+++ Rides 2022 +++ Add yours here +++

[hendrich]

Hi John,

I enjoyed reading your trip account and found it a great enticement for a new area to ride. Although, horseflies are an apex predator during even moderate climbs. On a tandem, they be crafty devils with much kayaker-like experience in finding eddy currents between the captain and stoker. Large chucks of flesh are then extracted. But I digress, the ride along the Rideau Canal looks interesting. Is this possibly a continuation of the Cataraqui trail? Many interesting lakes along that way. In the past, we have toured along the St. Lawrence on 2, but parts of 2 are not so enjoyable. Instead, perhaps from Kingston we could head north, connect with the Cataraqui trail to near Ottawa and then the Prescott Russel Trail eastward. Any experience with these trails?

We looped Gaspe this year starting from Trois Rivieres. We will approach Perce from the south next time, that was work! The ride from Matapedia through Amqui was stunningly beautiful (as was the entire ride). Learned much about Quebec church history (not so good) and the salmon rivers north of Matapedia. We stopped on a bridge overlooking the Matapedia river some distance north and met a person who pointed to salmon in the river eddies by some fishermen. During our chat with him, he said he owned 20 km of the river and that he was looking after his customers. I’m not sure if he meant just the fishing rights or the whole river. People pay large sums of money to coax a fish from the eddy. We left with an eerie feeling.

We are on our 2nd Nemo tent. The first succumbed to UV damage after 9 years. A 3 person tent is the right size for 2 people, and importantly, a bit more length for a taller person.

The best of luck with your hip surgery. I hope you are soon back on the Mercury humming Bohemian Rhapsody.
Mike

[John Saxby]

Thanks, Mike.  Glad you enjoyed my wee adventure.

On rail trails in the extended neighbourhood:

I confess I don't know them especially well, though I've crossed the Cataraqui Trail a few times.  I've usually chosen to ride from Ottawa to the St Lawrence or Lake Ontario via sealed back roads, stopping at locks along the Rideau Canal here and there.  Happy to share those routes with you if you like.

Tom Norton, who posts on the Forum now and then, passed through a few years ago, and he and Kathy took the Prescott-Russell trail eastwards towards Monttéal.

Highway #2 isn't much fun on a bike, though those parts of the the Waterfront Trail (from Niagara to Montréal) which I've ridden have been generally quite enjoyable.  It's through quite densely populated countryside, tho'  -- some people like that, others less so.  I grew up in that area, so it's familiar, if not "grand".

A trail that will be grand is the Ottawa Valley Rail Trail.  This follows the old CP line along the Ottawa River, beginning in Smiths Fall (about 75 kms SW of Ottawa), and going all the way to Mattawa, 296 kms.  Here's a link: https://ontariobiketrails.com/item/ottawa-valley-rail-trail/  The southern portion of the trail was due to open this summer.

(That phrase, "all the way to Mattawa" echoes a song by Stompin' Tom Connors, in praise of Big Joe Mufferaw, a French-Canadian draveur, who "paddled all the way to Mattawa in just one day." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk-x_tBPzzM  Joseph Montferrand--"Mufferaw" is the anglicized corruption--we understand, used to argue the finer points of Catholic liturgy with his Irish co-religionists in the first half of the 19th century. Legend has it that he always won those debates -- by chucking the other side into the river.)

There's also the K & P trail, tracing the route of the Kingston-to-Pembroke railway, though I'm told that much of that is fairly rough.

On the Québec side, le P'tit Train du Nord is a well-established trail that runs from St-Jérôme, just NW of Montréal, 200 kms further N & W to Mont-Laurier.  From there, one can follow secondary roads to Maniwaki,a little SW from Mt-Laurier, and from there, the Route des Draveurs, which takes you very close to Ottawa.  I may do some of that next spring or summer, with Freddie.

North and west of Ottawa, including trail on both sides of the Ottawa River, is the recently-established Log-Driver's Waltz, an 800-km bikepacking trail.  Here's the link to that: https://www.logdriverswaltz.ca/  I haven't done any of this route, though there's a fair number of cyclists in these parts who have,   One can pick and choose sections, of course.  Earlier this summer, on a shakedown ride west of Ottawa, I spoke with a group of six who were doing a 5-day tour which overlapped with the Log-Driver's Waltz trail.

