1000 kilometers !!, and a decision .

So yesterday I took Betsy ( 2200 Trek ) out for a ride and did a pleasant 47 km which brought my total for this year up to 1018 km, half of the requested training they want us to do before we embark on our trip. I’m 179 km ahead of last years training with the same amount of rides 21 , just been doing longer ones this year.

And even though it was nice to be back riding Betsy I found myself missing the comfort of the 520 and that made the decision as to which bike to take easier as it’s going to be a long ride and comfort over speed is the key component to surviving it, as Andy said “it’s a holiday, don’t worry about your speed “ . So Betsy will go back into retirement and wait until I get home in September when I can again become a weekend warrior and join the guys and gals for some fast and furious rides on Saturday mornings.

Here are my totals for April:

10th of April … 45.1km ( first ride back after being sick )
11th of April … 12.6 km
13th of April … 70.1 km
14th of April … 46 km
15th of April … 50.5 km
18th of April … 123.9 km
19th of April … 45.2 km
21st of April … 45.2 km
23rd of April … 55.6 km
26th of April … 38.1 km
28th of April … 50.8 km
29th of April … 47.8 km

For a total of 630.9 km in April

So now with May here and the longer evenings I’ll have to concentrate on stretching my rides a bit longer. Will have to back off a bit around mid month when I go on night shift waiting for the next foaling , but as soon as that’s done I’ll hit the road hard and long !!!

A special thanks to Miss Gillian for stitching up my trunk rain cover. Amazingly it hardly rained at all in April so I haven’t been able to try them out, but there is a threat of rain for tomorrow and Sunday, so now I’m ready.

Hills and wind !!!

I’ve had a couple of good training rides this week , Monday I couldn’t start until 5.30 so I took advantage of the waning rush hour traffic and headed south to do some climbing on the King City hills. An extra challenge to the hills was the 28km wind (with gusts of 37 km) coming from the north-west. The first 14 km down Keele St. was fun and fast, I crossed westwards on Kerby and came back up Jane and then Weston and then through Kettleby, the wind made it interesting but I had good legs so I was able to push it most of the way and actually had one of my better average speed rides ,24 km/h for the 38 km I did, granted it was a short ride.


Today I spent the day working outside in the wind, and it was WINDY !!!! 28km with gusts of 50 km !!! and let me tell you there was a lot of gusting going on!!! So by the end of the day I was ready to go out there and play in the wind and test myself again, although I was a little worried about the cross winds and the traffic but I wanted to get a feel of that kind of wind because I am sure we will encounter that and worse during the trip.

I started off with the same route as on Monday as the winds were also from the NW today and those gusts made it a bit more challenging this time especially while cresting the hills and on some of the down hills. I kept a firm hold of the handlebars for most of the ride, even going for the water bottle was tricky and had to be time just right in the shelter of the wind, or to get a good drink I actually would stop. All in all it was another very good training run, I extended it a bit more going down Keele and then Jane and crossing over to Pine Valley via Teston, the way back was mostly up hill and against the wind on Pine Valley, Jane and Weston and on the way home once again I went down into Kettleby and had to climb out.

I like Kettleby because it is one of the few places were I can easily exceed the maximum posted speed limit which is 40km, just have to be careful as the road is pretty rough !! . I am told you can not get a speeding ticket on a bicycle in Ontario, I’m not sure about that and will have to research that a bit as I would hate to actually get a ticket because of misinformation . The only time I was actually clocked was last year on McCowan , I had just crested and started going down and there was the policeman in his car aiming the speed gun my way , I waved as I approached and he shouted back to me “37” ( it was a 60 zone).

So 50 km today and once again I felt good , I am happy with the conditioning so far , now I have to start putting in some long rides to be ready for “Southern Ontario Century Ride” on May 29th and 30th , back to back 160 km rides !!!

Its getting closer, just two months to go !!!!

Today in two month I will be making my way to Vancouver on an early morning West Jet flight to start the adventure of a lifetime. Hard to believe that there is just 61 days left to go. I still remember the conception of this idea way back in the late summer of 2008, then it seemed like I had all the time in the world to get ready for it , a very long wait ahead , well now that wait is quickly coming to an end and the adventure is about to begin!!!! I’m getting excited !!! , and nervous !!! at the same time!!!!.

