Happy New Year!

Happy new year to all you pervs!

Love Rubber Canuck

Rubbery 2010

Photo by Fotoxy.

I'll be spending NYE at the hospital with my man. He's doing much better but is still in a lot of pain and not eating solids yet. He will probably be in for another week or two depending on how he responds to his treatments. Last night when I went into the hospital I found 2 dozen roses waiting for me for my birthday. What a man!

I hope that 2010 will bring everyone a lot more health and happiness. Look after yourselves and the ones you love (and love to play with).

-Reid

SPORTS PROFILE: Men's Bobsleigh

Both men and women compete in the sport of bobsleigh, a sport that combines speed, power and agility. There are two person races for men and women. Men also have a four-man event. Bobsleigh is one of the original sports in the Olympic Winter Games.

Bobsleigh teams include a brakeman and a pilot in the two-man event, while two crewmen/pushers are added for the four-man race. From a standing start, the crew pushes the sled in unison for up to 50 meters. This distance is typically covered in less than six seconds and speeds of over 40 km/h are reached before the crew loads into the sled.

Although the difference in start times among the top crews is measured in tenths or even hundredths of a second, a fast start is critical. As a rule of thumb, a 1/10th of a second lead at the start translates into a 3/10ths of a second advantage by the bottom of the course. During a typical 60-second run, speeds of more than 135 km/h are reached and crews are subjected to over four times the force of gravity.


World Cup Circuit

World Cup competitions are awarded by the FIBT to member countries through a bidding process. Competitions may be awarded either to a country or to a
specific track within a country. Each country is allowed to race one sled per event. Additional sleds must qualify.

In World Cup competition, two heats are held over one day in each event. At the Olympics and World Championships, four heats are held over two days in both the two-man and four-man events. The crew with the lowest combined time is the winner.

Starting Order

The FIBT World Ranking, initiated in 2007, is used to determine start positions for all major events, including the Olympic Winter Games, FIBT World Championships and FIBTWorld Cup events. Since the ice becomes rougher as the competition progresses, it is an advantage to be among the first on the track. The World Ranking system rewards the top crews (based on previous results) with the best start positions. At the first World Cup competition of each season, the World Ranking from the previous season is applied. A draw is conducted for the top-10 ranked athletes. The rest of the field starts based on the World Ranking order. The rankings also determine nation quotas, and the starting order for the Olympic Winter Games and the World Championships.


Ranking

In World Cup competition, medals are awarded to the top three rankings, and
recognition awards for placing fourth through sixth. In addition, points are awarded to the top-30 finishers in each World Cup race, which leads to the awarding of World Cup Titles in each of the disciplines, won by those accumulating the most points over the full season.

The sled is an aerodynamic machine made of fiberglass and steel, mounted on four highly polished steel runners. The two front runners have approximately three inches of lateral movement and are attached to ropes held by the driver, who steers the sled. The brake handles are located on either side of the brakeman in the four-man sled and in front of the brakeman in the two-man sled. The temperature of the steel runners is taken electronically immediately prior to each race. Heating the runners is illegal. At the finish line, the sled and crew are weighed to ensure they are below the maximum weight. All sleds are standardized according to specifications set by the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (FIBT).

Although a few natural ice tracks are still in use today, most competitions take
place on concrete-based tracks with artificial ice surfaces. Although the standard
length is 1,500 meters, every course has unique characteristics and varying
degrees of difficulty. All courses drop a minimum specified vertical distance and feature numerous banked curves from top to bottom.

Bobsledders wear helmets and skintight racing uniforms made from a stretchy material. Racing shoes have small spikes on the soles for traction on the ice. Drivers must wear goggles. Most drivers wear gloves, although some prefer bare hands to feel the steering ropes better. Some riders wear elbow and shoulder pads over their racing suits.

Work It

Do you remember watching (and admiring) this shit in the 80s? Holy crap, I'm old. But I sure do miss those heady 80s 'spandex days'....

Whatever happened to Crystal Lite?

Rubberstud of the Week #87

Seasons Greetings, Black Style

Rubbout 2010 Promo

Seasons Greetings

Have as good a rubbery holiday season as this guy is having!

SPORT PROFILE: Men's Skeleton

Skeleton made its Olympic return in 2002 after a 54-year absence. Like luge, the sport involves racing a sled down an icy track. Unlike luge, skeleton sleds are ridden face first.

The sport got its name after its first participant crashed horribly and all that was recovered was his skeleton. Just kidding! Here's the real story: the sport was named when someone commented that a new metal sled, first used in 1892, resembled a skeleton.

