Just an update for anyone who happens to hit this thing. My blog has moved to http://warrentaylor.ca. Still about bikes, just this time actually has the 'code' part as well.
Enjoy.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
False alarm on the back...
Sort of.
It still twinges a bit, but after 48 hours of being useless and another 48 of just being in constant pain, I'm nearly back to normal.
I still wouldn't play any sort of sport that involves twisting or jerky movements, but running and cycling seem to be fine. Thus, I am in the race and have five days to go until I get to test myself in a totally new sport. (Totally new given if I haven't done it in a decade, it's totally new)
Aside from the minor setback, training volume has been down somewhat, stress at work and such has been getting into my outside life, which always sucks, that seems to be fading though. I've got about 6 weeks until the first cross race that I can attend. The first race being on the same weekend as Susan's wedding, so I'll be in Toronto with the rest of the Ottawa crew that weekend. So 8 races this year if all goes well. Lead lap on more than one? That's the goal.
The unfortunate side to this is that since we're getting nice and close to race season, it means it's time for more and more painful workouts. Yay. Lactate acid. Fun, fun, fun!
It still twinges a bit, but after 48 hours of being useless and another 48 of just being in constant pain, I'm nearly back to normal.
I still wouldn't play any sort of sport that involves twisting or jerky movements, but running and cycling seem to be fine. Thus, I am in the race and have five days to go until I get to test myself in a totally new sport. (Totally new given if I haven't done it in a decade, it's totally new)
Aside from the minor setback, training volume has been down somewhat, stress at work and such has been getting into my outside life, which always sucks, that seems to be fading though. I've got about 6 weeks until the first cross race that I can attend. The first race being on the same weekend as Susan's wedding, so I'll be in Toronto with the rest of the Ottawa crew that weekend. So 8 races this year if all goes well. Lead lap on more than one? That's the goal.
The unfortunate side to this is that since we're getting nice and close to race season, it means it's time for more and more painful workouts. Yay. Lactate acid. Fun, fun, fun!
Friday, August 24, 2007
I hate cheap people.
Great weekend forming up here.
Pulled something in my back yesterday, so that means the physical activities I had planned are now out. It's also a week away from the tri, so that could also be shot. Yay. Nothing like riding the trainer indoors in summer because cracks in the road hurt the back too much.
Hillary is out of town, so I'm on my own, poorly timed injury on my part, socks this morning took several minutes.
To make matters better, the long awaited raise came in today. On the one hand, it was substantial, which is nice. On the other hand, I'm still being underpaid for the work I do by at least 10k. The hell of it is that the work is interesting and being the design lead is enjoyable and rewarding. Until I get told that someone who spent 6 months on a two week feature is 'valuable' or some such crap. And damn me for not being able to speak negatively about said person and just being suitably incredulous.
Okay, rant over, but it's going to be a LONG weekend.
Pulled something in my back yesterday, so that means the physical activities I had planned are now out. It's also a week away from the tri, so that could also be shot. Yay. Nothing like riding the trainer indoors in summer because cracks in the road hurt the back too much.
Hillary is out of town, so I'm on my own, poorly timed injury on my part, socks this morning took several minutes.
To make matters better, the long awaited raise came in today. On the one hand, it was substantial, which is nice. On the other hand, I'm still being underpaid for the work I do by at least 10k. The hell of it is that the work is interesting and being the design lead is enjoyable and rewarding. Until I get told that someone who spent 6 months on a two week feature is 'valuable' or some such crap. And damn me for not being able to speak negatively about said person and just being suitably incredulous.
Okay, rant over, but it's going to be a LONG weekend.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
August Update
On the athletic front, running and swimming are going well. I'm hitting the water twice a week for about 45 minutes each and running 5km two to three times per week. Though I think twice a week it's going to be upped to about 8.
I am no longer concerned about surviving the tri.
On a cycling note, I set a couple of Warren Training Records, a two hour ride at an average of 33km/h, including warmup and warm down and a 35km/h average for a 30km stretch. That included some pretty slow hills and some nasty headwinds, so that bodes well for the 30km tri ride. Average heartrate in that 30km was well below the lactate threshold (avg about 168, where 176 or so is my threshold) so that means I have at least a bit more power on tap. I haven't hit my limit since the Paris-Roubaix, so I'm getting anxious to test myself.
On a totally unrelated note, I have a wedding venue now. This is awesome, the hard part is over, now I just have to write cheques and take care of the 10 million other little things.
I am no longer concerned about surviving the tri.
On a cycling note, I set a couple of Warren Training Records, a two hour ride at an average of 33km/h, including warmup and warm down and a 35km/h average for a 30km stretch. That included some pretty slow hills and some nasty headwinds, so that bodes well for the 30km tri ride. Average heartrate in that 30km was well below the lactate threshold (avg about 168, where 176 or so is my threshold) so that means I have at least a bit more power on tap. I haven't hit my limit since the Paris-Roubaix, so I'm getting anxious to test myself.
On a totally unrelated note, I have a wedding venue now. This is awesome, the hard part is over, now I just have to write cheques and take care of the 10 million other little things.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
The next race
Though technically the 'next race' will be one of the OBC time trials, those don't really count as they are more of a fitness gauge.
So I think it's about time I do a triathlon.
The one du- that I did I was in the top 10 for the cycling leg and got killed in the run legs. I haven't done much swimming in the past couple of years, but I do have pretty good technique, so with a bit of brushing up on the atrophied upper body muscles, I might be able to do decently again.
The goal is the sprint tri on the Labour Day weekend here in Ottawa. 750m swim, 30k cycle and 5k run, all quite reasonable distances. Even better, the cycle course is basically pancake flat with a slight rise that I have to go over twice, so with my less than stellar power/weight ratio, I should be able to reel in a few people in there.
The trick will be to see if I can survive the run.
Anyhow, the first swim will be tomorrow, the rough training will be for me to continue getting ready for the cyclocross season with a pair of hour or so swimming sessions per week. Since the 'cross training will include some running, that should at least get me fit enough to figure out if I want to participate in this kind of organized torture again in the future.
On a somewhat related note, where related is in the stream of consciousness sense, I will start pulling apart the 'cross bike tomorrow. This will be the first time I embark on a project of a such... mechanical nature. We shall see how this goes.
So I think it's about time I do a triathlon.
The one du- that I did I was in the top 10 for the cycling leg and got killed in the run legs. I haven't done much swimming in the past couple of years, but I do have pretty good technique, so with a bit of brushing up on the atrophied upper body muscles, I might be able to do decently again.
The goal is the sprint tri on the Labour Day weekend here in Ottawa. 750m swim, 30k cycle and 5k run, all quite reasonable distances. Even better, the cycle course is basically pancake flat with a slight rise that I have to go over twice, so with my less than stellar power/weight ratio, I should be able to reel in a few people in there.
The trick will be to see if I can survive the run.
Anyhow, the first swim will be tomorrow, the rough training will be for me to continue getting ready for the cyclocross season with a pair of hour or so swimming sessions per week. Since the 'cross training will include some running, that should at least get me fit enough to figure out if I want to participate in this kind of organized torture again in the future.
On a somewhat related note, where related is in the stream of consciousness sense, I will start pulling apart the 'cross bike tomorrow. This will be the first time I embark on a project of a such... mechanical nature. We shall see how this goes.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
So, we're done.
Not where we wanted to, but due to technical problems and time constraints, we have had to call the ride officially over.
