penticton

Comparing Six of the Best Penticton Gyms

May 5, 2012 By Antonio Cangiano 8 Comments

Update (Jun 21, 2012): For the past three weeks I’ve been going to Riverside Fitness and I’m very happy with it so far.

Update (Aug 8, 2013): Some of the details contained within this review are now outdated. For example, Riverside is no longer offering a $60 month-to-month plan. You either sign up for a full year or opt for an expensive month-to-month plan (I believe $95/month at the time of writing). Nevertheless, reading this post will still give you plenty of general information about the gyms at hand. For the record, I now lift at The Gym.

Despite being a small city, Penticton has a variety of gyms to choose from. As I want to find one for myself, I decided to do a bit of footwork and go visit six such facilities, asking for a tour and information about membership at each.

In this article I share my first impressions of each of these gyms, as I hope these thoughts will help others in the same spot and perhaps lead you to find the best gym in Penticton.

In the order that I visited them, the gyms that I considered were:

Riverside Fitness & Health Pros

The facility is very new and clean.
Free parking is available immediately next to the entrance. (The irony of including parking distance in a review about gyms doesn’t escape me.)
This gym is the only truly 24 hour facility in town, once you’ve purchased a key fob (for a one time payment of $49.99). With that key you can let yourself in at any time of the day or night, 365 days a year (holidays included). This aspect is very appealing to me, and I’m sure it is to others as well.
The receptionist, Katy, is friendly and professional. Of all the facilities I’ve visited, she was the only person who offered a tour voluntarily. They took my name and a few details, and then offered me a couple of free sessions in exchange for my feedback in an email survey. From a marketing standpoint they were the most proactive in trying to get my business, yet were not obnoxious or overly pushy at any time.
Riverside Fitness & Health is very quiet and doesn’t appear to be too busy. According to Katy, “There are at most 8 people here at any one time”. When I was there, preciseley 3 people were working out.
The facility does not include any stairs (having arthritis in both of my legs, stairs are not the kind of exercise I need).
A few classes are included in the basic membership, allowing you to take one class of your choice per day. These are Yoga, Spinning~~, Bosu, and TRX Body Blasts~~. Additional classes are available for those who’ve opted for more expensive memberships or for an additional fee in the case of specialty classes such as crossfit. In particular, they have an excellent Pilates studio/room, however availing of which requires their most expensive (over $200 a month) membership.
Free towel service. Got to like that.
Affordable: $60/month pay as you go, or $49/month on a 12 month contract. (Yearly gym membership contracts are rarely a good idea, unless you really get into working out frequently after a few months of paying as you go.)

Riverside Fitness & Health Cons

The facility is pretty small compared to some of the other gyms in town. Although not busy, there are just two treadmills, two ellipticals, etc.
There isn’t a circuit available, such as the Nautilus system.
No pool.
Basic Plus membership ,which includes all standard classes (so no specialty classes, for which you need to pay individually), is a bit expensive at $120/month pay as you go, or $99/month on a 12 month contract.

The Gym Pros

A very nice, clean facility that’s centrally located.
Free underground parking (hard to find above ground parking during most daytime hours otherwise).
It’s a 24 hour facility, sort of. It’s continuously open from 5am on Monday until 8pm on Friday. Then it’s open from 8am to 6pm on Saturday, and 8am to 5pm on Sunday. On holidays they are open from 8am to 12pm. So essentially, you won’t be able to work out between 8pm on Friday and 8am on Saturday, from 6pm on Saturday until 8am on Sunday, and from 5pm on Sunday until 5am on Monday. If you are a weekend night owl, this may not work for you, but otherwise it’s close enough to being 24 hours.
The Gym is fairly large with a variety of up-to-date equipment in the weight and cardio department, including a Nautilus circuit for quick, safe resistance workouts.
Tanning and child minding services are available for an additional fee, unless you get their gold membership ($300 for 3 months or $91.74/mo on a yearly plan; there’s no monthly plan offered at the gold membership level), in which case they’re included. I personally have no need for either, but they’re worth mentioning as an advantage of this Penticton gym over some of the others. The gold membership also includes classes and two free shakes per month.
Ionized air to reduce the spread of microbial contamination.
They have a bar with healthy choices, should you need to recharge after your workout.
It looks like The Gym is the place to be if you’re serious about bodybuilding, judging by the clientele.
An Infrared sauna is available for free on premise.
There’s a ladies only section of the weight room.
Affordable: $60/month pay as you go, or $50/month on a 12 month contract. A three year contract drops the membership fee down as low as $42.67 per month.