The sport's first organized competition took place in the late 1800s in the Swiss village of St. Moritz. Riders raced down the frozen road from St. Moritz to Celerina on simple sleds, and the winner received a bottle of champagne.

It was at the 1928 St. Moritz Winter Games that skeleton made its Olympic debut. But the sport would not reappear until the 1948 Winter Games, which were also held in St. Moritz. Then — just as suddenly — skeleton went back in the closet again until its 2002 reemergence.

Previously a male-only endeavor at the Olympics, women's skeleton appeared for the first time in 2002 at Salt Lake City.

The format for Olympic skeleton involves two timed runs. The top men and women from the first run compete in the second run, which is held later that same day. The combined time of the two runs determines the final standings.

The sled can only be ridden in the prone position (face first, on the stomach), and although the rider can leave the sled to push or move it, he or she must cross the finish line on the sled in order for the run to be considered valid.

Warming the sled's metal runners or using any substance that improves sliding is prohibited. At the start of the race, the temperature of the runners must be within 4°C of the reference runner, which is exposed to the open air for one hour before the start of the competition.

Skeleton athletes experience forces up to, but not exceeding, 5Gs, a stipulation enforced by the FIBT. Given the speeds attained by sliders (up to 130 km/h (80 mph)), they are not allowed any steering or braking mechanisms. Rather, steering is managed by slight shifts of the athlete on the sled and by dragging the feet.

The sport is also promoted by skeleton officials as a gateway sport to, “train young, aspiring athletes…for their future career in bobsleigh.”

The major competitions of non-Olympic seasons include the World Championships and World Cups, held annually. The rankings and results from these competitions determine the starting positions for future races. The track becomes less smooth after each successive run; thus, the negative effect on run times makes earlier starts in the lineup more desirable. Based on the overall performance of a country, the FIBT determines which countries may participate in the Olympic games. For the male competition, the best 12 nations based on World Cup rankings may participate, whereas for ladies, the best 8 may do so.

Woof!

I see the German leatherdaddies gyrating already. This is by Unit-911. The remix CDM/WEB download contains, like, 14 remixes!

Penance

It is disturbing how this year (and decade) has been ending on such a sour note for so many people. My partner M was admitted into the hospital yesterday and will be spending Christmas there. I've been scrambling over the past 24 hours to make the appropriate changes and cancellations to our holiday plans. I left the hospital yesterday evening and was running to our apartments picking stuff up and dropping stuff off when I ran into our friends D and I.

I went out for a quick bit of sushi with them and gave them the update on what has been going on. They had several incredibly disturbing stories from the weekend they had to share as well. D is convinced that The Higher Power is kicking us all in the ass right now as penance for our excess, selfishness, and lack of stewardship over the past ten years. I can only hope that we will act more mature in the next ten and 2019 ends on a higher note.

If you are having a blue Christmas, stay positive and appreciate the wonderful things in you have in your life. They are fragile and precious; just realize how things can flip topsy-turvy on you in a moment and those things can be gone. Nothing is more important than family and friends. Let them know at this time how special and impactful they are on your life. Appreciate all that you've accomplished and the things you've been able to do and experience that so many other people in the world have never nor ever will have the opportunity to do, see and feel. We're so very blessed in the developed world and most of the time don't even stop to marvel at how bloody lucky we are that we were born to the right people at the right place at the right time.

Please say a prayer for my M. I love him so much and my only wish for Christmas is for him to get better soon and come home.

Skin It to Win It

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Skate Expectations - Bobsled Team Tryouts - Team Night Train
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Skate Expectations - Skeleton Team Tryouts - Zach Lund
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Clips from The Colbert Report documenting Stephen's quest to qualify for the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team. He's such a freak!

Rubberstud of the Week #86

Mr. Leather Vancouver update

I am trying to arrange an interview with the winner of Mr. Leather Vancouver, Doug. We are planning a get together next Thursday (Christmas Eve). Stay tuned for the great interview with a great guy! :)

My type of PSA...

SPORT PROFILE: Men's Single and Double Luge

About the sport of Luge in Canada

Olympic Luge History

Competitive luge racing began in Switzerland in the late 1800s but it would be another 60 years before Canadian competitors took up the sport. It wasn't until the late 1950s that bobsledder Vic Emery introduced the sport to Canadians at a ski area in Quebec. Emery, who would go on to win Canada's only Olympic bobsleigh medal to date at the 1964 Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, was also the first Canadian Luge champion.

Despite a long history and well established competitions in Switzerland, Germany and
Austria, luge did not appear at the Olympic Games until 1964. Until then, most luge
competitions took place on iced alpine roads and sometimes on 'tracks' with banked side walls. The traditional form of the sport evolved into the two disciplines of Olympic luge and Natural luge.

