Rides 2020 +++ Add yours here +++

[Andre Jute]

It's possible, Matt, that the reason for the rather small internal volume of a royal house was the difficulty of heating it.

That's a log house, John, from when men were men.

I vicariously enjoyed both your rides but -- oh woe -- have nothing to report here but heavy rain and more heavy rain. The Green and Beloved Isle will be very beautiful in an early spring -- Irish version of "Next year in Jerusalem" --but intending tourers, especially of the Wild Atlantic West Coast should wait until May or even June and plan to be snugly home by the end of September. We've had few runs of several extended summers recently, and even now at the tail end of November this year it isn't all that cold but you can't count on it, which I've heard said is part the charm and anyhow, as we used say in Australia, where I live on the other side of the country it is usually two degrees Celsius warmer than, say the countryside north of Galway.

[PH]

Thanks John and Matt, just caught up and enjoyed your reports and photos. 
I managed a couple of overnighters between the lockdowns, must get round to looking at the photos and writing them up.

[John Saxby]

First ride of 2021 chez nous yesterday!

Just a tiny one, 3-4 kms to buy a couple of pounds of coffee and do a few things at our credit union, but hey!  Gotta take whatever you can get.

Wednesday was 15 degrees and sunny, that temp making it the hottest Mar 11 on record in Ottawa. Thursday was not far off, so the streets were awash with water from melting snow, people walking and jogging in shirtsleeves or less, giant puddles everywhere 'cos the ground is still frozen and a lot of drains are still covered in ice & snow.

The crows were celebrating, or just making a racket, as they do, and it was a welcome sound.  No geese yet, though--another month or so, I'm guessing.

With a 50-60 km/h westerly behind me, Osi the Raven fairly whizzed to the coffee shop. On the journey back, not so much, the headwind and modest neighbourhood hills reminding me how much cardio-vascular work awaits me when regular cycling resumes in a few weeks' time.

My spiffy new SKS silver chromoplast fenders kept everything pretty dry, tho' I'd fitted my 'glider just in case.  One stretch generated some anxiety: going along a bike path, I had to navigate a puddle 2-3 inches deep and about 25 yards in length. It was a muddy-milky colour, slightly translucent, and I thought, "Oh jeez, hope those milky streaks aren't ice beneath the surface!" as I steered towards the darker bits.

It's going to be colder over the next few days, daytime highs just above zero and nighttime lows down into the mid-teens, so all those huge puddles will become sheets of ice.  In a week's time, with luck, the riverside paths will be rideable, and I might be able to post some photos of the start of spring runoff.

[Andre Jute]

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