few years I think to give everyone a break.

TEAM VELOCITY

Our team name!  We have a total of 33 members on Team Velocity with 5 of them being volunteers.  We've had quite a few meetings, plenty of posts and a bunch load of emails to make the decision on our name.  We like the name and to make it even more fun, we were able to pick our own special names with the word "Velocity" in it.  It's official!  My name is "FUELLED BY VELOCITY".  Everyone on the team has their own unique twist on the names and to top it off, fancy new shirts with our logo created by are very own  Mark Fisher and James Forrester.  We are almost there!

TEAM EVENTS

Very exciting events planned for the Bike Rally and some of the ideas are brand new and quite complex.  Red Dress Day, Talent night (did someone say Lady Gaga and Madonna?), Disney day and 101 dalmations to boot.  Look out for Cruella DeVille!

THE TRAINING RIDES

The training rides would be a true test of my abilities to see if I could actually ride a bike, change gears and change a tire, phew!!!!  The rides would gradually increase from week to week and planned so you could be prepared for hills and endurance.  I will provide a list of all the rides I've done to date totalling 720km.  I won't tell you about all the cursing I've done when I've experience all those wonderful hills east, west, north and south of Toronto.  This is a G-rated blogspot.  Since the inception of the training rides, a group of us in our team have decided to do more endurance based rides on our own.  Most recently 121km. Our group consits of Harvey Malinsky, Chris Jones when he's not working, David Embleton, Rob Venoit, Kevin Levesque aka Miss Conception (yes we have the most fabulous drag queen riding with us) and Kevin Romaine, the most recent registered rider and myself.  Sometimes we've had the pleasure of David McNaughton and a friend of his Ben, who snuck in some Hills and Skills training because deep down we knew that we probably not attend the workshop.  He knew it!!!

Headshots

It's been another few months since I've posted on my blogspot.  I wanted to include some of the headshot photo shoots I've done this year and last.  The first one being my good friend Shannon Scott.  We worked together in the past and I love her energy.  I always tell her that she is the most positive person I know.  Her dream is to be an anchor or a TV host for a show, maybe one of her own. With her permission I've included some of my favourite shots as well as a blurb about herself.  Enjoy!

Shannon Scott is a Multimedia Journalist studying New Media at Sheridan College.  She is the host for Live at 5 Thursdays, and is also a contributing writer for neweasel.com and Pundit Magazine.  Shannon comes to the world of new media from the world of theatre, and one of her greatest joys is seeing great theatre whenever she can.  If asked, Shannon will refuse to show anyone the contents of her Ipod as her music collection is almost entirely made up of songs from musicals, with some Jason Mraz thrown in for good measure.  Shannon also strives to live as green as possible but finds it very hard sometimes.  You can follow her success and failures, as well as learn how to make a newspaper liner for your compost bin on her blog noteasylivinggreen.com


You can follow Shannon Scott on this link shannonscott.ca

C'est la vie

It's been another few weeks since I've posted on this blog so let's get busy.  I wanted to move a few days to the end of our trip and make our stop in Paris, France.  We've heard so much about this lively city from a few of our friends and family and 100% of it is true.  The trip overnight on the train started in Venice, Italy and it was interesting to say the least.  Keep your eyes open and watch your luggage.  That's all I will say about it.  We met a wonderful couple from San Francisco and they kept us entertained for the trip.  We actually spent our last evening with them in the French Quarter and it was wonderful.  Paris in a nutshell was absolutely wonderful.  I loved the architecture in this city, the buildings were beautiful and consistent with its amazing variety of restaurants, cafes and bars.  The cafes I was most interested in because they place the chairs in the same direction so everyone can people watch.  We made some tourist stops to the Eiffel Tower, L'Arc de Triomphe, The Catacombs and The Montmartre.  We left out The Louvre because the both of us have seen The Louvre and The Prado Museum in Madrid.  I was so impressed with the food in Paris and there was plenty of variety to choose from.  The locals were quite pleasant and they appreciated my attempt at French.  Merci!  For those of you who wish to travel to this wonderful city, take advantage of walking through the streets and different communities available.  Plenty of different music awaits you and if you have the time, jump on that tourist bus that you can jump on and off and enjoy the views.  You can pick it up at The Eiffel Tower and other spots throughout the city.  Bon Vacances!