Olympic Games

Entry into the Olympics marked the beginning of a new era in the development of the
sport as racing switched to artificial ice tracks with steeply-banked curves. From the outset, European countries have dominated the sport. All Olympic medals from 1964
until 2002 have been won by four countries: Germany, Austria, Italy and the former
USSR. In recent years, however, other nations have been making inroads, most
noticeably the United States which holds Olympic medals in the doubles competition
at the 2002 Winter Games.

The rules are simple in luge. The course is timed, and the luger must depart from the start handles within a certain time once the track is declared clear.

The luger or pilot is required to arrive at the finish with the sled and in sliding position, athletes may no longer push their sleds across the finish line. Failure to do so results in automatic disqualification. However, lugers are permitted to stop during a run and continue their descent after repositioning the sled on the track, but the luger will be disqualified if touched by the track crew or a fan while in the race.

There are weight restrictions on the sleds, as well as restrictions on the design and construction. The 'steels' (the metal blades on the bottom of the runners on which the sled slides) must be within a certain temperature range relative to the air temperature. There are also weight restrictions on the athletes, as well as many other restrictions related to equipment including speedsuits, boots, helmets, gloves, spikes, etc.

Like other timed sports, qualifying determines start position, important during deteriorating track conditions. During World Cup and World Championship events, two runs determine the winners of the Men's Singles, Women's Singles, and Doubles events. At the Winter Olympics, Men and Women Single event are timed over four runs while the Doubles still do two runs. For the World Cup and World Championship Team Event, one run each is performed from the respective country's Doubles, Women's Singles, and Men's Singles with the combined time determining the winner. The Challenge Cup is a single round elimination event, similar to what you see in Drag Racing or Team pursuit track cycling where the sliders have a qualifying round to get bracketed, then run down the track in respective rounds (quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals) until a winner is determined.

Canadian Participation into 2010 and beyond...

Canada did not participate in the inaugural Olympic competition of 1964, but made its
debut four years later at the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France, posting a team
high 31st in men's competition and 12th in the women's event. Since then, the Canadian competitors have gained a lot of ground in international competition Canada's best Olympic results are Marie Claude Doyon's 7th place finish in the women's event at the Calgary Games in 1988, Bruce Smith's and Kyle Connelly’s11th place finishes in men's singles at Lake Placid in 1980 and Salt Lake City respectively and a fifth place in doubles posted by Chris Moffat and Eric Pothier at Salt Lake City in 2002.

The sport of Luge has seen a rapid increase in popularity since the 1988 Olympic Games staged in Calgary. The awarding of the 2010 Olympic Games to Vancouver has reignited the passion of Canadians in winter sports and luge is already seeing greater participation by young Canadians. Ever increasing media coverage has been a direct result of world class results our Junior and Senior team athletes have achieved since 1988. For the first time ever in the sport of luge, Canada is standing on the podium.

Text courtesy of Luge Canada.

The winningest male lugers in the sport's history are Italy's Armin Zoeggeler, Germany's Georg Hackl and Austria's Markus Prock. Armin was always the nicest one to look at, and is the only one of the three that is still actively competing.

Winning and losing the latex battle

So, I think this week was a record for latex damage and yet-to-be completed repairs. All this latex rippage gets a little discouraging sometimes...I mean, what the hell am I doing being freaky obsessive over a material that is pretty much guaranteed to eventually break, possibly at a horribly inopportune moment???

Weak spots are weak spots...what's an earnest bottom to do? Ya gotta have those convenience zippers put into the right places, dammit! ;p

Rear butt zippers are my nemesis...

I guess if you put it in perspective, ALL clothing eventually breaks down over time -- testament to the new (and unintentional) holes in my not-so-cheap Guess jeans, simply due to the fact they are getting worn out. Considering some of the latex catsuits I own have been worn at least once a week if not twice over an appreciable period of time, I guess breakage is to be expected.

As it turned out, M's Xmas gifts arrived last Friday just in time for the VML Christmas Party where we decided to wear festive red and black latex with white fur linings on our boots and the obligatory Santa hats. M's motocycle latex jeans and Mickey Mouse boots were just the addition to his great outfit. These killer boots are the bomb by the way...they look fantastic with a nice pair of legs in a tight black latex coming out of them...

...which brings me to the highjinks on Saturday. I had taken the Cair catsuit I bought at the Chicago Rubbermen Gear Swap over to M's for the week while I stayed there. I wanted to try on the Mickey Mouse boots with the catsuit. I know better, but for some reason I put the boots on without fabric socks over the rubber feet on the catsuit and 'rip!' - there went the back of the rubber sock on the catsuit. The tear is only a couple of inches long but I felt like an idiot for allowing it happening in the first place. After putting on a pair of sports socks, the boots slipped on and off without any problem, which is what I should've done in the first place. Idiot!