The descision was made in Fredericton, when we ended a day with the truck losing air in the brakes. Turns out most of our problems stemmed from a water pump with shot bearings that stretched the belt that spun the alternator and air compressor. Regardless, we lost something like four full riding days with a couple of different garages trying to figure out what was wrong.
Since we didn't carry heavy touring gear, we couldn't really leave the truck behind either. Ah well, t'was about the journey and not the destination.
We're spending the better part of a week in PEI and New Brunswick before hitting up Ottawa on the 14th or so, then back to Vancouver on the 17th for Lance's wedding. Hillary and I are planning on going on short rides most days, though what counts as a short ride may be open to debate now, 'short' means something totally different now. :)
PEI is supposed to have great riding roads, so I'm looking forward to that to say the least.
Anyhow, more updates will come as we get there.
The descision was made in Fredericton, when we ended a day with the truck losing air in the brakes. Turns out most of our problems stemmed from a water pump with shot bearings that stretched the belt that spun the alternator and air compressor. Regardless, we lost something like four full riding days with a couple of different garages trying to figure out what was wrong.
Since we didn't carry heavy touring gear, we couldn't really leave the truck behind either. Ah well, t'was about the journey and not the destination.
We're spending the better part of a week in PEI and New Brunswick before hitting up Ottawa on the 14th or so, then back to Vancouver on the 17th for Lance's wedding. Hillary and I are planning on going on short rides most days, though what counts as a short ride may be open to debate now, 'short' means something totally different now. :)
PEI is supposed to have great riding roads, so I'm looking forward to that to say the least.
Anyhow, more updates will come as we get there.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Atlantic Canada
We are here officially now, Edmundston, New Brunswick.
The road climbed up and away from the St. Lawrence, then rolled over gentle hills for the most part for the entire day. Our longest ride in a week in or two, getting close to six hours of pedalling time and well over 7 hours on the road in total.
It was nice to see a 'Welcome to Quebec' sign as well, since it seems that people crossing from Ottawa to Gatineau are not worthy of being welcomed to la Belle Province. All you see crossing the Ottawa river is a small metal sign with the single word, "Quebec".
Our goal for today is to get somewhere in the ballpark of Perth-Andover which will put us in striking distance of Fredericton for tomorrow. By my calculations we have something like 840km of riding left to us, hard to believe how close we are getting. I for one am looking forward to lobster in Halifax though.
Not much more time now, enjoy the week and all that good stuff.
Out.
The road climbed up and away from the St. Lawrence, then rolled over gentle hills for the most part for the entire day. Our longest ride in a week in or two, getting close to six hours of pedalling time and well over 7 hours on the road in total.
It was nice to see a 'Welcome to Quebec' sign as well, since it seems that people crossing from Ottawa to Gatineau are not worthy of being welcomed to la Belle Province. All you see crossing the Ottawa river is a small metal sign with the single word, "Quebec".
Our goal for today is to get somewhere in the ballpark of Perth-Andover which will put us in striking distance of Fredericton for tomorrow. By my calculations we have something like 840km of riding left to us, hard to believe how close we are getting. I for one am looking forward to lobster in Halifax though.
Not much more time now, enjoy the week and all that good stuff.
Out.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
The hills have thighs.
So, as expected, after my last comment on the flatness of Quebec, I am rapidly proven wrong.
Due to some Truck problems, we headed out of Quebec late in the afternoon and thus rode for a much shorter period. We took the official scenic cycling route out east of the city and it was awesome. It was also on the bottom of a ridge the entire way. This meant that while the road was quite tame for the most part, every turn up to the left was ridiculous. I decided that I should ride up one of the hills. 24%, officially, which makes that a Warren Record for steepness.
The climb was about 400m long and while I think the 24% wasn't constant, the average was probably closer to 20%, there were steep bits. Anyhow, that was cool.
The next day brought more, and those were unavoidable. The 362, which seemed on paper a nicer ride, and seemed even better when we saw a group of 20 or so riders coming off the road, was tough.
It started with a 5km climb at 10% and while this was the largest single sustained climb of the road, there were several pitches of 12+. Most of these weren't signed, but given the short climb of the day before, I can start making some good guesses... Suffice it to say, we successfully climbed some 15% and 18%, including one awesome climb up through a small town.
This road was awesome, but brutally hard. We ended up walking when a climb out of St. Irene hit close to 20%, the sign officially called for 18% for 1km, which is really quite silly.
Anyhow, due to further Truck troubles, we are now in Riviere-du-Loup and should hit Edmundston tomorrow, and the Maritimes.
Due to some Truck problems, we headed out of Quebec late in the afternoon and thus rode for a much shorter period. We took the official scenic cycling route out east of the city and it was awesome. It was also on the bottom of a ridge the entire way. This meant that while the road was quite tame for the most part, every turn up to the left was ridiculous. I decided that I should ride up one of the hills. 24%, officially, which makes that a Warren Record for steepness.
The climb was about 400m long and while I think the 24% wasn't constant, the average was probably closer to 20%, there were steep bits. Anyhow, that was cool.
The next day brought more, and those were unavoidable. The 362, which seemed on paper a nicer ride, and seemed even better when we saw a group of 20 or so riders coming off the road, was tough.
It started with a 5km climb at 10% and while this was the largest single sustained climb of the road, there were several pitches of 12+. Most of these weren't signed, but given the short climb of the day before, I can start making some good guesses... Suffice it to say, we successfully climbed some 15% and 18%, including one awesome climb up through a small town.
This road was awesome, but brutally hard. We ended up walking when a climb out of St. Irene hit close to 20%, the sign officially called for 18% for 1km, which is really quite silly.
Anyhow, due to further Truck troubles, we are now in Riviere-du-Loup and should hit Edmundston tomorrow, and the Maritimes.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
On the road again
The week off was fairly uneventful. Lots of chores and running around to do, coupled with me feeling pretty terrible for a couple of days lead to, well, something. By the end of the week, Hillary was doing much better and we were ready to go.
Sort of.
Got up Saturday morning to a flat tire on both the road bike and the cross bike. Great. I broke the tire levers switching the road bike tire. Before the day was out, I'd have gone through three more tubes. Time to get more I am thinking.
From Ottawa, our route was to cross into Quebec and take the 148 until somewhere before Montreal and pass north of the city. Mom's only caveat prior to setting out on this trip was that she would not drive in Montreal. This was fair as far as we were concerned. After all, north of Montreal should be pretty scenic right?
Well, turns out, if you stay south of the hills, Quebec isn't the greatest province for riding, at least thus far. The three hundred or so km after we got outside of Ottawa rivaled the flattest roads on the prairies. Which wasn't bad I suppose. We had a nice tailwind for three of those days, which lead to lots of fast cruising. Hillary seems to be stronger after the rest as well, so we're going faster even when the winds die.
It's also much more civilized as well. For the first four thousand or so kilometres of the trip, we'd get waves from truckers and random people waving at us. For the most part, this was due to where we were. Virtually anywhere on the roads we've been on, up until midway through Ontario, the only cyclists on the road were the ones who were touring in one form or another. Now that we're in much more civilized, much more populous regions, we see people out for day rides all the time.
This 'much more civilized' is also the reason I haven't really taken any pictures for a few days. We haven't really been in the wild yet and I don't really know when we'll hit it again.
So we're in Quebec City now. Seemed like a good place for a day off, which was actually probably a mistake, I really should have gone on a couple of rides around the city, there are some awesome roads and steep little climbs all over. Ah well, I will need to find some cyclosportif ride in the city and do that one day. Bodes well for the next few days of riding. Hills are slower, but much more fun.