The Gym Cons

The Gym has a strong “Bro” culture. Think, “You gotta work on your quads, bro. Here have a protein shake, bro” level of broness. The crowd frequenting the facility seems to be young and testosterone laden, including shirtless Hulk-like individuals. This in turn makes the place much more intimidating for regular folks, when compared to any other gym in town.
Classes are not included in the basic membership and they cost a lot (from $45 and up a month) if you don’t opt for the gold membership (which is expensive in and of itself).
This place is probably the busiest gym in Penticton. Thankfully they have lots of equipment available so this shouldn’t be a massive problem.
Free clean towel service is not included in monthly pay as you go memberships.
They don’t have a swimming pool.

City Centre Health & Fitness Pros

Less flashy than the previous two gyms, but still a large facility located on the third floor of a downtown building.
Decent hours (5am – 10pm Monday to Thursday, 5am – 9pm on Friday, and 8am to 6pm on the weekend.)
Free towel and locker key service.
Free weekly yoga class on Friday.
In summer, spinning classes are held on top of the roof.
Quite a few classes are available for an extra fee.
Good mix of people attending the facility.
Not overly busy with plenty of cardio and weight equipment (which is pretty advanced and new). A circuit is available as well.
Cheap: $50/month for pay as you go, or $40/month on a yearly contract.

City Centre Health & Fitness Cons

Unless you buy a membership that’s three months or longer, you don’t receive free parking on the pay as you go plan. This means that you are faced with the challenge of parking downtown. The options are parking a couple of streets away (on Winnipeg Street) or sticking to the free parking that’s available on Main Street, in which case you need to be in and out in less than an hour. Not cool.
Classes are not included in the membership.
They also don’t have a pool.

Penticton Racquet & Fitness Club Pros

A very large facility with more than just cardio and weight rooms. It includes squash and racquetball courts, as well as a few special amenities like the possibility of booking a massage therapist on site.
Free parking right next to the entrance.
Decent opening hours (6am – 9pm Monday to Friday, 8am – 6pm Saturday, 8am to 4pm Sunday.)
Quiet and idle.
There’s a ladies only room.
Affordable: $60/month pay as you go, or $50 on a yearly plan.

Penticton Racquet & Fitness Club Cons

Clientele mostly comprised of old men, if that matters to you. 🙂
There are a few stairs to get to the weight room.
Use of both court and equipment requires an all-inclusive membership for $80/month (or $65 on a year contract).
Despite the presence of quite a few machines, both the cardio and weight rooms combined were not as big as one would expect in such a large facility.
Classes are not included in the membership.
They don’t have a pool.

Lakeside Fitness Pros

Decent sized facility which includes a small, but adequate sized, pool and whirlpool.
Large class/activities area.
Nautilus circuit available.
Free parking with membership (but only on the second and third floor of the parking structure, otherwise it’s pay by the hour).
Decent opening hours (6am – 9pm Monday to Friday, 8am – 6pm on the weekend.)
Child minding available.
Quiet and idle.
They offer a complementary orientation or personal training session to get you familiar with the facility and equipment.
Cheap: $50/month pay as you go, or $30/month if paying for a full year in advance. The price includes use of the pool and whirlpool as well.

Lakeside Fitness Cons

Much less flashy or new looking than the other places in town.
For some reason it’s also darker than other gyms in Penticton.
There are some stairs to get to the weight room.
Located next to the Casino, so it’s in a pretty busy area (including a busy parking lot).
Cardio equipment is available in 10 minute bursts, for which you need to put your name down for a given machine on a schedule that’s available on the wall (which limits you to 40 minutes maximum per machine).
Classes are not included in membership and are relatively expensive ($55/month).