Saturday night's Best Rubber contest was when we discovered another rip in the white Libidex catsuit above the rear zipper, so that catsuit was taken off carefully once we got home after the contest and hung up on the 'to repair' wall.

Last night, I ran home to get a new change of clothes as I had been staying at M's place for the past week and decided to slip into the Invincible catsuit and wear it back over to his place under my clothes. We played around a bit once I got back over there but this morning as I was turning the suit inside out I noticed another inch long rip in the seam above the rear zip in that suit as well. Crickey! I can't seem to win with those rear zips.

So now I have three suits to repair. I guess it gives me something to do....

until my new Christmas present from M shows up. I am SO excited to see this arrive from Libidex in early January...


Has anyone noticed that STR has taken their catsuit line off of their website? Does anyone know why this is so?

West Coast Rubber Winter Warmup 2010

Woo! I bought seat sale flight tickets today! Vancouver to Palm Springs direct return for $300. Good deal. February 3-8...now just to book accommodations at Helios and possibly somewhere else for Wednesday/Thursday. This is sure something to look forward to near the darkest and coldest part of the bloody winter!!!!

From Rubber Canuck

Pumpjack Best Rubber

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I still have yet to publish the highlights from last weekend's Mr. Leather Vancouver competition. Until I get that done this week, here are a couple of pictures taken this weekend at Pumpjack's best rubber contest by Mitch.


M and I played on the Christmas theme! :)

Rubberstud of the Week #85

Costumed dramas: Behind the mask

This was an editorial written during the time of the 'Superheroes' Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC show last year

Financial Times
26-Apr-2008
By Michael Chabon

The time has come to propose, or confront, a fundamental truth: like the being who wears it, the superhero costume is, by definition, an impossible object. It cannot be.

The superhero costume as drawn disdains the customary relationship in the fashion world between sketch and garment. It makes no suggestion. It has no agenda. Above all it is not waiting to find fulfilment as cloth draped on a body. This illusionary quality of the drawn costume can be readily seen if we attempt to delimit the elements of the superhero wardrobe, to inventory its minimum or requisite elements.

We can start by throwing away our masks. Superman, arguably the first and the greatest of all costumed heroes, has never bothered with one, nor have Captain Marvel, the Human Torch, Wonder Woman, the Mighty Thor, Storm or Supergirl. These individuals go around bareheaded, which suggests we can also safely dispense with our gauntlets (whether finned, rolled, or worn with a jaunty slash at the cuff).

Capes have been an object of scorn among discerning superheroes at least since 1974, when, having abandoned his old career as an act of protest over Vietnam and Watergate, Captain America briefly took on the nom de guerreNomad, dressed himself in a piratical ensemble of midnight blue and gold, and brought his first exploit as a stateless hero to an inglorious end by tripping over his own flowing coat.

So let's lose the cape. As for the boots - we are not married to the boots. After all, Iron Fist sports a pair of kung-fu slippers, the Spirit wears black brogues, Zatanna works her magic in stiletto heels, and the Beast, Ka-Zar, and Mantis wear no shoes at all. Perhaps, though, we had better hold on to our unitards, crafted of some nameless but readily available fabric that, like a thin matte layer, at once coats and divulges the splendour of our musculature. Assemble the collective, all-time memberships of the Justice League (and Society) of America, the Avengers, the Defenders, the Invaders, the X-Men, and the Legion of Superheroes (let us not forget the Legion of Substitute Heroes), and you will probably find that almost all of them, from Nighthawk to the Chlorophyll Kid, arrive wearing some version of the classic leotard-tights ensemble. And yet - not everyone. Not Wonder Woman, in her star spangled hot pants and WPA bustier; not the Incredible Hulk or Martian Manhunter or the Sub-Mariner.

Consideration of the last-named leads us to cast a critical eye, finally, on our little swim trunks, worn typically with a belt, pioneered by Kit Walker, the Phantom of the old newspaper strip, and popularised by the super trendsetter of Metropolis. The Sub-Mariner wears nothing but a Eurotrashy green Speedo, suggesting that, at least by the decency standards of the old Comics Code, this minimal garment marks the zero degree of superheroic attire. And yet, of course, The Flash, Green Lantern and many others make do without trunks over their tights; the eschewal of trunks in favour of a continuous flow of fabric from legs to torso is frequently employed to lend a suggestion of speed, sleekness, a kind of unadorned modernism. And the Hulk never goes around in anything but those tattered purple trousers.