As for the roads, the highways aren't as bad as Manitoba, the towns are worse. Much worse. Catastrophic was a word that was used in some random small town that we hit.
We also had our first official wrong turn of the trip a couple of days ago. We were riding along the 158 and the directions for the day were basically: Ride the 158 until it ends, then take the 138. Turns out the 158 is very poorly signed in a few places and we lost it. About 10km later, we realized the highway signs were showing the wrong numbers and that set off the alarm bells. Fortunately we were going only about 45 degrees off the direction we should have been going on and ended up only adding about 10km to the day's ride.
We're back on the road tomorrow barring anything weird happening. Happy Canada Day if I'm not back before then.
Sort of.
Got up Saturday morning to a flat tire on both the road bike and the cross bike. Great. I broke the tire levers switching the road bike tire. Before the day was out, I'd have gone through three more tubes. Time to get more I am thinking.
From Ottawa, our route was to cross into Quebec and take the 148 until somewhere before Montreal and pass north of the city. Mom's only caveat prior to setting out on this trip was that she would not drive in Montreal. This was fair as far as we were concerned. After all, north of Montreal should be pretty scenic right?
Well, turns out, if you stay south of the hills, Quebec isn't the greatest province for riding, at least thus far. The three hundred or so km after we got outside of Ottawa rivaled the flattest roads on the prairies. Which wasn't bad I suppose. We had a nice tailwind for three of those days, which lead to lots of fast cruising. Hillary seems to be stronger after the rest as well, so we're going faster even when the winds die.
It's also much more civilized as well. For the first four thousand or so kilometres of the trip, we'd get waves from truckers and random people waving at us. For the most part, this was due to where we were. Virtually anywhere on the roads we've been on, up until midway through Ontario, the only cyclists on the road were the ones who were touring in one form or another. Now that we're in much more civilized, much more populous regions, we see people out for day rides all the time.
This 'much more civilized' is also the reason I haven't really taken any pictures for a few days. We haven't really been in the wild yet and I don't really know when we'll hit it again.
So we're in Quebec City now. Seemed like a good place for a day off, which was actually probably a mistake, I really should have gone on a couple of rides around the city, there are some awesome roads and steep little climbs all over. Ah well, I will need to find some cyclosportif ride in the city and do that one day. Bodes well for the next few days of riding. Hills are slower, but much more fun.
As for the roads, the highways aren't as bad as Manitoba, the towns are worse. Much worse. Catastrophic was a word that was used in some random small town that we hit.
We also had our first official wrong turn of the trip a couple of days ago. We were riding along the 158 and the directions for the day were basically: Ride the 158 until it ends, then take the 138. Turns out the 158 is very poorly signed in a few places and we lost it. About 10km later, we realized the highway signs were showing the wrong numbers and that set off the alarm bells. Fortunately we were going only about 45 degrees off the direction we should have been going on and ended up only adding about 10km to the day's ride.
We're back on the road tomorrow barring anything weird happening. Happy Canada Day if I'm not back before then.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
And the unplanned
So we'll be in Ottawa in two days.
Hillary is going to be at least a couple more days in recovering before she can ride again, so directly due to that, we have elected to get closer to the family doctor, now that we've recieved the okay to handle things ourselves. From there we can do a few short rides and our planned departure from Ottawa will be Saturday for the last threeish weeks of the trip.
Dissapointing? Yes, but you can't plan for everything. Fortunately, it's not more serious and just requires some downtime to heal. It's still a nigh on three month cycling vacation, so it's really all good in the grand scheme of things.
Hillary is going to be at least a couple more days in recovering before she can ride again, so directly due to that, we have elected to get closer to the family doctor, now that we've recieved the okay to handle things ourselves. From there we can do a few short rides and our planned departure from Ottawa will be Saturday for the last threeish weeks of the trip.
Dissapointing? Yes, but you can't plan for everything. Fortunately, it's not more serious and just requires some downtime to heal. It's still a nigh on three month cycling vacation, so it's really all good in the grand scheme of things.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Lake Superior Ups and Downs
Wow.
That about sums up the scenery.
According to the 9th edition of the Lonely Planet's Canada book, "The Lake Superior shore is one of those drives you must do before you die." Much of the writing in various sources touches on the fact that the Group of Seven was inspired and spent much time in the shield around the lake. I can certainly believe that.
The roads are generally fairly good, on Hwy 17, the traffic isn't atrocious, but it doesn't matter because you're just looking around so much that you don't care much about these things, black flies aside. The combination of rock, water and trees reminds me of my favourite parts of BC mountain country. Ancient rock with plants and trees clinging to it, digging the roots in. I've tried to take some pictures to show what I mean, but really, it doesn't do it justice. Nothing does.
Suffice it to say, we are talking seriously about making a point of going for a cross country ski trip up here somewhere within a year or two, simply to enjoy the scenery without the spectre of the madness caused by insects.
We also saw a cougar. That was very, very cool, you don't often see these dudes. Cruising along the highway somewhat north of Wawa and I see a shape crossing the road. The brain quickly goes through the choices: "Wolf, no way, not a canine. Obviously not an ungulate. Way to big for a lynx. A cougar? I didn't think these were around here. Awesome!"
That took all of about a half second, then it was point fast and yell at Hillary, "Cougar, mountain lion up there, look!"
It padded across the road and up into the trees. We talked very loudly for the next few minutes (since we were climbing, we weren't riding overly fast) but I really wasn't concerned. Better to be prudent though, we were downwind.
As far as the riding goes since Thunder Bay, good, with some downs, but we're getting to that.
We cheated on our first day out of Thunder Bay. There was a long stretch of construction. We drove over it a couple of times on our trips out to the mine and Ouimet Canyon. Enough to have a long and difficult debate as to whether we should actually ride it. Basically it was the extended gravel sections with lots of traffic that did it. Given that we completely re-routed our path through BC (Hwy 1 to Hwy 3) based on construction, we elected to skip it. So we missed 30km of road. I'm hoping skipping %0.4 of the trip isn't too bad. :) I'll make it up elsewhere, I promise.
We had decent weather that day though, the first 60km flew by and then we turned into the wind at Nipigon. Due to us feeling good, we ended up doing about 140km and stopping at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park. Spectacular, as were the bugs.
From there, we continued through amazing country into Marathon, where we splurged and got a motel for the night so we could have baths for pretty much the first time in months. The hills got pretty serious on this ride, we had at least two that were upwards of 7% and somewhere in the ballpark of 3km long. Nothing compared to the big mountain passes, but still difficult. Starting to get warm as well, which is a nice change.
Marathon to White River was flatter, but definitely rolling. Hot sun beating down on us most of the time. Note that I am not complaining, we've been waiting for the chance to do this. This part of the ride was not quite as scenic, the roads were straighter and the trees were closer. The dominant feature of the day was going through an area where a massive forest fire had gone through a few years ago. The road wound through the short trees and blasted trunks for probably 15-20km.
Finally, White River to Wawa, starting to get back into the rocks and climbs. Again, not as serious as Nipigon to Marathon, but you can tell it's coming again. And that's where we are now.
And likely to be for at least a few days. Hillary took a minor injury a few days ago, which got infected and now requires some professional treatment. So until we get the okay from the doctors, we're parked.
Depending on how long that is, we may have to skip ahead to Ottawa to get back on track, or I may be riding alone for a few days. Regardless, we'll see how it goes.