Penticton Community Center Pros

Stunning pool and whirlpool facility. The pool is huge and includes 10 lanes, plus there’s a lifeguard on duty at all times. It’s the best facility in Penticton from this standpoint.
Plenty of parking available near the entrance.
The weight and cardio room all has the essentials you’ll likely need.
Large changing rooms.
Decent hours (between 6am – 8pm weekdays on the summer, 8:30am – 4pm on the weekend.)
Affordable: $54/month with pay as you go, or $379 (the equivalent of $31.58/month) if you opt for a yearly membership.

Penticton Community Centre Cons

Tons of children running around in the pool area. It’s not exactly a calm, quiet environment.
There are a number of concrete stairs in order to get to the weight and cardio room.
Less furnished than other Penticton gyms. In particular, I didn’t see a circuit or a huge number of machines.
Showers are completely open in the men’s changing room, which means you really don’t get much in the way of privacy.
Pool not included in the standard membership. Pool and Fitness (combined) rates are $89/month, or $629 if paying for a full year in advance.
The whole facility smells like chlorine everywhere (not just in/around the pool).
As is often the case with community centers, they tend to attract a, how shall we say, diverse clientele. As I was touring the facility I was approached by a well-meaning but completely crazy in the coconut man who asked me if I was a bodybuilding instructor. Trust me, I look nothing like one. He then engaged me in a very weird and very creepy conversation, from which I bailed out as politely as I could. Of course, you can meet a guy like that anywhere, but I think you’re less likely to face that problem in gyms that are not operated by the city.

At the end of the day, I feel it’s remarkable that there are so many gym options in such a small city. Which of these is the best gym in Penticton? Hard to say. It really depends on what you want and need.

To me, the possibility of going to the gym anytime I want is really important. During the day I’m very busy, so I can really see myself randomly showing up to work out at 4am sometimes. This would pretty much limit the field to the first two options, Riverside Fitness & Health and The Gym.

At the time of writing I haven’t decided yet between these two. The good news is that with no yearly commitment, I can always try one and switch to a different gym the following month, if I’m not happy with my first choice. I’ll post an update here regarding which one I opt for within the near future.

A few updates from the Okanagan

April 24, 2012 By Antonio Cangiano 3 Comments

[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text]

It’s a warm, quiet night so I thought I’d spend a couple of hours catching up on my blogging. In particular, I thought I’d post a brief update on what’s been transpiring in my life as of late.

It’s worth nothing that in my personal blog I haven’t adopted a particular blogging strategy when it comes to the type of content I opt to publish (such as the ones I advocate in my book.) Rather I aim at writing interesting posts regardless of subject, and offer family, friends, and “followers” a way to keep up with various going-ons in my world.

The big news at the moment is that my wife and I recently moved to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia (specifically Penticton) from Toronto. It’s hard to believe that it’s been only two months since we left the hustle and bustle of urban Ontario. We went through so much stress/work/change, that it feels like half a year has gone by since then.

Our new house

Our new place is a stunning little house on two levels (plus basement). It has 3 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, and a good sized area that we’ve utlized as a craft room for my wife’s scrapbooking and vintage addiction. Decorating the house the way we like wasn’t cheap, but people can’t stop complimenting us on how nice and classy it looks, so evidently that was money well spent. Suffice it to say, it was a fun and crazy shopping spree. I’ve never spent so much money in so little time. Thankfully that has come to a halt now, as we have all our bases covered. 😉

I even acquired one hell of a BBQ which has seven burners in total and can cook up to 37 burgers (or something like that) at the same time. I’m quickly becoming a master of outdoor cooking — and I’ve never felt so North American before. 😛

The actual renovation (which came before we arrived and started decorating and adding fancy furniture) was done by my father-in-law’s renovation company, who did an amazing job. The place looked brand new the second we arrived. I’ll try to take some pictures soon and post them here for you to see.

What really strikes me as being different is that our new home is located in a cul de sac near a creek and therefore is much quieter than the 23rd floor apartment directly above the busiest highway in Canada where we used to live in back in Toronto. In fact, all I can hear right now is the sound of the water babbling a mere 200 feet or so away. Very zen-like, I tell you.

