Calgary Flood of 2013 In Pictures

We woke up this morning to reports that the city was being inundated by both the Bow and Elbow rivers and decided to do a little exploring to check out some of the affected areas. I have to say I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see our city so completely swamped - even in the downtown core. Many of the pathways we ride on are under 3 metres (10 ft) of water - I think it will be awhile before our city recovers from this.

17 Ave SW and Centre St

My Son: "Dad, it feels like we're in a zombie movie with all the sirens, the police everywhere, and all the power is out"

5 St SW and 25 Ave SW

4 St SW in Mission

So sad to see so much destruction in my city but I also know that Calgarians can pull together like no other community to clean up the damage, both to property and to people's lives.

Poppy Plaza almost under water.

Shouldice Park looking west towards Bowness.

Shouldice Bridge almost under water Friday night.

Stay safe Calgary, our thoughts are with all those affected by this devastating event.

A random thought: We were able to get into areas that were inaccessible by vehicle really easily on the cargo bike we were riding - kinda reminding me that bikes are a solution for many things - including perhaps disaster relief.

Brooks Saddle Test Ride Program

As the biggest dealer of Brooks England products in Calgary we get a lot of questions from our customers about Brooks saddles, with the most common being -

"Are they hard/uncomfortable?"

"How long do they take to break in?"

"How do I know that I'll like it if I buy it?"

All of these questions are important for sure but essentially unanswerable.  How do we know whether you'll like the saddle?  Well, we've decided to try and help you to answer that question on your own by letting you test ride a Brooks!

First, we selected a small collection of friends that already ride Brooks saddles and asked them to donate some of their ass's time to help you enjoy these saddles as much as they do.

Next, we've made available a few of Brooks most popular saddle models - B17, B15, Team Pro, Flyer, Imperial, Flyer S, B17S, and B67s Aged.

Here are the Test Pilots...

Test Pilot Keely

Test Pilot Jeff

Test Pilots Danimal and Treeface aka NiceGuys

Test Pilot Krocker

 

Test Pilot Dylan

Test Pilot Kristi

Our Test Pilots were selected based on their current love/use of Brooks Saddles and tasked with breaking in the saddles by riding them for about 3 weeks each, long enough to soften the leather but not so long that the saddle would become shaped to their particular bottoms. 

The Brooks Test Ride Program works like this - pop in or call to see which saddles are available.  We'll take your details (including a valid credit card number) and you get to ride the saddle for a few days at no charge.  If after the test ride you are convinced that a Brooks saddle is for you we'll happily sell you the model you'd like.  If however you hate the saddle and wish to never sit on one again, well, consider yourself lucky that you didn't have to pay to find that out :).

Pretty simple, right?