That about sums up the scenery.
According to the 9th edition of the Lonely Planet's Canada book, "The Lake Superior shore is one of those drives you must do before you die." Much of the writing in various sources touches on the fact that the Group of Seven was inspired and spent much time in the shield around the lake. I can certainly believe that.
The roads are generally fairly good, on Hwy 17, the traffic isn't atrocious, but it doesn't matter because you're just looking around so much that you don't care much about these things, black flies aside. The combination of rock, water and trees reminds me of my favourite parts of BC mountain country. Ancient rock with plants and trees clinging to it, digging the roots in. I've tried to take some pictures to show what I mean, but really, it doesn't do it justice. Nothing does.
Suffice it to say, we are talking seriously about making a point of going for a cross country ski trip up here somewhere within a year or two, simply to enjoy the scenery without the spectre of the madness caused by insects.
We also saw a cougar. That was very, very cool, you don't often see these dudes. Cruising along the highway somewhat north of Wawa and I see a shape crossing the road. The brain quickly goes through the choices: "Wolf, no way, not a canine. Obviously not an ungulate. Way to big for a lynx. A cougar? I didn't think these were around here. Awesome!"
That took all of about a half second, then it was point fast and yell at Hillary, "Cougar, mountain lion up there, look!"
It padded across the road and up into the trees. We talked very loudly for the next few minutes (since we were climbing, we weren't riding overly fast) but I really wasn't concerned. Better to be prudent though, we were downwind.
As far as the riding goes since Thunder Bay, good, with some downs, but we're getting to that.
We cheated on our first day out of Thunder Bay. There was a long stretch of construction. We drove over it a couple of times on our trips out to the mine and Ouimet Canyon. Enough to have a long and difficult debate as to whether we should actually ride it. Basically it was the extended gravel sections with lots of traffic that did it. Given that we completely re-routed our path through BC (Hwy 1 to Hwy 3) based on construction, we elected to skip it. So we missed 30km of road. I'm hoping skipping %0.4 of the trip isn't too bad. :) I'll make it up elsewhere, I promise.
We had decent weather that day though, the first 60km flew by and then we turned into the wind at Nipigon. Due to us feeling good, we ended up doing about 140km and stopping at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park. Spectacular, as were the bugs.
From there, we continued through amazing country into Marathon, where we splurged and got a motel for the night so we could have baths for pretty much the first time in months. The hills got pretty serious on this ride, we had at least two that were upwards of 7% and somewhere in the ballpark of 3km long. Nothing compared to the big mountain passes, but still difficult. Starting to get warm as well, which is a nice change.
Marathon to White River was flatter, but definitely rolling. Hot sun beating down on us most of the time. Note that I am not complaining, we've been waiting for the chance to do this. This part of the ride was not quite as scenic, the roads were straighter and the trees were closer. The dominant feature of the day was going through an area where a massive forest fire had gone through a few years ago. The road wound through the short trees and blasted trunks for probably 15-20km.
Finally, White River to Wawa, starting to get back into the rocks and climbs. Again, not as serious as Nipigon to Marathon, but you can tell it's coming again. And that's where we are now.
And likely to be for at least a few days. Hillary took a minor injury a few days ago, which got infected and now requires some professional treatment. So until we get the okay from the doctors, we're parked.
Depending on how long that is, we may have to skip ahead to Ottawa to get back on track, or I may be riding alone for a few days. Regardless, we'll see how it goes.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Random Stats
I've put them all online with google spreadsheets. I'll keep this in sync with my local copy whenever I get updates. Link here and on the sidebar now.
Bunch of new pictures are up now too.
Bunch of new pictures are up now too.
Internet is scarce out here.
Long time no blog.
We supposedly had an internet connection in our campsite in Kenora, but it was... Flaky.
As it is here. I am learning that 'free wi-fi' means 'we have a cheap router and want to add the bullet point to our advertising'.
Anyhow.
The good mechanics at Olympia Cycle in Kenora were able to get my wheel back in business while I waited and the next morning, we were off. Happy days.
The route off the main highway we were taking was fairly deserted, which was a nice change after several days of fairly packed roadways. On the other hand, we had seen several signs which indicated we were entering bear country, which somewhat heightened the various senses which were responsible for scanning the woods.
About halfway through the day, Hillary starts dropping the hammer and mumbles something at me. I catch up and say, "Pardon?"
"There is a bear in the trees, on the left."
"What? Where?" as I slow down to check things out. Hillary then speeds up even more and I see her side of things and match her speed. I see nothing but trees, but whine for a few days that next time she should warn me before if some interesting wildlife is in the woods nearby.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, save for some CN workers deciding to blow what I assume was a stump when we were less than 100m from it. If you've seen footage of mortar shells hitting the dirt in WWI or WWII and that's exactly what it looked like. We were close enough that I could feel the whomp in my chest. Worrisome, especially when debris started raining down on us. Mostly water and some light dead wood by the time it hit us on the road, but that's hardly the point.
We made it to Kenora and into Ontario later that day. Home province now, w00t!
From Kenora we were basically back on highway 17 and the Trans-Canada, which in large part meant that I missed much of the scenery. The traffic wasn't overly bad for much of the day, though by late afternoon it was pretty solid. The worst part was the transports. Not one at a time, but when you'd get batches going in both directions at once. Regardless,whenever traffic got busy, I found myself just focusing on the road and not the shield in general.
Which was too bad. For the first 100km or so east of Kenora was quite nice. Short little climbs and descents winding around rocky formations and lakes. As we got closer to Dryden, the rollers became more gentle and we broke out into farmland.
The next two days, ending at the Cobblestone Lodge and English River respectively, were pretty unpleasant. We had a fairly stiff headwind that kept our speed way down and it was cold and rainy. The high point of the two days was seeing a few moose and the gift of some freshly caught trout fillets from a camper at the Cobblestone Lodge. A most excellent dinner those made.
English River, really nothing more than a little fishing lodge, was not supposed to be the destination for the day, but after a 4 hour slog to get 84km up the road and encountering heavy transport traffic, we decided to pack it in for the night. The hope was that we'd hit better weather the next day, which really didn't require much.
That night, we got a pretty serious thunderstorm that lead into a great tailwind. Power got knocked out of the entire town for most of the evening, you can see Tanya's blog for more details on that... Anyhow, to make up for our short days, we did our first imperial century of the trip. Total mileage for the day was 167km, or about 104 miles. That was exciting.
We ended the century at Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park and celebrated our lengthy ride with a couple of pints and a hike down to the falls. The falls were pretty impressive, but Mom really didn't like the idea that the power generation company basically remotely controls how impressive the falls are. Essentially the power company has an agreement with Ontario that they will keep the water flow over the falls to at least x cubic metres per second at various times. Weekdays, the falls are less impressive, weekends, when more tourists/campers are out and about, they turn up the volume. It sort of takes something away from it.
From Kakabeka, it was a short ride through Thunder Bay to Shuniah. Rather than take a rest day, we elected to do a short ride, then tour around in Truck for a bit to see some of the natural things around here we'd miss on our bikes.
First stop was an amethyst mine. Not a whole bunch to actually see there, but the best part by far, was the mining part of it. They dump their tailings and cuttings in a 5 acre pit and let anyone root through it. The ground is speckled in purple and for $3 per pound, you can carry off whatever you find. I found a nice big chunk that is going to go on my desk and we found several smaller chunks with nice colour that we should be able to get cut into earrings or something similar. Not the highest gem quality rocks, sure, but still pretty cool.