("The Log-Driver's Waltz", BTW, is a delightful song by Wade Hemsworth, who also wrote "The Black Fly".  Here's the illustrated version, featuring the young Kate and Anna McGarrigle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upsZZ2s3xv8)

The Gaspé is extraordinary, isn't it? Hope you had good weather on your ride. I rode the Gaspé clockwise in 2010, starting from Matapédia and finishing there.  (The Gaspé was the first part of Canada that I saw from the boat when we came to Canada in May 1956, so I've always had a soft spot for it.)  If you enter Percé from the west, though, bear in mind that the hill in the village is a 24% climb.  My buddy, Jim, and I bailed on going down that -- coming from the east, we took the truck bypass west of the village.  Reason I started at Matapédia, BTW, is that there's a McGarrigles' song with the refrain, "And we raced the Matapédia to the sea." Yes, there is a common thread there...

Feel free to send me a PM if you care to pursue any of this, Mike.

Cheers,  J.

[John Saxby]

Dragging the mouse across the map, it causes a window to pop up, which announces that you covered 158km in 8hrs 7mins. Holy Moses, in part against 60kph winds!

Andre, as far as I can tell, Google uses a 20 km/h rate for cycling routes, no matter the terrain or weather.  That figure might work for me on the route I followed, (i) in calm weather; (ii) with no stop lights; (iii) with an unloaded bike; and (iv) if I'd followed only tarmac or hard-gravel surfaces.

And, just to reassure you, my reference to "waves of existential despair" was a bit tongue-in- cheek -- I don't do despair, either, though I am comprehensively bummed out by the appalling urban design that is 21st-century Ottawa, if "design" is the word I want. This is the urban century, after all, and this is the best we can do?  Long time back, I used to work with a Cockney Jewish guy from East Ham whose favourite invocation was, "Jesus wept.  Bitter, bitter tears." I find myself using that a lot on urban roads. OTOH, as a friend says, nothing is ever a complete loss, as it can always serve as a negative example.

Cheers,  J.

[UKTony]

Headwinds, Horseflies and Loose Gravel:
Notes on cycle-camping with Freddie the Mercury

(2nd & final instalment)

The rear rack merits a heads-up footnote:

When I ordered my Mercury frameset, forks and components, I planned to use my spare Tubus Vega rear rack.  In my prep for this trip, I was surprised to see that the Mercury has just one threaded hole above each rear dropout.  These would accept bolts for rear mudguard stays or a rear rack, but not both……..

John - very much enjoyed your latest mini adventure, thank you.

As regards the Mercury/mudguard stays/Tubus Vega rack dilemma, just wondered if you know about these ( the pictures in the sale listing show how to fit them)

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/mudguards/thorn-ferrule-for-creating-w-mudguard-stays-for-thorntubus-racks-each/

I use  a Vega rack on-and-off on my Nomad and use these ferrules coupled to P clips for when I use the rack and keep a separate set of mudguard stays cut to length to attach at the frame drop out mounts for when I don’t use the rack.

I’ve recently acquired a used Mercury (2013 in excellent condition with only about 1000 miles on the clock) which has an Avid BB7 mtn rear disc unit which makes fitting the Tubus Vega rack well nigh impossible but Thorns told me that the TRP Spyke disc brake unit has a much lower profile which shouldnt obstruct fitting the rack. Haven’t tried it yet though. If anyone has experience of fitting the Vega rack on a Mercury with the TRP  Spyke disc unit fitted I’d be interested to hear.

[hendrich]

I tried the above Thorn idea for rear mudguard stay position with a p-clamp, but found it to be a bit unwieldy. I did as in the pic instead.

[PH]

As regards the Mercury/mudguard stays/Tubus Vega rack dilemma, just wondered if you know about these ( the pictures in the sale listing show how to fit them)
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/mudguards/thorn-ferrule-for-creating-w-mudguard-stays-for-thorntubus-racks-each/

From the photos posted on another thread, John's Mercury isn't using those sort of stays.
Like John, I'm also using a single strut stay, though luckily my Tubus rack has a pair of mounting holes, so I've just used one of these for the guards. An alternative would be to use a P clip low down on the rack. I've also griped about the lack of a second fitting to keep guard and rack fitting separate, I'm happy with the way I've fitted mine, though it now both or neither, when for such a versatile bike it would have been nice to have the choice... I don't get it, I can't see any advantage, but as it's the only gripe I have (Now there's a full size EBB) I can live with it.

I’ve recently acquired a used Mercury (2013 in excellent condition with only about 1000 miles on the clock) which has an Avid BB7 mtn rear disc unit which makes fitting the Tubus Vega rack well nigh impossible but Thorns told me that the TRP Spyke disc brake unit has a much lower profile which shouldnt obstruct fitting the rack. Haven’t tried it yet though. If anyone has experience of fitting the Vega rack on a Mercury with the TRP  Spyke disc unit fitted I’d be interested to hear.