My office is smaller than it was at our old house, but I love it nevertheless. Living in such a quiet environment enables me to better concentrate on work and other productivity tasks when I’m on the computer.

Penticton is beautiful

Penticton turned out to be bigger than I expected. Before coming to live here I’d thought of it as a small town, but it’s really more of a small city. There are very few things that it lacks and I love that any destination is just five minutes away. Even for things not available locally (e.g., the upcoming arrival of Target in Canada), there is a larger nearby city (Kelowna) located less than an hour away which usually gets you covered.

This town is stunning. It’s located between two lakes and it has an amazing mountain backdrop. It’s hard not to fall in love with this place and I can see why it’s one of the number one destinations in which wealthy people choose to retire in Canada.

In my experience people are very friendly around here as well, much more so than in Toronto. This can likely be attributed to the fact that Penticton is a much smaller city. It’s nice to see a more upbeat and relaxed approach to life by the locals, as this outlook helps puts one in a good mood.

As one might assume, it’s a much less multicultural area as well, so people may find my Italian accent to be somewhat of a novelty, and they may be more prone to ask about my background, how I ended up here, etc, and to show a genuine interest in talking to me.

I’m truly enjoying this little city, and I absolutely love and cherish being so close to my parents-in-law. They are kind, wonderful people who care about my wife and me, and I genuinely love to spend time with them.

B.C. driver license acquired

I got my B.C.’s drivers license and can now drive on my own. It turned out that my Ontario’s learner license (G1) was not transferable to British Columbia. So I had to restart the process from scratch and retake the theory test. I did it on the spot upon learning about this setback, without studying, as I was pretty confident that it wouldn’t be too different from what I learned in Ontario. I’m happy to say that such was the case and I passed on my first try.

As a result I immediately regained my status as learner and was able to amply practice driving with my in-laws and their cars for a couple of weeks. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait for a full year before being able to take the actual driving test, as they were able to credit the time I spent practicing as a learner in Ontario towards my B.C. license. I took the driving test in mid-March and passed on my first try as well. Now I’m an N driver, which carries a few limitations, but essentially allows me to drive on my own everywhere I wish.

The B.C.’s driving test is definitely more challenging than the Ontario one because it tends to last much longer (30-60 minutes, at least here in the Okanagan.) The streets are less busy, but they also have more oneways, school zones, roundabouts, and other occasions to fail as an inexperienced driver. I’m glad I beat the incredibly high rate of first timers who fail at this examination center.

Another difference is how afforable insurance is in BC. In Ontario it would have cost me several hundred dollars a month for a basic package. Here I only pay less than $250 and get full coverage, including vandalism, theft, etc. This was a pleasant surprise which enabled me to consider the purchase of a nicer car than I expected.

My new car

Truth be told I had a major incentive to get my driver license right away. Sitting in my driveway was my new car — a nice Jaguar S-Type. About a week before, when I was still a learner, I went to North Vancouver to purchase the car and drove it all the way back to Penticton (250+ miles) with my in-laws.

What an amazing experience it was to suddenly be driving surrounded by mountains, lakes, and nature in general. I was afraid of crashing the car before even getting it home, but thankfully nothing bad happened.

My father-in-law, who was a mechanic for ages, could not believe how new the car was under the hood. He told me point blank, “If you are not buying it, I am. This is a steal.” With only 40,000 miles on it and being the third luxury vehicle of an elderly gentleman (single owner), the car is virtually new inside and out and I can’t believe my luck in having scored such a wonderful car. How many people who don’t have wealthy parents can claim that their first car was a Jaguar? 🙂

Jokes aside, I love how comfortable and smooth the car is. I can really tell the difference when I’m driving someone else’s non-luxury car. Even newish cars feel bumpy and uncomfortable by comparison. The heated leather seats are even more comfortable than my couch or office chair.

Diet on hold

The bad news is that I’ve put my diet on hold during this period. I shouldn’t have, but I did for convenience sake. We spent several weeks at my in-laws, while our new house was being prepared and as we were waiting for our belongings to arrive from Ontario. Having to measure grams and calories (well, Weight Watchers points) for everything when you are staying at someone else’s house and eating out frequently, was a bit too much.