So now I have to get serious about finalizing all the details , I have most of what I need and a list of what I want ( just a matter of purchasing it ) But now the packing comes into play , I have to fit all that I need for my 10 weeks on the road into two laundry baskets , that is all the space we have on the truck for our stuff : bike clothing , regular clothing , toiletry , bike spare parts , computer and anything else we wish to take . The two baskets live on a shelf in the truck for the duration of the trip; the tent, sleeping bag, mattress and pillow are separate and live in a duffle bag in the isle of the truck while the truck is on the road. So yesterday I went and bought two baskets to start the process which I think will involve a lot of compromising as to what to take and what not to take, fun !!! ,humm we will see.

Meanwhile training continues , today I went for a nice leisure ride , hadn’t done that in a while , did 55 km mainly easy spinning working on cadence and stopping occasionally to enjoy the countryside, it felt good !!!. Up to now I have 881 km of training is in the bag, which leaves two months to do the other 1119, should be quite doable.

Careful what you wish for ( or complain about)

So last week I was complaining that every ride home seemed to be against the wind , I shouldn’t have complained because the powers that be have a sense of humor, they granted me favorable winds home but with a price . For my last three trips I’ve had to endure strong headwinds as I make my way north away from home!!!, and tricky crosswinds going east or west , which make the light winds I was complaining about just a breeze !!!. Oh well but at least I get pushed home!!!, and it’s good practice for the Tour.


Today 45 km was just supposed to be an easy ride but the wind made it a good training ride instead. During today’s ride my front rim somehow developed a small burr that interferes with the brake pad, I’m going to have to see if I can file it down somehow. And once again I got fooled by the warm weather , it was 19 degrees when I left but only 12 when I got home , Burrrrr !!! and of course I left with short sleeves and no leggings , but thanks to the saddle bags I had an extra shirt to put on so at least I didn’t totally succumb to hypothermia.

So yesterday I took Betsy out of hibernation and over to the bike store for a tune up , new chain , cassette, handlebar tape , tires, just to have her in good shape, incase, just incase!! . So while I was there I mentioned that one of the reasons I was apprehensive of taking Betsy across Canada was the wheels, and the salesman agreed saying I should get new ones if I was to do the trip and proceeded to show me these mouth watering wheels . They were “Vuelta Corsa ,Super Light” and they were beautiful !!! and light !!!!, aluminum , sealed hubs and $1,000 for the pair , ouchhhh !!!! I almost bought them so mesmerized I was !!!. So now I am trying to educate myself on wheels .

If anybody out there has some good advice on wheels I love to hear it , so far Pete has steered me in the direction of “Mavic, Kysrium’s” , nice wheels !!

Finally made it up to Lake Simcoe. (123 Kilometers!!!).

The morning started cool and with rain, but it cleared and just before 9 I took to the road. It was cold just 7 degrees and quite windy from the NNW which was good and bad. Good because the roads were dry but bad because I had to deal with cross winds and head on winds for most of the ride and today I went fully loaded front and rear trunk bags.

I headed east on the St Johns Sideroad then on Vivian Rd to McCowan Rd were I headed north . I like to take McCowen instead of the faster Warden Ave. because it’s very scenic, some nice high view points , lots of farms ( today the smell of manure being spread on the fields which brings back fond memories of my childhood) and it's lightly traveled with some good climbing at the beginning. The cross winds had affected me a bit till then but I was dealing with it and the head winds weren’t to bad at the beginning of my northward trip but then once the climbing was done it hit me, 26 km wind with gust of 37 km and it was like climbing a big hill all the way north !!!! . I got to Old Homestead Rd after what seemed like an eternity and turned west and no real improvement all the way to Keswick ,

 there finally a bit of a reprieve as I picked up Lake Dr N. and skirted the lake all the way to Kennedy Rd. It’s a most pleasant ride along the lake , 40 km zone and posted for pedestrians , cyclist and cars to share the road, pretty cottages and of course the water. Today there were very little of anything on the road as oppose to summer time when the place is packed with cottagers and day trippers.

I stopped at the little store at the end of Kennedy Rd and had my usual lunch of sausage and a sweet , took some pictures and then headed back to Warden for the trip south , that part was fun !!!! flying along being pushed by the wind but unfortunately it didn’t last long as I had to head west at Queensville Rd and the cross winds were brutal all the way to the Marsh .

Anyways I finally made it home at 3.12 after zigzagging through the Marsh. A very slow trip!!!, 5 hours, 39 minutes in the saddle, that’s what worries me about this bike my average speed is slow and time gets ahead of me and doesn’t leave much room for stopping and enjoying the trip. Now today the wind was a factor but still it was a slow ride, one of my slowest by far, the good thing is that I was fit enough for it and could have gone longer, so the training is working. I’ll be riding again tomorrow to see how I recover from a long ride and that will also tell me a lot about what stage I am at in my training.