Congrats on the new bike. Not wanting to divert this thread too far from it's purpose... Yes the Spyke fits fine, hardly protrudes at all, that's because they've miniaturised the  moving parts, which long term is a problem in itself.  If you're not intending to use it anywhere remote, the best brake for it is a Shimano hydraulic, even the basic MT600 is way better than any mechanical, and probably cheaper. 

[PH]

Back on topic - really enjoying the ride reports.

[Andre Jute]

Dragging the mouse across the map, it causes a window to pop up, which announces that you covered 158km in 8hrs 7mins. Holy Moses, in part against 60kph winds!

Andre, as far as I can tell, Google uses a 20 km/h rate for cycling routes, no matter the terrain or weather.

Ah! An aspirational number on real roads.

[John Saxby]

A few notes to follow up on notes from late August:

1)   First, I'm not normally so tardy in replying to posts.  But take this as a delayed-but-celebratory response:  I had my right hip replaced three days after the posts on Aug 22, and all has gone very well.  So much so, that a couple of weeks ago, my surgeon said I can return to normal activities like cycling, with no restrictions.  So, last Friday, I took Freddie on a brief 40-minute canter along the bike paths through the Experimental Farm, a splendid acreage of greenery and (now) autumn colours a few minutes' ride from where we live.  Notes and photos on that follow below.

2)  And, on Tony's query about fitting a Tubus Vega rack to a Mercury Mk 3 with Spyke disc:

Slightly surprised and quite delighted to report that I did just that this past week, on the Thursday afternoon before my born-again ride with Freddie.  It took a couple of hours-plus, but all the metaphorical ducks eventually lined up in good order.

Briefly:

> I used a 30mm M5 barrel-style hex-head bolt (4 mm drive) on the left side of the rear wheel, that length being required to fit a 10 mm bushing that pushed the strut of the Vega rack outwards to ensure the necessary clearance. The fender P-clip in turn has flat washers on its inner and outer side, to ensure that the stay clears the barrel head of the nearby lower/rear brake caliper fixing bolt. I also used a lock washer on this 30mm bolt.

   (See photo #1 below, Left side Vega rack & fender fixing bolt & washers, view from above & front of bike)

>  On the right side, I used a 20mm M5 barrel-style hex-head bolt, this time with a couple of flat washers both inside and outside the fender P-clip, with one lock washer.

    (Photo #2 below shows that set-up on the right side, seen from the rear & obviously simpler than its left-side counterpart.)

(A footnote on both of these arrangements:  I did consider threading these fixing bolts from the inside outwards, and then using a locknut to hold the plot in place. (A friend suggested this approach.) A couple considerations led me to shelve that for the time being.  First, I wanted to see how the whole rack positioning and fixing would play out. The quickest way of doing that was to insert the fixing bolts from the outside: that way, I didn't have to remove the rear wheel.  Secondly, I knew that the clearance between the inner face of the Mercury's drilled tab on the right side, and the outer edge of the Chainglider, would be quite snug for a barrel-head hex bolt.)

>   Then, photo #3 below shows the upper fixing struts for the "shelf" of the Vega rack, from above & the rear of the bike.

Further below still, in the post on my mini-ride, there's a photo of Freddie in our back garden, with the Vega rack as it appears "in real time" 

Hope this is helpful, Tony.  Let me know if you need more detail.

Cheers,  John

[John Saxby]

And now, some notes on that celebratory ride last Friday:

This is really a mini-ride through gentle-if-lovely-urban countryside.  Degree of Difficulty is about 2/10, with most of the "difficulty" arising from a 50 km/h headwind up a 5% upgrade.  If I'm being generous, there was a certain DoA (Degree of Apprehension) in the form of thick carpet of still-wet leaves on the twisty steep downhill heading west. Spoiler alert: nothing untoward happened -- I eased off pedalling, and Freddie's rear disc slowed me enough to take the turns pretty much upright.

All that said, a hefty Sympathy Quotient, methinks, warrants adding this to the "Rides of 2022" thread 

So, my active reacquaintance with Freddie, some seven weeks after my hip surgery, was a cheerful and restorative 40-minute loop comprising almost entirely back roads and bike paths in our neighbourhood in west/central Ottawa: east and then south from our house to the Experimental Farm, westward through part of the farm, and northwards home.

