On Metropolitan Challenge with perverse winds

The Parents and I participated in the Metropolitan Challenge today. We drove to Vaudreuil and met a friend of my Mother's at a breakfast restaurant. We were initially going to be 5 for breakfast, (my Parents, my self, the friend and a friend of hers). However, it turned out that my Mother's friend had also invited another older couple and her friend's twin sister and her significant other. As it was a little past 7 AM, the waitress barely bated an eyelash at the ever increasing number of patrons.

One of the problems with the Metropolitan Challenges and Vélo-Québec's other Summer Challenges is that owing to various geographical issues, they tend to start out going East with the prevailing winds before turning West again so you have to bike against the wind on the way back when you are tired. This year, the Metropolitan Challenge started in Vaudreuil and headed West before turning back. The weather gods were not amused and therefore ordained that Easterly winds should be the order of the day. They also ordained a mostly cloudy day with a spot of rain. Thankfully, I missed the direct rain. However, late in the day as I was going down a hill, a passing car got me with a puddle splash. This was not appreciated as I was tired, being somewhat out of shape for various reasons.

At some point in the morning, I passed a motel in Coteau-du-Lac where I had spent the last night before completing AMUAM JuNITO. A little later, I passed a house to which an extension resembling a castle had been added.

My stats for the day were 6 hours, 11 minutes and 51 seconds of biking; covering 131.3 kms at an average speed of 21.1 km/h with a maximum of 55.0 km/h.  The circuit was advertised as 127 km, but owing to a difference in the route between the issued map and the actual route, I made a wrong turn at the start. Mummy did the nominally 104 km version, (her recorded distance being 105 km) and Pappy did the 79 km version.

Part of me is tempted to get a "Whee!" bike for these events.

On the first run of the year on Leonardo

I was prepping Leonardo for its first ride of the year. The plan was to go to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue and back. However, when I dug out my rear saddle bags, I discovered that the shock cord on the right one had broken. Given that I bought them in 2006 and got tens of thousands of kilometers out of them, a little wear and tear is to be expected. I looked on the MEC`s website and discovered that replacement "MEC shock cord and J hook assemblies" are available so I decided to incorporate this errand into the trip. It was not the easiest trip I have made to MEC. I kept getting shuffled back and forth between the bike repair department and customer service. I eventually got my hands on two them. I bought two because I figure that after nearly twelve years of usage, chances are, the shock chord on the left is probably ready to give up the ghost, so why not do some preventative maintenance?

While I have biked around the Western tip of the Island of Montreal several times, one constantly inconstant factor is the route on the Northern side of the Island. The problem is not a lack of bike paths. Rather it is a surplus of bike paths which lack an overall pattern or consistency to them. I got on one which, after many twists and turns, dumped me in the middle of the Bois-de-Liesse Nature Park which is very nice but wasn't really where I wanted to be. I worked out a route to Gouin Bouvelard Ouest and stayed on it until it ended in Senneville. In some ways, it was very interesting as unlike most roads in the West Island, it wasn't laid out as a suburban road. Rather, the gentle curves and the old buildings along it revealed it to be an old rural road which had once served villages, now consumed by suburbia. It later hit the shore of Lac des-Deux-Montagnes where I saw large, smooth shelled turtle sunning itself on a log.

On a late start

Well, it has been a slow start to the year's biking partly induced by nasty weather here in Montreal. We had freezing rain a few weeks ago and call me a wimp, but I am not going to start biking on a day when freezing rain is in evidence.

Then I dropped my iPhone on the second biggest toe of my right foot causing a significant and surprising amount of damage and pain. As in: "I will probably lose the toenail and I may or may not have fractured the last bone." It was painful enough a day later that I sought a medical consult which suggested the treatment I suspected: apply Polysporin and wrap the toe in a bandage. While this was not a tremendous upset, it was enough to delay the start of biking to work by a week or so.

On the plus side, earlier this week, a co-worker pointed out a Vélo-Québec intiative of a month-long Vélo-Boulet (translation "Bike-to-work") website where you post how many kms you rode per day and why. So far it has been 15 kms to work. Slow start.