On Riding far and The Middle Kingdom

It is exceedingly difficult to maintain a blog about any summer activity in the dead of winter. There really is not much to report on. I try to use the trainer, but it is horribly boring, and its not like the scenery is exciting. Last year, excuse me, two years ago, it was late 2007, when I was at Scooters, I recall making entries of the form, "did alright then thought I was gonna crash so started doing idiotic circles in the centre of the track" which basically summed up every single practice, now I know had I kept working on skating eventually my posts would be of the form "did alright". But see this is why I love cycling, the whole world is open to me.

Let me explain.

For the longest time I had the goal of skating to Hamilton via the Lakeshore trail, in 2006 I managed to get as far as Mississauga (Cumberland Dr. at Hiawatha Pkwy, just South East of the foot of Hurontario St.) In 2007 I made it just the tinest bit further, to the foot of Ben Machree Dr. (South West of the Foot of Mississagua Dr.). In both 2006 and 2007 I skated from Bathurst and Queens Quay which means in both cases I ended up skating in the neighbourhood of 50~55km.

Well last year, in 2008 I rode, my first serious attempt at reaching the next town, i.e. had enough water and it was not raining, I made it to Oakville (foot of Winston Churchill Blvd.) by comparison I still remember my first serious attempt at Mississauga, I made it as far as 23rd Street in Etobicoke. My second goal was Burlington, despite having my first inner tube failure on the way through Oakville I made it deep into Burlington (that was the first time I rode more than 100km in a single ride, I remember I was so proud of myself when that GPS when from 99.99 to 100.0). My next goal was Hamilton and as I documented earlier I did not want to burn myself out the day before climbing Rattle Snake so it took two whole efforts, the first got me to something like 2km from Hamilton, the second effort, on Canada day I made it there and back.

Except the Lakeshore trail is too easy, it is flat, and it is through some heavily built up areas. I revised my goal to be from Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe and back, as I documented earlier that goal was also achieved, but it was a much better and harder challenge.

My point is, it seems to me that no matter what my goal on a bike it seems to be a do-able journey. There is just no way (short of closing Lakeshore Blvd. and Southdown to cars) that a person can skate to Hamilton from Toronto, not on the route I biked, the roads are too narrow and too busy. Okay there is a sidewalk but in Oakville much the sidewalk is a muddy trail.

Anyway here are some insane goals I have for this year, some are already documented on the Riding Too Far blog.

1. Tour Lake Simcoe (due to heavy traffic and poor route options on the East side this might be, go North and South on the west side of Lake Simcoe, so still a 300km distance, but not a tour.)
2. Ride to Niagara-on-the-Lake and back in a day. (Its the damned lakeshore trail again, BORRRRING!! But NotL is a pretty little town.)
3. Ride to Rochester NY, crash at my friends place for the night, ride home the next day. (Lots of issues related to not using 400 series and Interstate highways, border crossings, and so on. But can you imagine when they ask me at the border, 'anything to declare?', uhm yeah, I brought back a 40" LCD TV and a bottle of Crown Royal, it's all in the saddle bag with my inner tubes!)

Any thoughts on these feel free to post comments, and yes I have thought of riding across Canada, but I don't have enough vacation days, much as I'd love to do nothing but bike, I need to pay for food and well more important, new bikes!

Anyway I would just like to make public the fact that Lesley and I are going to China, I have the airline tickets and the Chinese Consulate in Toronto has my Visa application and passport. I will have more to say on this latter, but for now the route is: Go to Shanghai and return via Hong Kong about two weeks later.