Getting to the mine involved going up, then down, a 12% or so gravel road. It was a bit hairy, but no problems, despite some stress leading up to the descent. And I saw a bear on the way down! Gone before we could get the camera out, but still.
Next stop was Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park. On our way to the park, who did we see pedalling up the 17? Tanya and Attila. (forgive me if this is misspelled, I'm going from memory, I'm writing this offline and will just cut and paste and probably forget about checking) Probably surprised them, but it was good to see that they hadn't been eaten by bears yet. :)
The canyon is also pretty cool. It's basically a glacier carved hole in the ground 3km long and 150m deep. At the bottom, it's basically it's own microclimate and has a bunch of arctic plants that you can't find anywhere south of Hudson's Bay. Due to this, you aren't allowed to walk down there, but you can overlook it.
Finally, back to the Terry Fox monument. We all know about him, so it doesn't need to be repeated here, but still. Riding across the country is much faster than running and it's taking us a long time. A marathon a day would have been beyond ridiculous. Unimaginable.
So that about brings us up to date. We're heading back into the back country, so it might be a while before the next update. We're taking a real rest day today, we're utterly covered in bug bites and could probably use a real day off to do laundry, play some mini golf and just relax.
We supposedly had an internet connection in our campsite in Kenora, but it was... Flaky.
As it is here. I am learning that 'free wi-fi' means 'we have a cheap router and want to add the bullet point to our advertising'.
Anyhow.
The good mechanics at Olympia Cycle in Kenora were able to get my wheel back in business while I waited and the next morning, we were off. Happy days.
The route off the main highway we were taking was fairly deserted, which was a nice change after several days of fairly packed roadways. On the other hand, we had seen several signs which indicated we were entering bear country, which somewhat heightened the various senses which were responsible for scanning the woods.
About halfway through the day, Hillary starts dropping the hammer and mumbles something at me. I catch up and say, "Pardon?"
"There is a bear in the trees, on the left."
"What? Where?" as I slow down to check things out. Hillary then speeds up even more and I see her side of things and match her speed. I see nothing but trees, but whine for a few days that next time she should warn me before if some interesting wildlife is in the woods nearby.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, save for some CN workers deciding to blow what I assume was a stump when we were less than 100m from it. If you've seen footage of mortar shells hitting the dirt in WWI or WWII and that's exactly what it looked like. We were close enough that I could feel the whomp in my chest. Worrisome, especially when debris started raining down on us. Mostly water and some light dead wood by the time it hit us on the road, but that's hardly the point.
We made it to Kenora and into Ontario later that day. Home province now, w00t!
From Kenora we were basically back on highway 17 and the Trans-Canada, which in large part meant that I missed much of the scenery. The traffic wasn't overly bad for much of the day, though by late afternoon it was pretty solid. The worst part was the transports. Not one at a time, but when you'd get batches going in both directions at once. Regardless,whenever traffic got busy, I found myself just focusing on the road and not the shield in general.
Which was too bad. For the first 100km or so east of Kenora was quite nice. Short little climbs and descents winding around rocky formations and lakes. As we got closer to Dryden, the rollers became more gentle and we broke out into farmland.
The next two days, ending at the Cobblestone Lodge and English River respectively, were pretty unpleasant. We had a fairly stiff headwind that kept our speed way down and it was cold and rainy. The high point of the two days was seeing a few moose and the gift of some freshly caught trout fillets from a camper at the Cobblestone Lodge. A most excellent dinner those made.
English River, really nothing more than a little fishing lodge, was not supposed to be the destination for the day, but after a 4 hour slog to get 84km up the road and encountering heavy transport traffic, we decided to pack it in for the night. The hope was that we'd hit better weather the next day, which really didn't require much.
That night, we got a pretty serious thunderstorm that lead into a great tailwind. Power got knocked out of the entire town for most of the evening, you can see Tanya's blog for more details on that... Anyhow, to make up for our short days, we did our first imperial century of the trip. Total mileage for the day was 167km, or about 104 miles. That was exciting.
We ended the century at Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park and celebrated our lengthy ride with a couple of pints and a hike down to the falls. The falls were pretty impressive, but Mom really didn't like the idea that the power generation company basically remotely controls how impressive the falls are. Essentially the power company has an agreement with Ontario that they will keep the water flow over the falls to at least x cubic metres per second at various times. Weekdays, the falls are less impressive, weekends, when more tourists/campers are out and about, they turn up the volume. It sort of takes something away from it.
From Kakabeka, it was a short ride through Thunder Bay to Shuniah. Rather than take a rest day, we elected to do a short ride, then tour around in Truck for a bit to see some of the natural things around here we'd miss on our bikes.
First stop was an amethyst mine. Not a whole bunch to actually see there, but the best part by far, was the mining part of it. They dump their tailings and cuttings in a 5 acre pit and let anyone root through it. The ground is speckled in purple and for $3 per pound, you can carry off whatever you find. I found a nice big chunk that is going to go on my desk and we found several smaller chunks with nice colour that we should be able to get cut into earrings or something similar. Not the highest gem quality rocks, sure, but still pretty cool.
Getting to the mine involved going up, then down, a 12% or so gravel road. It was a bit hairy, but no problems, despite some stress leading up to the descent. And I saw a bear on the way down! Gone before we could get the camera out, but still.
Next stop was Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park. On our way to the park, who did we see pedalling up the 17? Tanya and Attila. (forgive me if this is misspelled, I'm going from memory, I'm writing this offline and will just cut and paste and probably forget about checking) Probably surprised them, but it was good to see that they hadn't been eaten by bears yet. :)
The canyon is also pretty cool. It's basically a glacier carved hole in the ground 3km long and 150m deep. At the bottom, it's basically it's own microclimate and has a bunch of arctic plants that you can't find anywhere south of Hudson's Bay. Due to this, you aren't allowed to walk down there, but you can overlook it.
Finally, back to the Terry Fox monument. We all know about him, so it doesn't need to be repeated here, but still. Riding across the country is much faster than running and it's taking us a long time. A marathon a day would have been beyond ridiculous. Unimaginable.
So that about brings us up to date. We're heading back into the back country, so it might be a while before the next update. We're taking a real rest day today, we're utterly covered in bug bites and could probably use a real day off to do laundry, play some mini golf and just relax.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Broken
Stop location: Outside of Elma
lat 49.93799N
lon 95.90592W
alt 305m
110km
4:36
23.9km/h
Our stop location was supposed to be another 20km up the road and we were feeling pretty good, so it wasn't going to be a problem. Unfortunately, as we got past Elma, I noticed that I was getting some rubbing from my back wheel. I looked down and could see a pretty serious wobble as I rode.
Stop, lift up the rear wheel, hit the pedals, yep, wheel's damaged. Broken spoke, which was pretty much the only real mechanical I wasn't setup to handle. Alas.
Given our location we drove on to Kenora knowing that as a tourist destination it should have a bike shop. So now we're sitting in a coffee shop waiting until noon to see if the bike shop can fix the wheel within a day or so. (or even if they are open) And if that fails, we'll drive on back to Winnipeg as they have far more options for repairs. Good thing we have a support vehicle, simplifies this quite a bit to say the least.
The ride itself was great up until that point. We hit the outskirts of the shield and got to ride over a nicely flooded road. That was awesome. I've uploaded a couple of pictures of the road and one of Hillary riding through the shallowest of the three 'creeks' that were crossing it. None were too bad, but one was probably 3 inches deep.
