Wednesday 18 August 2010

On the why I haven't been blogging and bits and pieces

The short version is that I haven't been doing any interesting biking.

Unfortunately, that is also a slightly inaccurate version as I have had to change the route I had been biking in the morning for over ten years. The cause? Well, they are starting work again on the new English Montreal super-hospital or whatever it is they are calling it. More specifically, they are hauling dirt out via Décarie southbound, south of de Maisonneuve. This means reduced traffic flow northbound (i.e. me). In addition, they are doing work under the train underpass which further reduces traffic flow and is making Decarie between de Maisonneuve and St-Jacques too unpleasant for me. My solution? Go up the Glen instead, and hang a left on Ste-Catherine. I hadn't been doing that before as it is a slightly longer route, it involves a steeper climb and it means I have to make an unpleasant left turn at a busy light.

My readers with a knowledge of my part of Montreal will know what I am talking about.

In other biking news, Floria is officially a faster bike than The Castafiore was. It has been taking me four to five minutes less time to get to work. Not bad for a nominal 30 minute bike ride.

On a use for molasses and the Internet

A year or more ago, I read about blackstrap molasses somewhere. Somehow, the idea of it caught my imagination and I went to considerable lengths to get my hands on some. I then had the embarrassment of not being able to figure out what I want to do with it. I did have the idea of combining molasses and oatmeal in some sort of baked good, but I didn't have a recipe nor do I do much baking.

For some reason, I finally figured out how to get a recipe. Do a google search for "cookie oatmeal blackstrap molasses recipe". This is the result:
Reasonably tasty, and a mistake to bake the day before I go to the gym and weigh myself.

Also, the appearance of molasses is really quite beautiful.

2 comments:

Margo and Chris said...

It looks like some sort of home made treat for horses!

candmwanderings.wordpress.com said...

My guess is your new bike has lighter rotating components.. especially the rims. These are probably solid on the old bike and are hollow on the new.

This is a mixed blessing: the bike is faster, but the rims wear out faster!

Removing weight from rotating components has twice the effect of removing weight from the frame when accelerating. Acceleration is probably a key issue in your ride to work.

The bearings are probably also improved... below about 18 kmh rolling friction dominates.

CJO