I decided to give myself a break from the diet to make these two months be a little easier, as they were exciting and stressful enough without having to worry about diet, weight, etc. Despite being much more active, I have gained back a little bit of weight as a result of being more lax with my diet.

But I’m not going to bullshit you. It’s still an excuse. I could very well have decided to stick to the WW plan. Thankfully, not all is lost. I’ll be back on the horse in a matter a days (I’m restarting my diet in May).

Getting back into photography

Now that I’ve a car for the first time in my life (growing up, my parents didn’t have one either), I’m discovering how many opportunities it opens up. I still catch myself thinking, “Oh I can’t do that, you’d need a car… Oh, right, I have one.” Photography has always been my main non-work-related hobby. I love it so much that I’ve even considered making it my profession at various times throughout my life.

I discovered that having a car changed my perspective on photography. In an old article I mentioned how I bought a compact camera because carrying around the DSLR and lenses was such a hassle. Imagine taking the bus and having to carry a heavy backpack laden with expensive photography equipment with you. Not having a car definitely affected the amount of use I got out of my pro-level equipment.

Now that I have a car, taking my camera and lenses with me when I’m out and about is a no brainer. I’ve also found that the Lowepro backpack I use works beautifully as a bag when opened up in the trunk of the car. Before I felt it was useless for my needs.

Practicality of carrying the equipment aside, the car allows me to scout better locations (for portraits), and enables me to photograph a greater variety of interesting subjects and locations.

My burning passion for photography, which never waned, really wants to take advantage of my new found mobility and freedom. I also tend to wake up quite early in the morning as I tend to start working at 9am EST (which is 6am here in B.C.), so my work day is generally over by 2 or 3 pm, which leaves me with plenty of time to go out and shoot. Of course, the downside is that I can’t go to sleep at 3am like I used to. But all in all, I feel that this new arrangement works well.

I’m including three pictures here which I’ve recently taken sine getting back into photography. They are respectively my beautiful wife Jessica, my beautiful mother-in-law Lynn, and the location spot near Skaha beach at the Okanagan Falls where I took Lynn’s portrait.

Equipment wise I’m still pretty good, even though my 30D is starting to be a bit old at this point. I bought it 6 years ago and it has only 8.2 megapixels, not a great number if you need to crop and make big prints like I do (megapixels are not so important per se, but the camera has other shortcomings as well). So I’ve been eyeing the Canon EOS 5D Mark III like crazy lately. With all the expenses we’ve been dealing with recently however, I’ll probably hold off for a few months before acquiring it. But it’s definitely on my wish list.

I’m also happy to have found a solid color management workflow thanks to the recent purchase of a Spyder4 Pro and a ColorChecker Passport. The first one calibrates your monitor, while the second one effectively helps you calibrate your camera so that the RAW images have a custom profile applied to them which makes the recorded colors as close to the real colors as possible. It’s micro-optimization stuff for sure, but as an engineer I like this kind of exact geekery. I should blog about this type of stuff soon as I’m sure others are considering these kinds of tools and wonder if they’re worth it.

OK, this is enough of a narcissistic fix for now. I don’t usually talk so much about myself, the things I own, etc, but they’ve been such large changes in my life lately that I felt they were worth sharing.

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

I’m moving to Penticton, British Columbia

January 27, 2012 By Antonio Cangiano 5 Comments

This year is shaping up to be one of radical change. Some of you may know how I finally decided to take control of my weight, and that I’ve been working on it for a month now.

An arguably far greater change is on the horizon though. In less than a month I will be relocating to Penticton, B.C., at least for the foreseeable future.

My wife’s series of aggravating medical problems have chiefly motivated this move. In fact, Penticton happens to be my wife’s hometown, where her family still lives.

Penticton

(Image by jconybeer)

With a population of less than 50,000 people, my new city may be many times smaller than Toronto, but the whole area (known as the Okanagan) is a gorgeous, highly popular resort destination chosen by many as their “place to stay forever” (Penticton’s tagline).

It’s where I got married, and I have many fond memories of those days spent surrounded by nature in one of the most Canadian environments I can think of.

I’ll keep you posted and if you are in the area, feel free to drop me a line.