Following that we were chased by some gigantic bugs for about 20km. They were obviously sitting in our draft trying to land. Fortunately, they didn't actually manage to do that, it was still creepy turning around and seeing a dozen or so of these things swarming behind you. I don't think they were black flies, but I really don't know. They sort of looked wasp-like, but not quite the right colour.
So yeah, we should be riding again Tuesday. Perhaps tomorrow if we get really lucky. We shall see.
lat 49.93799N
lon 95.90592W
alt 305m
110km
4:36
23.9km/h
Our stop location was supposed to be another 20km up the road and we were feeling pretty good, so it wasn't going to be a problem. Unfortunately, as we got past Elma, I noticed that I was getting some rubbing from my back wheel. I looked down and could see a pretty serious wobble as I rode.
Stop, lift up the rear wheel, hit the pedals, yep, wheel's damaged. Broken spoke, which was pretty much the only real mechanical I wasn't setup to handle. Alas.
Given our location we drove on to Kenora knowing that as a tourist destination it should have a bike shop. So now we're sitting in a coffee shop waiting until noon to see if the bike shop can fix the wheel within a day or so. (or even if they are open) And if that fails, we'll drive on back to Winnipeg as they have far more options for repairs. Good thing we have a support vehicle, simplifies this quite a bit to say the least.
The ride itself was great up until that point. We hit the outskirts of the shield and got to ride over a nicely flooded road. That was awesome. I've uploaded a couple of pictures of the road and one of Hillary riding through the shallowest of the three 'creeks' that were crossing it. None were too bad, but one was probably 3 inches deep.
Following that we were chased by some gigantic bugs for about 20km. They were obviously sitting in our draft trying to land. Fortunately, they didn't actually manage to do that, it was still creepy turning around and seeing a dozen or so of these things swarming behind you. I don't think they were black flies, but I really don't know. They sort of looked wasp-like, but not quite the right colour.
So yeah, we should be riding again Tuesday. Perhaps tomorrow if we get really lucky. We shall see.
Friday, June 1, 2007
And then there were two
First things first:
Outside Portage la Prairie
lat 49.97556
lon 98.13530
alt 267m
136km
7:28
18.3km/h
Winnipeg
lat 49.86698N
lon 97.26195W
alt 228m
68km
3:14
20.94km/h
That gives us 2852km in 126 hours and 46 minutes of pedalling.
As you can see by the hour numbers, the ride from Brandon to Portage (pronounced portage, with the 'age' part sounding like morgage, not the more franglish portahj) was our longest for pedalling time, far and away.
We started out with yet another headwind, but since the weather reports pretty much indicated suckage for the next two days, we figured we might as well get as far as we could and then have a shorter day into Winnipeg. That was a wise descision, however ridiculous the ride was. Believe me when I say that riding into the wind at 18km/h for most of the day is not the most mentally stimulating task one could do.
The traffic was also pretty heavy, so we're looking forward to getting off of the main transport truck route, which should happen for at least the first day out of Winnipeg and then again after Nipigon. An informal survey done for 20 minutes on that long day showed a roughly 2-1 ratio of civilian vehicles to transports, so there are a lot of them out there.
We're staying in Winnipeg with a good friend of my family's, Aaron MacInnes. This means comforts of a home for another couple of days, which is exceptional all around. It also means we don't have to guess what's good and not in the city. We have a guide.
Tanya also departed today. She gets to experience both types of cross Canada touring on this trip, the supported and now the unsupported touring. While I respect that, I do not envy lugging that weight up hills (or around corners, or on rough roads, or stopping, or accelerating). We were originally talking about going that route, but now that we're halfway across, I have to highly recommend the support van approach. It will be interested to follow her reports and see which one works better. :)
Tomorrow we should be just brushing the outskirts of the shield depending on how it goes and by Sunday, the prairies will be behind us for good. Now for the most desolate parts of the ride.
Outside Portage la Prairie
lat 49.97556
lon 98.13530
alt 267m
136km
7:28
18.3km/h
Winnipeg
lat 49.86698N
lon 97.26195W
alt 228m
68km
3:14
20.94km/h
That gives us 2852km in 126 hours and 46 minutes of pedalling.
As you can see by the hour numbers, the ride from Brandon to Portage (pronounced portage, with the 'age' part sounding like morgage, not the more franglish portahj) was our longest for pedalling time, far and away.
We started out with yet another headwind, but since the weather reports pretty much indicated suckage for the next two days, we figured we might as well get as far as we could and then have a shorter day into Winnipeg. That was a wise descision, however ridiculous the ride was. Believe me when I say that riding into the wind at 18km/h for most of the day is not the most mentally stimulating task one could do.
The traffic was also pretty heavy, so we're looking forward to getting off of the main transport truck route, which should happen for at least the first day out of Winnipeg and then again after Nipigon. An informal survey done for 20 minutes on that long day showed a roughly 2-1 ratio of civilian vehicles to transports, so there are a lot of them out there.
We're staying in Winnipeg with a good friend of my family's, Aaron MacInnes. This means comforts of a home for another couple of days, which is exceptional all around. It also means we don't have to guess what's good and not in the city. We have a guide.
Tanya also departed today. She gets to experience both types of cross Canada touring on this trip, the supported and now the unsupported touring. While I respect that, I do not envy lugging that weight up hills (or around corners, or on rough roads, or stopping, or accelerating). We were originally talking about going that route, but now that we're halfway across, I have to highly recommend the support van approach. It will be interested to follow her reports and see which one works better. :)
Tomorrow we should be just brushing the outskirts of the shield depending on how it goes and by Sunday, the prairies will be behind us for good. Now for the most desolate parts of the ride.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
We have arrived in Winnipeg
And that is all I have to say about that.
Windows is teh suXors.
I will post more tomorrow when hopefully I have a working laptop that can actually access the internet.
Windows is teh suXors.
I will post more tomorrow when hopefully I have a working laptop that can actually access the internet.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
And province number 4...
Welcome to Manitoba.
Out of Regina we followed the Trans Canada down to the small town (is there another type?) of
Stop location: Grenfell
lat 50.41347N
lon 102.93769W
alt 578m
121km
5:12
23.3km/h
The day was a bit... tedious. The weather and wind was nice enough and the road wasn't too bad, but it wasn't overly scenic and nothing really interesting happened. Cars and trucks went by, we saw trees and fields and birds. And I'm really stretching it here trying to find more to say. Of course, it then led into the next day...
Stop location: Sask welcome centre
lat 50.05966N
lon 101.44820W
alt 540m
121km
5:38
21.5km/h
This day was not a good day at all. The last 40km or so of the ride was through construction so it was dusty and narrow. Due to the nature of the construction, we were even further from anything really remotely resembling nature. Alas.
And now we are here:
Stop location: Brandon
lat 49.88784N
lon 99.95679W
alt 408m
126km
4:43
26.7km/h
Our to date total is 2648km in 115 hours and 44 minutes of pedalling, which means a rolling average of 22.8km/h.
Todays ride was equally not scenic, though as we got within 20km of Brandon, it got a bit more green, a bit more hilly and a bit nicer. The wind actually treated us well today, being at best a nice tailwind for about two hours, then fading into a fairly neutral position for much of the rest of the ride.
After yesterday's kicking of my hiney by the road, I felt much better today and actually was able to hammer it up the one climb of the day so that was good for the ego. I'm looking forward to getting out of the prairies though. BC was tough, but fun and the scenery was outstanding and changing. The prairies are beautiful, but very similar as you go across them, outside of a few different micro areas such as the badlands and parks like the Saskatchewan Landing.