So at the end of the day I was very pleased to have made it up to the lake , it’s one of my favorite trips , it’s one of those soul soothing trips that leaves you with a good feeling once you get home. And today as a bonus I spent some time watching Bufflehead ducks offshore while they were diving for food . Thankfully there still is quite a bit of wildlife up here in spite of the increase in the human population

Oh, what a beautiful day.

Oh, what a beautiful day today 22 degrees when I took off with a bit of a cross wind from the south or as my grandson would say ‘ the flags are flaging ) , it was only an 18 km wind but it was constant and the bike with bags on handled it very well ( the rider too !! ), we will have to see how a real wind affects it , but that’s for another day.

I headed out to Lloydtown then up to Schomberg ( it was fast going north !!! ) . I dropped in to see my godchildren and saw there new biking purchase ( Josh and Wiggy in picture  ) ,

I’m trying to talk them into doing the Ride for Heart with us but so far without success. From there I headed up to the 5th Line and headed east to the Marsh were I zigzagged my way through to Keele street and then headed home .

Now, I’ve been out 3 days in a row and for all three days I've had to cycle into the wind to get home , what’s up with that ??, tomorrow I’m not riding and I bet the wind will be coming from the north !!!

So 50 km today , 46 yesterday and 70 the day before , I’m slowly getting in shape , although I have lost a bit of conditioning while I was sick. I’m ready to put in a long ride but the weather this weekend doesn’t look great, just have to wait and see.

The Marsh is coming to life, tractors everywhere, soil being turned, won’t be long before seeding starts.

 And an unusual sighting today , 5 canoes in the North Canal , yesterday one , in all the years of riding through there I have hardly ever seen one , this year almost every ride, it’s giving me the want to take our canoe over and go paddling for a change.

 

Test ride today was a success!!!

Had a very good ride today with all my new alterations and nothing fell off !!
I headed north to farm country after a little warm up in the Marsh , up the 5th Sideroad to the 9th Line and today as I passed Pete’s house low and behold Pete was actually there!!! , so I stopped and chatted for a while , he gave me some good routes to take for hill climbing which I plan to investigate one day soon. From there I headed west to do some climbing on the hills around Beeton coming back along the 5th Line .

70 km all together today!!! , that put me over the 500 km mark so one quarter of the training is in the bag !!! , not bad. I felt pretty good for all but the last 5 km when I started to get a little leg weary. The country side up there is a lot greener then the last time I was up there , I took the camera with me and took a couple of shots .

So all in all everything worked just fine and the big surprise is the Brooks saddle, I was a bit skeptical about it but it turned out to be very comfy. My patched up mirror actually held much to my surprise, I still have to try the helmet mirror. I tried putting it on yesterday but it’s not all that easy to figure out the ideal placement. Bob I might have to wait till you are over to help me with that.

 
This is the stretch of the 5th Line I call pothole hell , they’ve filled some in but that really doesn’t help that much as it creates speed bumps instead.

Working on the bike.

Was up late last night with our first foaling and was quite tiered today so opted not to ride , instead I took advantage of the spare time do some work on the bike and install some of the new goodies I had purchased this winter.
Mounted the front trunk bag, a Topeak “TourGuide Handlebar Bag “ to carry the camera, glasses , phone, wallet, etc …

Put the additions on the back rack to accommodate the fold down panniers for carrying spare clothing or discarded clothing.

And I swapped saddles and installed the new Brooks saddle, they say the most comfortable saddle there is, we shall see.

All that is left is to find a new mirror (I’ve taped the one I have but it won’t last long) and install the third water bottle cage, the one I initially put on was open at the front and I don’t trust it to hold the water bottle over bumpy ground as it is under the “down tube” and will take a lot of jarring down there.

It all adds a bit of extra weight but it gives me the opportunity to be self sufficient out on the road and to have a minimum of creature comforts.

Tomorrow I’ll go for a nice long ride and test it all out.

Back in training !!!!!

Two weeks to the day since I got sick I’m finally back in training. Quite a setback as I was planning to be doing 100 km rides by now , oh well , it is what it is , still lots of training time left. The delay in getting back was that I had to wait until I was able to eat properly again which only happened 3 days ago and then I had to wait to get some strength back which only really happened yesterday.

