Over last week I did not have a chance to ride after Monday. Monday morning it was raining so I drove to work, in the evening it was nice and Lesley was jet lagged (she just got back from visiting her parents) so I went for a ride and blew a flat on the Royal York overpass over the Gardiner Expressway. Shortly after I replaced my inner tube my old manager/director gave me a call and asked me to look at a network configuration if I had a second. (Funny thing about blowing a flat, you loose interest in the actual ride after flatting, well it's not so much a loss of interest as a fear that the replacement tube will fail too.)
Anyway Toronto was hit by a weather "bomb" yes that's a real meteorological term, although it conjures up images of blizzards and hurricane force winds with intense rains, it was more of a weather dud. Listening to the radio and hearing predictions of 90km/h winds I figured, better to be in a big steel tub than on a tiny little carbon fibre work of art. As a result I did not ride Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Friday I had a chance in the evening to extend my ride, so I did exactly that, and my total distance, about 30km to work and 73km home. Then Saturday a bunch of us in the Beaches Club went up to Stouffville, and a few of the guys must have had their Wheaties that morning because they left the rest of us in about six different kinds of pain, it was a good leg burner of a day.
Sunday the Beaches club had their end of season ride, what end of season? There's no snow, and even if there were, end of season... humph, end of rear, as in my rear end, ride in the snow! Anyway the BCC end of season featured a drive out to scenic Dundas Ontario, a nice warm up of 90km followed by a lunch and then a drive home. Now I'm sorry but if I cover 73km on my (albeit extended) commute home and over 100km on a regular working day, I'll be damned if I am going to drive over 100km just to ride 90km, unless said ride were a race, but as it's a social ride, uhm, save the diesel, ride to the ride.
I suspect I sound like a pompous jerk, but I'm sorry, driving a bike somewhere, sort of strikes me of asking a fish if he'd like some water to drink. Bikes are, to my thinking, the best and most decent way to get around, using a car to drive a bike that is in good repair is... unethical and immoral. (Driving a bike to a shop to get repaired, that is a different matter entirely - of course - but even better, driving to the shop buying tools and fixing the bike at home yourself is even better still.)
Anyway a couple guys had a similar opinion, well actually I think they just did not want to spend several hours driving, and sitting in traffic, just to do a three hour ride. So we did our own little ride, it hurt, in a really, and I do mean really, good way. There were 14% hill climbs, there were 55km/h (sustained) descents, there were head winds and tail winds. There was even, shudder, snow, but it did not accumulate. It was a really good ride, it even featured a coffee stop, but while I confess from the front door of my house I did not ride Jordan, I did mount the saddle as soon as I had walked her to the street, and again while I did dismount, before I got home, that was because I had to open the garden gate to get into the front yard. In short, total distance on Jordan 129km, total distance walking or driving the bike: less than 20m, or less than 0.001% of the distance covered.
Anyway here is a very nice, car free, route, very much worth doing again.
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