Two days from now we'll be in Winnipeg, so here's to the restocking of gear at MEC and we're now officially within striking distance of the halfway point.
And that's hard to believe.
Out of Regina we followed the Trans Canada down to the small town (is there another type?) of
Stop location: Grenfell
lat 50.41347N
lon 102.93769W
alt 578m
121km
5:12
23.3km/h
The day was a bit... tedious. The weather and wind was nice enough and the road wasn't too bad, but it wasn't overly scenic and nothing really interesting happened. Cars and trucks went by, we saw trees and fields and birds. And I'm really stretching it here trying to find more to say. Of course, it then led into the next day...
Stop location: Sask welcome centre
lat 50.05966N
lon 101.44820W
alt 540m
121km
5:38
21.5km/h
This day was not a good day at all. The last 40km or so of the ride was through construction so it was dusty and narrow. Due to the nature of the construction, we were even further from anything really remotely resembling nature. Alas.
And now we are here:
Stop location: Brandon
lat 49.88784N
lon 99.95679W
alt 408m
126km
4:43
26.7km/h
Our to date total is 2648km in 115 hours and 44 minutes of pedalling, which means a rolling average of 22.8km/h.
Todays ride was equally not scenic, though as we got within 20km of Brandon, it got a bit more green, a bit more hilly and a bit nicer. The wind actually treated us well today, being at best a nice tailwind for about two hours, then fading into a fairly neutral position for much of the rest of the ride.
After yesterday's kicking of my hiney by the road, I felt much better today and actually was able to hammer it up the one climb of the day so that was good for the ego. I'm looking forward to getting out of the prairies though. BC was tough, but fun and the scenery was outstanding and changing. The prairies are beautiful, but very similar as you go across them, outside of a few different micro areas such as the badlands and parks like the Saskatchewan Landing.
Two days from now we'll be in Winnipeg, so here's to the restocking of gear at MEC and we're now officially within striking distance of the halfway point.
And that's hard to believe.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Regina
That is where we are.
From our last update, we've been through a couple of days of riding:
Stop location: Beasent Campground
lat 50.46177N
lon 105.96590W
alt 590m
139km
5:56
23.4km/h
Stop location: Regina
lat 50.44907N
lon 104.50904W
alt 599m
120km
6:12
19.3km/h
So the total now is 2280km in 100 hours and 11 minutes, 22.8km/h.
The day out of Swift Current was our longest yet, but overall it was one of our better rides. Though perhaps it goes without saying that most of our longer rides are ones that we're feeling good about in some way, shape or form. With the gale force winds that had been dogging us for several days now gone, our complaints now turned to the temperature, which has been hardly spring like for the past week or two. Given that we were hardly chilled to the bone, it was more a case of wanting to ride in shorts and a light jersey. Alas, one day.
From our last update, we've been through a couple of days of riding:
Stop location: Beasent Campground
lat 50.46177N
lon 105.96590W
alt 590m
139km
5:56
23.4km/h
Stop location: Regina
lat 50.44907N
lon 104.50904W
alt 599m
120km
6:12
19.3km/h
So the total now is 2280km in 100 hours and 11 minutes, 22.8km/h.
The day out of Swift Current was our longest yet, but overall it was one of our better rides. Though perhaps it goes without saying that most of our longer rides are ones that we're feeling good about in some way, shape or form. With the gale force winds that had been dogging us for several days now gone, our complaints now turned to the temperature, which has been hardly spring like for the past week or two. Given that we were hardly chilled to the bone, it was more a case of wanting to ride in shorts and a light jersey. Alas, one day.
So anyhow, we had decent, though cold, weather and the winds were not unkind to us. We also ran into our first long distance cycling compatriot on the road. Mr. Vic Lindal who was travelling from Victoria.
The stop for the night was a campsite in the middle of nowhere that was treed and had creeks and ponds. Considering the serious lack of foliage that the prairies tend to have, this was a welcome change. Shortly before we actually arrived at the place, I was longingly gazing at a suspiciously ordered grove of trees pretending that it was a wild forest.
We are still in flooding season out here and several of the lower sites at the place were actually under a small creek which was flowing happily over roads and picnic areas.
The easterlies were back with a vengance the next day though. Well, perhaps not that serious. A stiff east breeze blew in our faces all day, not enough to be totally demoralizing, but enough to make this our longest day in the saddle.
Much thanks must go to Tim de la Horton and the chili for providing sustenance for the ride. After nearly two hours on the road and covering a pitiful 38km, I decided that it would be a good idea to fuel up. I knew that the ride into Regina was not going to be a quick 80km. We had planned to stop at the Shack of Tim to get the Saskatchewan picture for Tanya (and it happened to be next to a 10 ton concrete moose, so double points for tourist trap as well) so it fell into place.
And for the jokes about seeing prairie cities from hours away? True, on a bike at least. Hillary made the first call, but we definitely were able to see Regina with close to two hours of riding left. Figure somewhere between 30 and 40km out. When facing into a headwind, watching your mythical destination for two hours is... tough.
That about brings us up to date. We took today off in Regina and are heading back onto the Trans Canada tomorrow morning. May the westerlies find us.
The stop for the night was a campsite in the middle of nowhere that was treed and had creeks and ponds. Considering the serious lack of foliage that the prairies tend to have, this was a welcome change. Shortly before we actually arrived at the place, I was longingly gazing at a suspiciously ordered grove of trees pretending that it was a wild forest.
We are still in flooding season out here and several of the lower sites at the place were actually under a small creek which was flowing happily over roads and picnic areas.
The easterlies were back with a vengance the next day though. Well, perhaps not that serious. A stiff east breeze blew in our faces all day, not enough to be totally demoralizing, but enough to make this our longest day in the saddle.
Much thanks must go to Tim de la Horton and the chili for providing sustenance for the ride. After nearly two hours on the road and covering a pitiful 38km, I decided that it would be a good idea to fuel up. I knew that the ride into Regina was not going to be a quick 80km. We had planned to stop at the Shack of Tim to get the Saskatchewan picture for Tanya (and it happened to be next to a 10 ton concrete moose, so double points for tourist trap as well) so it fell into place.
And for the jokes about seeing prairie cities from hours away? True, on a bike at least. Hillary made the first call, but we definitely were able to see Regina with close to two hours of riding left. Figure somewhere between 30 and 40km out. When facing into a headwind, watching your mythical destination for two hours is... tough.
That about brings us up to date. We took today off in Regina and are heading back onto the Trans Canada tomorrow morning. May the westerlies find us.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Route change!
So our total to date is 2021km in 88 hours at an average speed of 22.9km/h.
So over two thousand kilometres behind us now.
I have to admit with some shame that I did not get the stop point coords for the ride out of Kindersley, but I do have the distance numbers:
Camp location: Elrose
108km
4:47
22.5km/h
We got about 30km east of Kindersley and then had a bit of a brainstorm, why fight the wind if we have to go south anyhow? So we headed south and used the next two days of strong north winds to cover as much territory as we could. We are now back on the Trans Canada highway in
Stop location: Swift Current
lat 50.30733N
lon 107.76475W
alt 747m
117km
4:08
28.3km/h
From here we go east to Moose Jaw, Regina and then on to Winnipeg.
