On feeling like a fast tortoise

For reasons that I shan't elaborate on, I did the Montérégie Challenge alone this year. It started in Saint-Rémi, just South of Montreal. It was surprisingly smooth sailing from my flat to Saint-Rémi in a rented car. I guess that one person moves more smoothly that three.

The forecast had been for showers as well as wind with gusts up to 70 km/h out of the South-West. I wasn't too worried about either as I had packed rain gear to deal with the first, and the course went roughly South-West from Saint-Rémi and back, hence tail wind on the way back. The latter proved inaccurate in the particular. In fact, there was relatively little wind and only two shortish periods of light showers.

The area around St-Rémi is mostly farmland with a particular emphasis on vegetable growing. A consequence of this is a non-trivial number of Hispanic migrant workers. At one point, I saw a party of about half a dozen or so on bikes presumably heading into town to shop, use the local library,  and/or have a drink or two on their weekend off. At the end of the day, as I was leaving St-Rémi, I saw a store with a sign in Spanish offering Latin American food products as well as money transfer services to Latin America. I didn't notice a sign in French!

The terrain being flat, it was easy to make good time, relatively speaking. My stats for the day were: 5 hours, 47 minutes and 24 seconds of biking in which I covered 128.35 km, for an average of 22.1 km/h, with a maximum of 42.6 km/h. Not too bad.

However, the thing is, on Leonardo I am relatively slow for the distances I aim for in these challenges. While there are slower people in the challenges, they typically opt for shorter distances which means that for much of the time, I am one of the slower people on the road. This doesn't do my ego much good, especially as I am currently experiencing middle-age insecurities as to my fitness.

Still, as I mentioned earlier, my average speed is pretty respectful. So while I may not be the hare, I am at least a fast tortoise. ;-)

On the year's first Challenge completed despite ageing bodies

Well, I took Leonardo out on the first Vélo-Québec bike challenge of the year. It was also first time I have ridden Leonardo since London. Also, I am very much over my desired weight. I eat and drink too much and don't get enough exercise. That makes me an all too-typical middle-aged North American.

Consequently, I opted for the modest standard version of the Metropolitan Challenge, a mere 101 advertised kms. This was partly as the route was go East with the wind and come back West against it. The day started out with the threat of rain. (In fact it rained on the way out of Montreal to Ste-Anne-des-Plaines but it had stopped before we started.)  The Sun eventually came out in force, and I now have my first sunburn of the year.

Anyway, long story short, my stats are: a biking time of 4.58.16, a distance of 104.55, an average of 21.0 km/h and a max of 54.1 km/h. Not my best performance. As I was nearing the end coming down a hill in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, a radar speed sign chastised me for doing 31 km/h in a 30 zone.

The Maternal Unit did the same distance as me but took a bit longer. The Paternal Unit only did 82 kms. Please note that the italics on "only" are to indicate a slight sarcasm intended to indicate that he didn't feel up to 101 kms (plus or minus) on account of his relative infirmity owing to accident and age. In other words, I think he and my Mother are doing bloody well especially when all things are considered.

This leads into the next part as afterwards both my Mother and my Father "moasted" (a portmanteau of "moaned" and "boasted") about various people in the Challenge (including at least one encadreur) being concerned as to their well being. And not entirely without reason, as both were somewhat pooped by the end of the day. (Hell, I was very glad to arrive at the end.) Combine that with the fact that they are easily in the 100th age percentile of participants of the Challenge, I don't see why a bit of concern wasn't justified. I know at work, more than once I have had to deal with very minor medical issues involving older patrons. One at least occasion, the patron commented that we (the staff) were overreacting. I remember saying or thinking something like: "We'd rather be guilty of caring too much than too little."

There is nothing wrong with getting old.

On an embarrassing bike reassembly

I realised today that I hadn't reassembled Leonardo since coming home last August. As the Metropolitan Challenge is next weekend, I felt the long weekend was the time to do it. It went fairly smoothly until I began to reinflate the front tire. I was just about finished when I saw with horror that the tire hadn't been properly aligned with the tube and rim. There was an ominous bulge. I desperately tried to remove the pump and release the valve, but a loud BANG! put an end to hopes of saving the day.

Thankfully, the blow-out didn't damage the tire. The tube, on the other hand, had a six inch long rent in it.  There are worse places to have a blow-out than one's home and I dug through my bike bits bin in search of a suitable replacement inner tube. I was surprised not to find one of the appropriate size. I then looked at the spare tube in my bike repair bag. It looked like it might fit. However, when I examined it more closely, the valve stem was a funny angle and then came off the tube as I handled it. My theory is that it had been battered from being too long in a bag at the bottom of my backpack.

I therefore walked a few blocks to the nearest bike shop for several replacement inner tubes of the larger calibre Leonardo uses. On my return, I put in the new inner tube, this time doing the "pinchy, pinchy" routine prior to full inflation on both the front and the rear tires. I also put a good spare tube into my bike repair bag.

