Since I finished my 10-day ride through East & Central Ontario in mid-Sept., I've been buried in household chores big and small, with little space for day rides. This, despite weeks of the summer we never had -- sunny and warm-to-hot weather.
A couple of days ago, though, I managed a couple of hours' ride up into the Gatineau Hills. Following Graham Smith's question about lightening his Sherpa, I removed both the front and rear racks from my Raven, and checked the weight. The two together weighed 3 lbs 4 oz. The rear rack, which usually stays on the bike, weighed 2 lbs even. With its alloy fenders and mudflaps, the mounts for my Arkel handlebar bag, bell, one light, and two bottle cages, the Raven weighed almost exactly 30 lbs (13.6 kg.)
It was a warm cloudy day, with very little wind and rain in the offing. It might have been the lighter weight, or perhaps my lighter weight & residual muscle tone after All Those Hills a few weeks ago in early Sept., but the Raven was a gear or two quicker up the hills to Pink Lake.
As one leaves the bike path along the N shore of the Ottawa river (i.e., on the Québec side) and turns towards the Gatineau Park, there's a statue of Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary who lived much of his life in New France in the first half of the 17th century. The first photo below shows him in profile, paddle in one hand and crucifix in the other. The second photo shows the plaque cast after he was beatified in 1925. Brébeuf and one of his colleagues established the mission of Ste-Marie among the Hurons, just south of what is now named Georgian Bay. Brébeuf and his colleague were killed in a raid by the Iroquois in 1649. A recent novel by Joseph Boyden, The Orenda, features a central character similar to Brébeuf; it offers a more complex account of the relations among the French, the British, and the indigenous peoples in what became Ontario and Québec. (Then again, it's some 500 pages long.)
My turnaround point was my usual stop at the overlook at Pink Lake, at the top of one of the steeper hills in the Gatineau. A light rain was beginning to fall, and I chatted with a couple of tourists from California. I apologized for the weather, and said that they'd not have much of a view from the higher lookout further along, to the NW across the Ottawa River. They were disappointed that the autumn foliage was less than spectacular (though they were very nice about it.) As photo #3 shows, the colours are pastel at best. The heavy rains of spring and summer, and the weird "summer" temperatures of September have left us all confused--trees and flowers, birds, tourists, and locals. The geese are wheeling overhead--have been for two or three weeks now--but seem unsure whether to hang about, or head south. In such conditions, it's hard to write folks songs about the departing geese and their melancholy cries as heralds of winter.
Not sure how many more rides I'll make in this season. I'm due for some minor foot surgery in about three weeks, and my recovery will probably mean no more riding before the snow comes. (Mind you, my wife defines "minor surgery" as "surgery on someone else".) I'm planning to resume when we're Down Unda in Feb and March, visiting our family in Queensland. The plan is to take the Raven, so that the fierce climbs (grades in the mid-teens) will be a bit more manageable.