I've been fighting a cold for the last couple of days, so the turn south definitely helped my mental state. Riding at 17km/h into a vicious wind is demoralizing and not a whole lot of fun. It's too loud to really chat with anyone and you never get a break from pedalling. Once we turned south and put that wind at our back, anything remotely resembling downhill we could sit and up just coast.
Cruising at 35km/h for stretches was great for morale and made riding and feeling miserable much more bearable. The final descent down into Swift Current was pretty cool as well, without pedalling, I hit 78km/h. This was without pedalling, so if I had put some effort in, I probably would have hit a Warren Record for speed. Hillary shattered her old top speed record with something like 71km/h down that hill.
Other random stats:
New Warren Record for no hands riding, set on the day into Carbon: 3km
New Warren Record for no hands riding, high speed, yesterday while snacking: 48km/h
Number of Clif Bars dropped on the road and not retrieved due to riding at 48km/h and not wanting to turn around to pick it up: 1
Turns out snacking at nearly 50km/h is harder than at 30km/h due to much higher winds. Ah well.
So over two thousand kilometres behind us now.
I have to admit with some shame that I did not get the stop point coords for the ride out of Kindersley, but I do have the distance numbers:
Camp location: Elrose
108km
4:47
22.5km/h
We got about 30km east of Kindersley and then had a bit of a brainstorm, why fight the wind if we have to go south anyhow? So we headed south and used the next two days of strong north winds to cover as much territory as we could. We are now back on the Trans Canada highway in
Stop location: Swift Current
lat 50.30733N
lon 107.76475W
alt 747m
117km
4:08
28.3km/h
From here we go east to Moose Jaw, Regina and then on to Winnipeg.
I've been fighting a cold for the last couple of days, so the turn south definitely helped my mental state. Riding at 17km/h into a vicious wind is demoralizing and not a whole lot of fun. It's too loud to really chat with anyone and you never get a break from pedalling. Once we turned south and put that wind at our back, anything remotely resembling downhill we could sit and up just coast.
Cruising at 35km/h for stretches was great for morale and made riding and feeling miserable much more bearable. The final descent down into Swift Current was pretty cool as well, without pedalling, I hit 78km/h. This was without pedalling, so if I had put some effort in, I probably would have hit a Warren Record for speed. Hillary shattered her old top speed record with something like 71km/h down that hill.
Other random stats:
New Warren Record for no hands riding, set on the day into Carbon: 3km
New Warren Record for no hands riding, high speed, yesterday while snacking: 48km/h
Number of Clif Bars dropped on the road and not retrieved due to riding at 48km/h and not wanting to turn around to pick it up: 1
Turns out snacking at nearly 50km/h is harder than at 30km/h due to much higher winds. Ah well.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Weather is teh sux0rs
May 19
For the record, we stopped here in Richdale:
lat 51.61036N
lon 111.60322W
alt 768
So with the warnings of 50+km/h gusts and supposed tornado warnings, we elected to stay still. I mostly fought with the computer for the afternoon. The thing has a really nice lcd screen, 1280x800, but for some reason Windows thinks it's a 1024x768. So you either get a distorted full screen image or a smaller image with a bunch of unused screen real estate. It is massively annoying and fueling my hatred of all things Microsoft.
There are no monitor drivers that I can find for this thing, and the built in ones do not have 1280x800 as a default option. Madness.
Regardless, it was a relaxing day. A hot tub in the motel beside us was used for muscle relaxing and we were happy.
May 20
Stop location: Alsask, SK
lat 51.38827N
lon 109.98946W
alt 711
122km
4:54
24.85km/h
Heading out from Hanna we got most of the day finished in the real prairies. Flat, flat, flat until somewhere around the 100km mark where we got some gentle rollers. Our stop point, the town of Alsask (name came from the location, border of Alberta and Saskatchewan) was... Different.
The campsite, I hesitate to call it that, was a field with a couple of concrete patches and a few picnic tables. The town itself appeared to be a ghost town. A bit of interweb research showed that it used to be a military radar installation that was shut down in the late 80's and everyone moved out.
As for the ride, uneventful, I took a couple of prairie pictures and we hit Saskatchewan. Two provinces down!
May 21
Rainy.
Windy.
Cold.
Stop location: Kindersley
lat 51.46013N
lon 109.14436W
alt 695m
65km
3:49
17km/h
Check out that average speed. Hideous, but it really couldn't get much better.
Strong cross/headwinds for the entire day and it rained harder and harder over the course of the day. Fortunately, it wasn't overly cold, so our cores stayed warm, but none of us could unzip zippers or work the velcro on our riding shoes without serious concentration. Ten minutes after getting inside and getting changed, I still didn't have the finger dexterity to do up the button on my pants. Tanya couldn't get her gloves off and had to ask for help, it was ridiculous. For the last 10km or so, I was in the same gear since I couldn't get my fingers to work properly to shift.
Roger and Heather had soup and hot chocolate waiting when we finished, which was critical to our happiness. Hillary evidently decided that the weather was bad enough that she should sing, while riding. According to her it it was very unfortunate that she did not know more rain songs.
Kindersley was another location with relatives! That meant a most excellent dinner and a place to do laundry again. Thank you.
For the record, we stopped here in Richdale:
lat 51.61036N
lon 111.60322W
alt 768
So with the warnings of 50+km/h gusts and supposed tornado warnings, we elected to stay still. I mostly fought with the computer for the afternoon. The thing has a really nice lcd screen, 1280x800, but for some reason Windows thinks it's a 1024x768. So you either get a distorted full screen image or a smaller image with a bunch of unused screen real estate. It is massively annoying and fueling my hatred of all things Microsoft.
There are no monitor drivers that I can find for this thing, and the built in ones do not have 1280x800 as a default option. Madness.
Regardless, it was a relaxing day. A hot tub in the motel beside us was used for muscle relaxing and we were happy.
May 20
Stop location: Alsask, SK
lat 51.38827N
lon 109.98946W
alt 711
122km
4:54
24.85km/h
Heading out from Hanna we got most of the day finished in the real prairies. Flat, flat, flat until somewhere around the 100km mark where we got some gentle rollers. Our stop point, the town of Alsask (name came from the location, border of Alberta and Saskatchewan) was... Different.
The campsite, I hesitate to call it that, was a field with a couple of concrete patches and a few picnic tables. The town itself appeared to be a ghost town. A bit of interweb research showed that it used to be a military radar installation that was shut down in the late 80's and everyone moved out.
As for the ride, uneventful, I took a couple of prairie pictures and we hit Saskatchewan. Two provinces down!
May 21
Rainy.
Windy.
Cold.
Stop location: Kindersley
lat 51.46013N
lon 109.14436W
alt 695m
65km
3:49
17km/h
Check out that average speed. Hideous, but it really couldn't get much better.
Strong cross/headwinds for the entire day and it rained harder and harder over the course of the day. Fortunately, it wasn't overly cold, so our cores stayed warm, but none of us could unzip zippers or work the velcro on our riding shoes without serious concentration. Ten minutes after getting inside and getting changed, I still didn't have the finger dexterity to do up the button on my pants. Tanya couldn't get her gloves off and had to ask for help, it was ridiculous. For the last 10km or so, I was in the same gear since I couldn't get my fingers to work properly to shift.
Roger and Heather had soup and hot chocolate waiting when we finished, which was critical to our happiness. Hillary evidently decided that the weather was bad enough that she should sing, while riding. According to her it it was very unfortunate that she did not know more rain songs.
Kindersley was another location with relatives! That meant a most excellent dinner and a place to do laundry again. Thank you.
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