Rides 2020 +++ Add yours here +++

[Andre Jute]

This is the thread to post your rides, weather reports, and photographs, so everyone else will know where to come look for them. A few exceptions, also for the convenience of other members: If you're on a long tour and intend posting daily or at least regular reports, start a thread so you reports can be kept together; some keen photographers who post regularly may want to keep their quality photographs together in a separate thread; need I say that it's not that such posters aren't welcome, but that the convenience of readers should be considered. Vicarious thrills rule!

andre_jute_the_weir_bandon_winter_2020_800pxw

Too miserable, gloomy, wet, cold, windy, for a serious ride but I had to go down to the Post Office's distribution centre for a parcel I missed at the door and, just to extend even a utility ride when I was already wet and miserable, on the principle that any fresh air is valuable fresh air, took a detour to photograph the clouds over a more inspiring vista. While I was standing on the footbridge with my iPhone, a local clergyman came by and said to me, "See the river to heaven into the clouds?" So there was! Since it snaked from side to side, I muttered to his disappearing back, "Lot of room for waywardness in there."

[John Saxby]

Tremendous skyscape, Andre!

I've seen a few cyclists in Ottawa today, tho' not many: our wayward chinook with its mild weather has given way to uncompromising Saskatchewan weather -- -25 this morning, daytime high of -17 with a brisk northwesterly.  (it's worse elsewhere,however. Edmonton's LRT was stalled by cracked rails caused by the -40 weather there.  The forecast for Newfoundland this evening & overnight is 75 cms of snow, along with high winds and storm surges. 'Tis a night to stay inside, b'y.)

Will post some notes & photos from SE Queensland in mid-late March.

Cheers,  John

[RichardFM]

This is an image from my  ride today.
This is the Usk Valley in South Wales.  It was  ride of just over 60km from Newport via Caerleon and Usk to the Clytha Arms for lunch and a pint and then back.
The ride was from a book called Lost Lanes Wales by Jack Thurston

[Andre Jute]

Will post some notes & photos from SE Queensland in mid-late March.

Look forward to those, John.

What with Canadians riding in Australia, South Africans riding Patagonia, Americans all over the Balkans and Europe and icier countries to the north, Scots and Englishmen riding in Asia and Africa, -- and apologies for anyone whose ambitous rides I left out -- it really sounds like the forum is the Thorn International Outreach Club.

The ride was from a book called Lost Lanes Wales by Jack Thurston.

Good for Jack Thurston! I ride mainly on lanes and the smallest roads here in West Cork, so I'm very keen on their preservation.

That's a beautiful photograph, Richard; I especially like the deep perspective on those far hills disappearing into that brilliant blue sky. It's Wales from the memory box. "How brown was my valley in the winter" -- what Richard Llewellyn almost said.

[Andre Jute]

I went out today, because the temperature, before taking the wind chill into account, was in double figures, 10C, and I was going stir-crazy inside. But the first thing I did was close my jacket's pit vents because the wind was getting overly familiar with my ribs, and then on the footbridge across the river I nearly had my bike's front wheel blown into the railings, a kiss on St Valentine's Day all the way across the Atlantic from Newfoundland. Can't say I recommend her choice of mouthwash.

I stop off at my doctor's surgery, mainly to get warm before crossing the river on the way back home. He insists on taking my blood pressure and while he's at it clamps the heart rate monitor on my finger. He remarks on how quickly my heart rate returns to 50bpm after exercise and I say, "In a racing car, in the middle of a race, when I was young, my heart rate was 45bpm. Medical science, such as it is, has failed me." He's not impressed. He tells me about this Tour de France cyclist who has a heart rate of 25bpm. "If he came into my surgery without telling me who he is, in a flash I'd have him in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, tagged for the Resuscitation Team. A heart rate that low, you could take one beat, go eat lunch, and when you return take up his wrist again for the next beat." I am very impressed with a cyclist so fit his heart rate is that low.

On the way home I come over the motorcar bridge, on the quiet side of a big panel truck. The driver winds down his window to say to me, "Don't ride the countryside back of Aherne's bar [this is a bar at a crossroads in my summer riding grounds] or you'll be on your arse. The crosswinds were fierce, rocking my truck." I don't know his name but I see him in the little roads making deliveries and sometimes he comes to our door too. One of the advantages of riding the same lanes decades on end is that the people who use the lanes get to know you, which for an elderly cyclist is a really valuable resource. His predecessor in that truck picked me up one day when a sudden gust of wind in that area blew me off my bike, probably thirty years ago now.

[John Saxby]

Fierce winds indeed, Andre.  Weather news from Foggie Olde signals that they're continuing.

"Rides of 2020"  for me remain strictly in the realm of visualizing--we just had the two coldest nights of the year, down around -27 with a stiff northwesterly, hence windchills around -35 at 7 AM.  Sunny days, tho' :-)

The plan is for visualizing to become The Real Thing just bef the vernal equinox here & the autumnal Down Unda -- stay tuned.

Cheers,  John

[JimK]

I've got a regular short ride in my neighborhood that's mostly hill:



It's all new houses up there, with empty lots and construction projects. How the housing market will fare under the changing financial situation... we shall see!

[Andre Jute]

What's happening to your annual Australian holiday, John? Our niece, who lives in Adelaide, was in Japan with her grandchild and cut the visit short because the government down under announced that even Australians who had been somewhere else over two weeks would not be allowed back in. That was last week, so the screw may tightened even further in the meantime.

