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Non-Thorn Related / Re: +++Rides of 2024+++Add yours here+++
« Last post by John Saxby on Today at 02:01:40 am »And the story cont'd to mid-May:
And Photo 5 shows the foliage of the greening woods on either side of an uphill in the lower reaches of the park.
On May 15, I set off for a ride to the summit of the road system in the park, the Champlain Lookout at the top of the escarpment on the east side of the Ottawa River. This was a fairly significant marker: I was last there in early June 2022 (BSE – the before Surgery Era). Between early March and mid-May, I had made a few rides beyond Pink Lake (about 33 kms round trip from our house), extending the distance each time. My route to Champlain would be 56 kms round trip. The net gain of elevation is not huge, just less than 300 metres, but the ride features constant climbing, interrupted by regular descents.
The change in my surroundings, signalled by the trees in the photos above, was dramatic: Photo 6 shows Pink Lake in its early summer foliage. And it wasn’t just the trees that had changed. The ferns in the woods beside the bikepath had unfurled, and the first trilliums (trillia?) of the year graced the verges of the roadway. (Photo 7.)
I was down a couple of cogs on the hills, partly by circumstance, and partly by choice, to maintain my cadence. The day was warm and humid, and I reached the top in good order. Photo 8 shows Freddie catchin’ some midday rays on a hazy summer day atop the escarpment. The big river is just visible through the haze, in the upper left of the photo. The Nameless Wee Brown Thing just above the river is not a bird: it is a black fly on the lens of my Panasonic Lumix. (Hence also the dark blotch in a similar spot above the left-side fir tree in Photo 6.)
Ahhh, the black fly. “Normally”, a rider meets lots of other cyclists at Champlain Lookout. We chat about this’n’that, admire the view, acknowledge what a treasure this place is, offer to take photos of each other & the bike, usw, usw. Not today. Even though it’s mid-May, and blackfly season doesn’t “normally” start until the beginning of June, today there are hordes of the brutes. And, there is no defence against them. A few nods and remarks about the bugs, a rapid inhalation of an energy bar or a banana, a ditto of water, and back on the bike, just a hundred metres or so to the first so-welcome downhill.
What would Keats have said, I’ve often wondered, had he known about such creatures? “Hail to thee, vile spirit…”?
Wade Hemsworth’s song-and-cartoon pretty much nails it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f389hIxZAOc
I made it home in surprisingly good time – about 3 ½ hrs’ cycling, an average of 16 km/h. Once at home, my quads let me know that they were not entirely happy with the day, but some stretching eased the stiffness. And remarkably, my time was around my “usual” for a there-and-back 😊 .
And Photo 5 shows the foliage of the greening woods on either side of an uphill in the lower reaches of the park.
On May 15, I set off for a ride to the summit of the road system in the park, the Champlain Lookout at the top of the escarpment on the east side of the Ottawa River. This was a fairly significant marker: I was last there in early June 2022 (BSE – the before Surgery Era). Between early March and mid-May, I had made a few rides beyond Pink Lake (about 33 kms round trip from our house), extending the distance each time. My route to Champlain would be 56 kms round trip. The net gain of elevation is not huge, just less than 300 metres, but the ride features constant climbing, interrupted by regular descents.
The change in my surroundings, signalled by the trees in the photos above, was dramatic: Photo 6 shows Pink Lake in its early summer foliage. And it wasn’t just the trees that had changed. The ferns in the woods beside the bikepath had unfurled, and the first trilliums (trillia?) of the year graced the verges of the roadway. (Photo 7.)
I was down a couple of cogs on the hills, partly by circumstance, and partly by choice, to maintain my cadence. The day was warm and humid, and I reached the top in good order. Photo 8 shows Freddie catchin’ some midday rays on a hazy summer day atop the escarpment. The big river is just visible through the haze, in the upper left of the photo. The Nameless Wee Brown Thing just above the river is not a bird: it is a black fly on the lens of my Panasonic Lumix. (Hence also the dark blotch in a similar spot above the left-side fir tree in Photo 6.)
Ahhh, the black fly. “Normally”, a rider meets lots of other cyclists at Champlain Lookout. We chat about this’n’that, admire the view, acknowledge what a treasure this place is, offer to take photos of each other & the bike, usw, usw. Not today. Even though it’s mid-May, and blackfly season doesn’t “normally” start until the beginning of June, today there are hordes of the brutes. And, there is no defence against them. A few nods and remarks about the bugs, a rapid inhalation of an energy bar or a banana, a ditto of water, and back on the bike, just a hundred metres or so to the first so-welcome downhill.
What would Keats have said, I’ve often wondered, had he known about such creatures? “Hail to thee, vile spirit…”?
Wade Hemsworth’s song-and-cartoon pretty much nails it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f389hIxZAOc
I made it home in surprisingly good time – about 3 ½ hrs’ cycling, an average of 16 km/h. Once at home, my quads let me know that they were not entirely happy with the day, but some stretching eased the stiffness. And remarkably, my time was around my “usual” for a there-and-back 😊 .