Candy Cranks

Every year for an annual conference regarding trees, cycling arborists gather together for the Stihl Tour des Trees. The Tour is a 5-day cycling trip covering over 500 miles in the country or state where the conference is held, with the intent to raise funds for the TREE fund, a tree research organization. Over 100 cyclists participated in the 2012 Tour in Oregon, USA. I was unable to participate in the full tour, but joined in the last day for a 30mile ride around Portland, OR for the Ride for Research.

All the tour riders in their matching attire gather for the final day of their ride

In good tree humor, the ribbon to celebrate the beginning of the ride is cut with a Stihl chainsaw, complete with the protective equipment donned over the spandex

Rolling out of Holladay Park

Some happy Ride for Research participants

Beautiful Oregon day

Nearly finished with the Tour

And a Tree themed ride would not be complete without custom made wooden bicycles!

Through the Tour des Trees, the TREE fund raised over $500,000 for grants and scholarships to improve knowledge and technology regarding trees. Next year, the tour will be held in Toronto, Canada.. hopefully I can make it to the whole tour and that some of you may participate as well!

While headed to the grocery store while traveling through Petaluma, California, I randomly came across the Rapha bus, as they are filming a California ride. Team rider Evil Ryan was kind enough to provide me with a cycling cap and let me take pictures of the bus.. thanks!

if you have not yet viewed the women’s prestige, here it is:

Epic!!!!

Would love to do it again. Took the ferry at Changi Point Ferry Terminal. Theres no fix schedule as and when the bump boat fill with 12pax on weekdays or 13 on weekends it departs. $9SGD per pax and $2 for your bike(1 way). Once arrive at Tg. Pengelih we start riding for 17 km to Sungei Rengit. Stop for light breakfast then off we go enjoying the scenic landscape the state of Johor got to offer. Hills that kills begin after 15kms from Sg. Rengit. Fighting them hills with strong on shore monsoon wind from the North wasn’t easy. Against the strong wind going 30km/hr feels like 15km/hr. After 55km we got to Desaru. Settle in at the Desaru Holiday Chalet. Big family size chalet cost 500RM that fit 11 of us for a night. A dip in the pool to ease our muscle, quick nap then off for a short night ride to dinner at a near by small town call Bandar Penawar. We had the best authentic thai seafood at UBC restaurant. Next morning we prepare to battle the hills again.Thanks to Acit, Idris, Faizal, Luthfi, David, Minzi, Dan, Manda, Fab & Lyana.. great ride and we had a awesome weekend.

Pictures courtesy of Wolfywoot and The Killer Gerbil.

On May 2nd and 3rd, we had the Love Wheels Nagoya Calendar Girls Ride to Kyoto city from Nagoya. It’s only 45 minutes on the Bullet train, but we rode 180km for 15 hours in one day. We got started pretty early 5:00am, expected to get into trouble in case. We’ve got road bike, MTB, single-speed, city-bike and I was the only one got on a fixed gear bike!:D We all girls were not experts in long distance ride and had no idea what awaited us…

We got a special guest to join this ride, Jess from Candy Cranks author in Tokyo! We were getting pumped at Japanese bar for the long distance ride next day.

Started 5:00am. We got 8 girls, 2 body gurards and 3 Circles crew (supported us until their bike shop opens at noon.)

Thanks Kinu (Miss April) and KAz (Miss February) for organizing the Kyoto ride!

KAz made this cog with acrylic resin for everyone as a good-luck charm for the riding.

Crossing the Kiso River.

Going up the hills.

eeeeeeep! hurts my ***** so bad!! Circles crew adjusted my saddle lower.

Got flat…  Miss April just learned how to repair the tire at Circles yesterday, so she DID IT!!

Accident again… Miss February tried hard to fix it.

Hurts my foot…

Got lost… (searching the route on the i-phone & map)

Jess on the GPS.

26 km more to Kyoto city…

Arrived guest house at 9:00pm

Kampaaaaaai★ This is the greatest time at the long ride:)

I am so HAPPY that we all made it 180 km riding with no injury!! One of the girls were almost retired. There were so many dramas we made. It was great to see the Love Wheel Nagoya Calendar Girls are patient and tough.

This is the longest riding in one day.  I am glad that I made it with my fixed gear so I feel like I can go anywhere I want from now on, but I still have sore my legs now…

More pics HERE

So I’ve been working late lately and haven’t been up to much, but I did take the time to take a great ride up to north Toronto one night after work to check out this touring frame. Not only was the ride up there great, it was a beautiful night, and I got the frame! My size (52cm hard to find used) and an actual touring frame! Yippee! Come on bike camping all summer! Now to build it up. I have most of the parts, but will need new brakes… any suggestions on good ones to get?

plus check out this sticker

Mick from ifeellikealittlekid has been riding through South America and it looks like he’s been having an amazing time.