Jim: a pity to waste such fabulous views on empty and half-built houses.We've for years on our rides here looked at estates of fully finished houses that couldn't be sold, or unfinished houses which couldn't be finished because with all the contractor bankcruptcies and the government bailing out the banks, nobody knew who actually owned those houses. This in a country with a very serious housing shortage.

We were having new water mains laid on our street this last week, after months of planning and PR persons from the engineers coming to reassure us they won't wreck the historic street or the historic houses... With the lockdown since midnight last Friday, the street looks like Beirut, and I don't know when the workmen will be back. But I'll be able to get my bike out for a ride.

[JimK]

There are some great bike trails here. I heard that we'll have the hmmm was it the second longest bike path west of the Mississippi. One of the key connections, from the perspective of we folks up here at the north end of things, is a the connection from the Ogden / Weber River Parkways and the Denver & Rio Grand West rail trail.

Here's the River Parkway at the confluence of the Ogden and Weber Rivers:



Right along the Parkway there are a couple bike design & manufacturing outfits. Enve Rims is the established player. Now Selle Royale - and Brooks! - are putting together a research facility:



Here's the Denver & Rio Grand West rail trail:



and the little section of the connection that has yet to be paved:

[Andre Jute]

Right along the Parkway there are a couple bike design & manufacturing outfits. Enve Rims is the established player. Now Selle Royale - and Brooks! - are putting together a research facility

Looks like you made the right move when you went West, Jim. Soon it will be the centre of the cycling world. Super photographs. That will be a stunning trail when it is finished.

[John Saxby]

What's happening to your annual Australian holiday, John?

Thanks, Andre.  We're back home in Ottawa, currently part-way through 14 days of self-isolation.  We reached Queensland on Fri/13th, and on Tuesday/17, learned of the Cdn gvt's advisory (which was categorical & comprehensive) for Canajans abroad to return home.  (An email from our supplementary health insurance provider said, "If you don't, we'll curtail your insurance.")  We rang our travel agent, and she, bless her, within 24 hrs had advanced our return flights by a month, to Wed/25th.

We left the Gold Coast on the morning of the 25th, and reach Ottawa that afternoon, with 28 hrs of travel--flights, and time to, at & from airports. Tip:  don't try this if you have any options.

Since then, we've been recovering from jetlag, catching up on emails, beginning spring cleaning, und so weiter.  We had laid in some supplies bef we left in mid-March (reflexes from a childhood on an Ontario farm, and years in Africa) and friends have augmented our larder.

For us and our family Down Unda, it was a big disappointment, but nothing more than a major inconvenience. Thousands upon thousands of others--and surely more to come--are dealing with a catastrophe.

'Midst everything, I managed a few short-ish rides along the coast & into the hills.  The Coast's autumn sunshine was marvellous :-)  Notes and photos to come.

Spring is just emerging here--mild wet weather, and best of all, a couple of days ago, I saw and heard two big Vees of geese, honking and wheeling northeastwards.  Magical sight and sound, makes me all weepy every time I hear the creatures.

Have used the time indoors to tweak my bikes, and I'm hopeful that I can resume riding in a week-plus.  Not sure about that Gatineau park across the river, however:  authorities have closed it to hikers, and the roads are rarely open to bikes before about the 3rd week of April.

Cheers,  J.

PS:  super photos, Jim!  Love that Wasatch range!!

[Andre Jute]

If the Chinese Virus doesn't get you, 28 hours of travel surely will. I remember straight-through flights from Adelaide to London where over Switzerland I just wanted to die in my own bed. And that was when I was thirty. After one particularly gruesome flight, to arrive in London and find our hotel bookings given to someone else and facing another couple of hours to Cambridge, ever after on the way out we'd break for a week at Kuta Beach in Bali (if you haven't surfed Kuta, you haven't surfed -- just once will do, as it is a dangerous wave for the inexpert), and on the way back in Singapore for a few days of shopping and a visit to Jet Set tailors, who always had a bolt of really loud cashmere ready for me. ("This one loud enough for Mr Duke [John Wayne, the actor] but his wife say over her dead body.") Glad to hear you're taking it in good spirits though, and that you're recovering fast enough to be thinking of cycling. Just up the road here, on one of my regular rides, the Whooper Geese overwinter in a field every year, turning it white, then one day they're just gone north again at dawn. One can see them from the main road or better from the vantage of a country lane on the ridge above the other side of the river. Looking forward to your photographs and tales of tall rides in the Wild Outback.

[Bill]

John, it doesn't look like you will be riding over in Gatineau anytime soon.

No riding around here, we are having the third pulse of old man winter in the last 3 weeks, a crisp -12 in the mornings, snow and highs of -8. All the x-c ski trails are closed, the only thing to do is work on my bikes in the hope that maybe I can get out next week.

[John Saxby]

it doesn't look like you will be riding over in Gatineau anytime soon

You're right, Bill, now that the bridges are closed for the foreseeable.

Mild weather here, and  in the city the snow is almost all gone.  Monday forecast is 12 and sunny     There's been a lot of snow this winter, but the snowpack has steadily diminished, with mild temps and rain, so it appears that the extreme flooding of the past couple of years is unlikely to recur.

Our self-isolation ends next Thursday, so I'm plotting some rides westwards along bike paths and secondary roads.

Meantime, tweaking the bikes in my basement workshop.

Take care,  John

[Bill]

More light snow and continued cold this morning.

In my basement working on bikes, but it is getting hard to source parts. I tried to place an order with SJS, realizing it would take a long time to get here, then I find out they are not shipping to Canada anymore.