I took it easy this morning and just did a flat ride, 45 km around the Marsh. It felt good to be back on the road, the legs were a bit heavy at the beginning but then I felt good as I went on. The only complaint I have is that it was COLD !!!!, only 5 degrees when I set out , my fingers were freezing !!!! , it did warm up to a balmy 11 degrees by the time I got home ( nothing like the 24 degrees we had while I was sick ) . I wasn’t the only one that thought it was cold as there were lots of robins and doves hanging around the side of the road taking in the sunshine. Lawns and ditches have got a lot greener since my last ride, and the willow trees are breaking out into leaf, and even though the vast majority of the Marsh is still untouched there were some farmers out there seeding something and covering it with plastic, won’t be long before the Marsh starts producing again.

I put the rack and trunk bag on the bike today, and it works just fine on this bike just as it does on Betsy. I’m using a Topeak RX trunk bag, which slides onto a BeamRack, it works great and I love how easy it is to take off the bike when you stop somewhere. The only thing I need to get is a rain cover for it as it’s not waterproof and does get thoroughly soaked when it rains adding unnecessary weight plus spoiling everything inside. The BeamRack is lighter then a regular rack and it lets you carry up to 9 kg of stuff which is more then enough for this kind if a trip.

I did encounter one problem early in the ride, my mirror broke. I find a mirror a must for road riding and I have been having trouble finding a good mirror to fit this bike. On Betsy I have one that attaches to the handlebar end but I can’t do that with this one as the shifters are there so I’ve experimented with a few options but have found nothing that is specific for this bike so I ended up adapting one, but it was not ideal with the end result that it gave way today. I even contacted Trek and asked them and they really don’t have an answer except to suggest a helmet mirror. I’m not a fan of helmet mirrors but after seeing some of the comments on the “Tour du Canada” forum on the subject I think I’ll give it a whorl, although I still would like a fixed mirror on the bike.

Which bike to take, Trek 2200 or 520, that is the question …

I’m feeling a bit better but not ready to ride just yet, I haven’t been able to eat a proper meal and until I can it’s probably best not to be exercising, right now the target to resume training is the weekend. So to fill this void until I get better I’ll share one of the many issues that turn up when planning a cycling trip across a continent.

So I have a bit of a dilemma here, initially when I made the decision to do the trip I thought that my trusty Trek 2200 “Betsy” and I would be doing it together, after all I just love that bike and have had so much fun with it.

But then I got thinking, a very bad habit of mine and at times like this, not all that helpful. I wondered would it be strong enough for the abuse of such a long ride ( bad roads , construction, possible dirt roads , etc, etc… ) And I wondered if I would regret not having a granny gear in front during all the climbing there will be.

So a lot of research later I came up with the idea that a touring bike would be better suited for the job , simpler components, easier to fix on the road , granny gear , comfortable for long rides , sturdy, etc , etc … and I settled on a Trek 520 which I bought in early august last year.

Once I got the bike home I dug out my mountain bike shoes and off I went riding, initially very happy, but after a few rides I realized that I was slower on the 520 (a whole 2 km/h slower on average) and it bugged me, so I started pushing a bit harder and of course instead of enjoying my rides they became hard work. The reason for the slowness is that the bike is 3 kg heavier and has wider tires. I removed every possible unnecessary part I could off the bike but it made no difference. Then it just became a psychological thing and that is deadly in biking, once you start doubting something look out !!! it only gets worse. Eventually after 600 km I switched back to the 2200 and joy returned !!!

Ever since I have been hemming and hawing about which to take.

So I decided that this year I would start out riding the 520 and leave poor Betsy in the basement, that way I’m not being pulled to the fast bike, not being spoiled !!!. I’m going to give it a fair shake and ride it all of March and April. I’m going to have patience, accept the bike for what it is, teach myself to ride it , and see if I can accept the fact that I’ll be just a bit slower and, hey , it’ll give me a chance to enjoy the scenery a bit more!!!

And if that does not work out, then good old Betsy comes out of the basement and goes on tour with me !!!

Sick

Well, it’s been a bad week, all this beautiful weather and I haven’t been able to ride. Whatever ended up hitting me last Saturday has left me with a bad gastric upset, haven’t been able to eat much and I’m quite dehydrated and weak and have lost a good bit of weight. Not good.

Today finally I went to the doctor and he put me on a plan that should get me out of this mess and back to biking by next weekend, I hope!! I am actually feeling a bit better as I write this so I’m encouraged!!!