A small selection of some of the great pics Mick has taken so far.

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

Argentina

Chile

Salar De Uyuni, Bolivia

Death Rd, Bolivia

Ecuador

Looks incredible Mick! So jealous See more of his travels here.

Meet The Mittens, Clemence, Elvire, Victoria, Sylvie -  four fun loving French girls living and cycling in and around Paris. They’ll soon be blogging for Candy Cranks, so for those of you who don’t speak French (Me!) You’ll be able to follow their antics in English on right here.

Photos by Paul Hackmann.

We met a few cyclo tourists when travelling around Japan, all of them locals riding around and exploring their own country, and why not, it’s so beautiful. This is Kitani we met him as he was about to embark on a 9 day tour around part of Shikoku. I’m not sure what type of bike this is, he told us it’s British made, and not satisfied with the colour, he had it gold plated! He could probably do with some of these… Phil woods gold plated hubs.

I’ve uploaded a bunch of photos from the Shikoku island tour if you fancy seeing a few more. Check ‘em out here.

After completing our tour of Shikoku, we decided to do the island hop, which starts at Imabari and ends at Onomichi. Its an 80km stretch that spans across 8 islands and seven bridges. It has some pretty spectacular scenery with parts of the islands looking almost tropical and other parts looking totally industrialised with shipping ports and metal work factories.


We planned on catching a ferry back from Onomichi to Imbari but we found out on arrival there were no ferries, so we had to ride back again. We camped for the night and set out again the next morning, it turned out to be quite a day.

Going back across the islands was lovely, we had some great food along the way. 80km into a nasty headwind we then had another 40km to the port of Sanjoi to get the ferry to Osaka. We got lost and arrived late and had to wait 5 1/2 hours to get on the next ferry which left at 10pm, then it was a 6 hour ferry ride. At this point we had run out of money and all the foreign ATM banks were closed. Arrived at Osaka and tried to find an open post office to get some money out, it was too early at 6am so we decided to ride straight onto Nara through 60km of full on traffic. I was so over it at this point. I hadnt slept in 24 hours, hadnt showered for 3 days, was covered in road grime, dirt and god knows what else, was hungry and tired and all I wanted to do was sleep. Tarn went off to go and find some fruit for me, he came back with this….

I didnt have the stomach to even taste it, it smelled like the strongest smelling banana youve ever come across in your life. Tarn had a few bites and then tossed it, only to come out with a vegetable Kit Kat!!! I stupidly tasted that one and regreted it immediately.

Then we arrived at Nara, found a hotel and it was like heaven! We stayed at a traditional ryokan with a zen garden running through the middle of it, hot shower food and sleep then I was ready for the deer. Nara has a ginormous park that is home to over 1000 deer that live and roam freely. I always get quite excited by deers so I was off to go and pat them and make like Snow White. There they were, looking all doe eyed and innocent, and as I soon found out, absolutely not to be trusted. I went and bought them some deer biscuits so I could lure them over and pat their cute little heads, unfortunately this was not to be the case. No sooner had I had the biscuits in hand than I was head butted in the arse by a rather lively male. I had thought it was cruel that they had chopped all their antlers off, but I could now see why. I spun around only to be head butted again by said deer. They were coverging on all sides, I felt like I was in Night of the Zombie Deer, I ended up throwing the biscuits at them and legging it, so much for bloody Bambi.

After a couple of days rest we decided to get the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) to Tokyo. It was a choice bewteen an 18 hour ferry ride from Shikoku to Tokyo, or a 2.5 hour ride from Nara to Tokyo, no choice really! It was awesome, it travels up to 300kmph, it’s quite disconcerting going that fast whilst being on land. The only thing I can compare it to is travelling down Foveaux St trying to catch Em and Jay at the last Alleycat ride I was in (hehe). The timing of the trains is unreal, you could set your watch to it, we left and arrived to the minute exactley as scheduled.

Arriving in Central Tokyo Station was a complete jolt to the system. Tarn had to build the bike back up in the middle of the mayhem while I rung around trying to find a hotel. I thought we were going to have to set up camp in the Imperial Gardens after 12 no more rooms available calls. We finally found one and then got lost several times trying to find our way there. Riding through Tokyo is a bit like being in The Fifth Element, added to that is Tarn who navigates through traffic like a maniac. I feel like Im strapped to one of those crazy NYC messengers and I cant get off the ride! I do love Tokyo, its sensory overload from every angle. We re going to check out the CWMC tommorrow, im really looking forward to it!