The autumn colours are nothing short of splendid, as usual.  Photo#1 below, taken about 4 PM, shows the big sugar maple that towers over our house, flanked to the right by the younger (but nearly as tall) locust, which we planted 30 years ago.  Photo #2 is a maple in our neighbourhood, and Photo #3 shows Marcia's last dahlias of the year, their tubers soon to be transplanted to their winter home in our basement. Photo #4, lastly, is Freddie relaxing amid a carpet of reasonably dry leaves in our back yard.

Forecast for the rest of the week is mostly cool and wet.  But, the weekend forecast sez sunshine, with temps in the mid-teens. With any kind of luck, I might manage a ride up into the hills across the river, to catch the tag-end of the foliage.  Stay tuned...

[Andre Jute]

...I  had my right hip replaced three days after the posts on Aug 22, and all has gone very well.  So much so, that a couple of weeks ago, my surgeon said I can return to normal activities like cycling, with no restrictions.  So, last Friday, I took Freddie on a brief 40-minute canter...

Congratulations on making it out of hospital alive, John, and hale and hearty, and on having chosen a surgeon who knows what is important to a cyclist. I'm not joking. I have several times congratulated myself on choosing, on the advise of my GP, a pedal and tennis chum, a cardiac surgeon who rides a bike to work and who was therefore amenable to suggestion about cycling exertion after surgery.

I also read your rack advice to Tony with interest. Tubus is my favourite rack builder, especially if someone else has fitted the rack to my bike. This is mainly because of their aluminium racks, sold as the Racktime brand, which folds when a Range Rover hits them and leaves the bike unmarked, but makes a screeching sound as it causes the Range Rover a minimum of five grand's worth of damage. No more useful sacrifice of German engineering occurs to me. But when the things have to be fitted by me, I actively hate the Tubus company, because they never give you enough extension on their struts, or extra bits and fixings actually to get the rack fitted correctly without sending away to Germany for more expensive bits and even more expensive carriage; I think their directors are in bed with DHL. The lowest common denominator for whom they package their parts must be on the small side of normal, and ride a bike on the small side for size. Mind you, that said, my Tubus Cosmo stainless steel rack (not advised for loaded tourers -- too inconveniently proportioned -- even though I think nothing of loading its share of my bike's 170kg load rating on it for short painting outings) is probably getting on for a decade and still looks new.

Good to have you back, man.

[Andre Jute]

Must say, John, that looks like a proper gentleman's bike, very capable. Lovely photos, as always.

[John Saxby]

Thanks as always for your kind words, Andre.

I've had good luck with the Vega rack.  The one you see used to live on my Raven -- I've had it for several years.  I fits the Mercury with its 650B wheels as well as it did the Raven's 26" wheels.  The rear proportions of the two bikes are slightly different, so on the Raven I used el cheapo mild chromed steel struts, cut down to about 10 cms, to fix the shelf of the rear rack to the mounts on the seat stays.  On the Mercury, the standard-issue round sliding/adjustable struts fitted very nicely, a bit to my surprise.

This setup for the rack will make it a little more fiddly to remove if & when I pack up Freddie for air shipment.  That said, I'm not sure when "air shipment" will happen again.  Current touring plans extend only as far as a week-plus next spring/summer in my extended neighbourhood across the river in West Québec.  One step further removed, but still accessible by rail, is a 3-week trek in Atlantic Canada; my "plan" for that in 2020 was rudely interrupted by COVID.

Cheers,  J.

[martinf]

A footnote on both of these arrangements:  I did consider threading these fixing bolts from the inside outwards, and then using a locknut to hold the plot in place.

If there is a clearance issue on the inside, a flat-head traditional type hex bolt might fit where an Allen head hex bolt is too long. And if really tight, in a threaded hole a flat-head bolt can be ground (or filed) down a bit without compromising strength. A locknut can then be fitted on the outside. Done this once or twice in the past.

[hendrich]

And now, some notes on that celebratory ride last Friday

Hi John, it is great to hear that your surgery went well. Pennsylvania in fall, not so many maples, so our leaves mostly just turn to brown.

I noticed that the chainglider in your posted picture is a tad too large for your chainring. I assume no problems. What sizes are the glider and chainring? Could I also ask you to measure the outer width of the chainglider at the chainring? Thanks. I still considering adding a chainglider to the rear chain of our tandem which has a double chainring at the stoker. 46t chainring with a 7mm side clearance to the timing chain. I would use a 48 chainglider with an 8 speed chain.