May 1st – finally some decent weather for a first ride of 2018 up into the Gatineau Hills! Tuesday was sunny and warm, temps in the high teens with little wind. I’d been looking forward to this ride up into the hills across river for a couple of weeks, but Winter’s Last Shudder postponed it. At last, though, both skies and roads were clear, even if spring is about three weeks late. My ride was a short one—just less than two hours there and back to the lookout over Pink Lake—but it included the first hill I’d climbed since my adventures Down Unda in the hills of the Queensland/NSW border country in February.
There were lots of cyclists on the roads in the Gatineau Park, most going further than I was, up to Champlain Lookout, for me a 3½ hr return journey. That will have to wait ‘til later this week. There were hikers and runners too, and mums with strollers. Motor traffic isn’t allowed until the middle of May or a little later, so my ride was peaceful and stress-free. Cyclists, walkers, runners, and mums-with-little-ones all waved to each other.
But the landscape was pretty much devoid of colour. Things I Didn’t See included fresh greenery. Beyond the conifers and the first tinge of new grass in the roadside verges, there was no green to be seen. In our back yard in the city, the crocuses have bloomed, and the tulips are poking their leaves above the earth. The first buds on the maples, birches, and our crabapple tree are visible, although still tightly furled. Up into the hills, however, even in the lower slopes where I was, there were no flowers at all, and the hardwoods still wore last November’s drab garb. (See photos 1, 2 and 3 below.)
Other Things I Didn’t See included wildlife, except for a solitary woodchuck (a.k.a. as a groundhog) which waddled into the bush when I startled him/her. Strange things happen to your memory on the bike: free association recovered this nonsense riddle from my childhood on the farm –
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?OTOH, because there were
no cars, other Things I Didn’t See included, happily, beer cans and pop bottles along the roadside, nor Tim Horton’s throwaway coffee cups (throwing away the coffee, I can understand and applaud – but littering the countryside with paper cups??), nor Styrofoam fast-food containers, nor foil-and-plastic chocolate-bar wrappers--all things which appear in the park after motorists do. I do see the occasional banana skin rotting by the roadside—possibly/plausibly pitched by a cyclist—but the wretched non-decomposables are something else entirely.
I stopped for a view of Pink Lake at the top of the hill. The first and third photos show that there’s still a layer of rotten ice covering about 75% of the lake. That will be gone in a few days, as will the last remnants of snow banks along the roadside in the lee of slopes facing northeast – cross-country skiers were still enjoying the park in mid-April. (A reference point: photo 4, taken two weeks ago, shows large areas of ice on the Ottawa River.)
Osi the Raven has had a few tweaks, some of them visible in photo #2:
- The tires you see are my spiffy Compass 26 x 1.8 Naches Pass items, still in use because I’ve had no more punctures (yet?) They roll so well that they give me at least one gear higher than my 1.6 Marathon Supremes in similar conditions. Maybe I'll use them for light touring after all…
- I’m trying out a 7-ltr Axiom P7 “Seymour” handlebar bag. It cost me just over Cdn$50 (tax included). The main compartment is about 3 cms larger (L x H) than the main compartment on the smaller (3.8 ltr) P4 Axiom bag which I use for day rides, and the P7 also has a zippered front pocket. At just 202 gms, the P7 weighs substantially less than my Arkel small h’bar bag (950 gms without the mounting hardware), although the Arkel of course has an outstanding mounting system. I’m planning a short tour later this summer in south-western Ontario where I won’t be camping, so I’ll see how the P7 works for that sort of light touring, along with my Revelate Tangle frame bag and my Arkel Dry-lite rear panniers. Carrying a camera, sunglasses, and snack, it slouches a bit, so we’ll see how it behaves with my usual load of touring “stuff”.
- The Raven now has Shim A520 PSD touring pedals (hard to see, I know). The bearings in my Look Kéo pedals finally wore out 14 years after I bought them from Bruce Reyneke cycles in Pretoria. They didn’t owe me anything, but before replacing like with like, I took the opportunity to check out MTB shoes which might be OK for walking off the bike. I was doubtful about finding some, because I have hard-to-fit feet. I was interested in the Shim XC5 [http://www.shimano-lifestylegear.com/us/fw/products/offroad/18ss_002xc5.php], which has had good reviews. It wasn’t wide enough for my feet, for which the Sidi Genius Mega (size 45) is a good fit. To my surprise, I found that the Bontrager Katan (in a size 46) fits me as well as the Sidis, and at a reasonable price, about Cdn$110 less than the Sidis. After a month of testing, I’ve found that they are as comfortable as the Sidis on the bike, and work far better off the bike. So, I’ll keep them for touring, and for day rides on my Raven; the Sidis + Look Kéo setup will remain on my Eclipse derailleur bike. The A520 pedals work well enough, though they don’t click in with the same authoritative SNAP as the Look Kéos.
- Not visible is my soon-to-be-replaced Shim UN55 bottom bracket. For some time now, I’ve had a heavy click/light clank under “power” on the right side, and a noticeable (if not serious) notchy feeling at one or two points in the rotation of the crank arms. I’ll replace it with another UN55: this one has lasted about 12,000 kms, and at a cost of Cdn$40, it’s a fraction the cost of an SKF or Chris King BB. I’ll replace the new Shim BB when my sprocket wears out, probably another 10-11,000 kms hence. The A-word is part of my reckoning, of course—if I thought I could put some serious mileage on an SKF or Chris King product I’d buy one. (What’s the A-word, you ask? “Age”, of course, mon vieux.)
More reports and photos to come -- but I'll wait until I can include some photos with wildflowers and some new foliage on the trees.
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