So we are left with, literally, nothing at all: the human form, unadorned, smooth, muscled, and ready, let's say, to sail the starry ocean of the cosmos on the deck of a gleaming surfboard. A naked spacefarer, sheathed in a silvery pseudoskin that affords all the protection one needs from radiation and cosmic dust while meeting Code standards by neatly neutering the wearer, the shining void between the legs serving to signify that one is not (as one often appears to be when seen from behind) naked as an interstellar jaybird.

Here is a central paradox of superhero attire: from panther black to lantern green, from the faintly Hapsburg pomp of the 1950s-era Legion of Superheroes costumes to the Mad Max space grunge of Lobo, from sexy fishnet to adamantium, the superhero costume ultimately takes its deepest meaning and serves its primary function in the depiction of the naked human form, unfettered, perfect and free. The superheroic wardrobe resembles a wildly permutated alphabet of ideograms conceived only to express the eloquent power of silence.

A public amnesia, an avowed lack of history, is the standard pretence of the costumed superhero. From the point of view of the man or woman or child in the street, looking up gape-mouthed at the sky and skyscrapers, the appearance of a new hero over metropolis or New York or Astro City is always a matter of perfect astonishment. There have been no portents or warnings, and afterward one never learns anything new or gains any explanations.

The story of a superhero's origin must be kept secret, occulted as rigorously from public knowledge as the alter ego, as if it were a source of shame. Superman conceals, archived in the Fortress of Solitude and unvisited by any but him, not only his own history - the facts and tokens of his birth and arrival on Earth, of his Smallville childhood, of his exploits and adventures - but the history of his Kryptonite family and indeed of his entire race. Batman similarly hides his own story and its proofs in the trophy chambers of the Batcave.

In theory, the costume - as different from the dull garb of our former existence as we have become from those abandoned selves - forms a part of the strategy of concealment. But, in fact, the superhero's costume often functions as a kind of magic screen on to which the repressed narrative may be projected. No matter how well he or she hides its traces, the secret narrative of transformation, of rebirth from the confines of the ordinary, is given up by the costume.Often the secret narrative is hinted at with a kind of enigmatic, dreamlike obviousness right on the hero's chest or belt buckle, in the form of the requisite insignia. Superman's "S" shield, we have been told, only coincidentally stands for Superman: In fact the emblem is the coat of arms of the ancient Kryptonian House of El from which he descends. A stylized bat alludes to the animal whose chance flight through an open window sealed Bruce Wayne's fate; a lightning bolt encapsulates the secret history of Captain Marvel; an eight-legged glyph immortalises the bug whose bite doomed Peter Parker to his glorious and woebegone career.

We say secret "identity" and adopt a series of cloaking strategies to preserve it; but what we are actually trying to conceal is a narrative; not who we are, but the story of how we got that way - and by implication, of all that we lacked, and all that we were not, before the spider bit us. And yet at the same time, as I have suggested, our costume conceals nothing, reveals everything: it is our secret skin, exposed and exposing for all the world to see. Superheroism is a kind of transvestisism; our superdrag serves at once to obscure the exterior self that no longer defines us while betraying, with half unconscious panache, the truth of the story we carry in our hearts, the story of our transformation, of our story's recommencement, of our rebirth into the world of adventure, of the story itself.

© 2008 by Michael Chabon. Excerpted from the introduction to 'Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy', published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press. Michael Chabon is the author of 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay', a novel about a comic book superhero. 'Superheroes', Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from May 7-September 1, www.metmuseum.org

FT.com
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.

PROFILE: Richmond Olympic Oval

Richmond Oval

The venue is designed by Bob Johnston, who was involved in developing the tracks of Salt Lake City and Calgary too. 8,000 visitors can attend the races.

After site preparation eventually on November 17, 2006 the construction of the oval began. The Richmond Oval officially opened on December 12, 2008, with Pre-games events at the Oval being the 2008 and 2009 Canadian Single Distance Championships, the 2009 ISU World Single Distance Championships, and the 2010 World Wheelchair Rugby Championships.

After the Olympics, The Oval will be converted to a multi-use sport facility that will include two Olympic-sized ice rinks, up to eight hardwood ball-sport courts, a gymnasium, a 200 m track, a rubberized turf area, and a high performance centre for elite athletes. The speed-skating oval will be covered with removable flooring and could still be used for competition. The Oval is intended to be the centrepiece a new urban waterfront neighbourhood featuring a mix of residential, commercial and public amenity development.



Welcome to Vancouver, Shane Dobbin! Yummy!

Rubberstud of the Week #84