On further refinements of this year's bike holiday

After a certain amount of thought and fiddling around with Google Maps which is an extremely useful tool when planning bike trips, I have decided that the basic shape of my trip will be to take the train to Jasper, then bike to Saskatoon, via the Icefields Parkway and Drumheller. Not the most ambitious trip I have ever contemplated but one that I want to do. The Icefields Parkway came into the mix via the blog of a Frenchwoman who warm showered at Margo's a few year back while I happened to be there. Her account of the Icefield Parkway, combined with my recent journey by train from Jasper to Edmonton, persuaded me that it would be more fun to have some more time in the Canadian Rockies than to leave them early on via the Athabasca River. I may live to regret this decision as the season will be high in the Rockies. ;-)

And "high in the Rockies" is another reason for my decision as in the last two weeks I have fallen for John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High". While I had been aware of the song, mostly through Doonesbury, I had never actually heard it! It makes a good case for mountains.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum and the related dinosaurs, etc. should explain why of Drumheller.

On the start of the biking season

Well, it has begun. Yesterday, I rode to a protest rally against Bill 21. Today, I rode to work and back. There were the usual early biking season posterior complaints, but I bribed myself with supper from Chalet Bar-B-Q, as consumed by five generations of my family.

On a slooooow start to the biking season

My Mother is on a trip to Norway and Venice as I write. (Technically, she is in Venice right now.) This trip has meant that I have had the use of a car for about two weeks which I have enjoyed but it has delayed the start of my biking season. Not that I mind too much. Yesterday, there was freezing rain. I passed some cyclists in the car and thought they looked really, really miserable. Today, there was 10 cm of snow! It would okay, except that my boss (who is a cyclist of only modest tenacity) biked into work last Thursday and I hadn't. When I told her that she had embarassed me, she said she would take that as a compliment!

In other biking news (or at least so I hope), I booked a cheapish ticket on the Canadian to Jasper in August. The rough plan is to bike Eastwards until about Saskatoon and fly back. On the other hand, I might bike to Prince Rupert, take the ferry to Vancouver Island, bike to Nanaimo and take a ferry to Vancouver. The possibilities are endless.

On planes, trains and automobiles

This entry is only tangentially about the standard topics of this blog as it features niece-cousins. However, it describes a lot fun things including one of the most spectacular train trips I have taken.

It started during a break at work when I casually looked at the schedule of the Canadian on Via Rail’s website. I noticed that this winter, the Eastbound Canadian leaves Vancouver at noon, meaning that given reasonable luck, the train would pass through the Fraser Canyon in daylight. (I had been through it twice before, but only late at night.) The idea fermented for a couple of months until I decided to do it. Carpe diem. The plan was to fly to Vancouver, spend some time with relatives, then catch the train on Tuesday and ride it to Edmonton, from where I would fly back to Montreal. The choice of Edmonton was based on the fact it had both a train station and direct flights to Montreal, and I had never visited it.

So last Saturday, I flew to Vancouver on an Air Canada 737 Max. I had actually chosen the flight partly because it was a 737 Max and in Air Canada service this means you can get a very nice seat on one for price of a preferred seat. As in, I had three seats to myself.

 Kevin, my cousin Kristine’s husband, met me at the airport in his red Tesla, of which he is a shade too proud. It was my first ride in a Tesla. It was a far cry from Alice’s Nissan Leaf. It showed the signs of someone who didn’t know when to stop with features such as outside door handles that automatically retract to lie flush with the door for aerodynamic efficiency. From my background in engineering, I would guess the net loss in drag would easily be offset by the added cost and complexity of the gadget. I think it was there to give the impression of modernity rather than actual modernity.

I was welcomed at Kevin and Kristine’s house with joy by Midnight the Labrador Retriever and with varying degrees of suspicion from Julianne and Elisabeth, the former asking her mother: “Where do you know this guy from?” ;-) (Alas, Kristine’s daughters don’t have as much experience with relatives as they might have, what with one thing and another. In hindsight, this is rather unfortunate given the tradition of hospitality to which Kristine’s and mine mutual Grandparents adhered.)

Anyway, I made myself at home in their guest quarters which are about the size of my condo! Over the course of the next few days, I also made myself useful to Kristine and Kevin doing various odd jobs including buying and installing chicken wire to make their rotting fence Labrador-proof. (My cousin and her husband are a trifle short in the hands-on skills department, not that I am terribly good. They make up for it in other ways.) I tried to convince them to consider taking the train across en famille. Elisabeth seemed interested, more so than an Alaskan cruise. However, I didn’t mention the absence of WiFi or even mobile service on much of the route! ;-)

While in Vancouver, the Boeing 737 Max situation evolved. I checked my flight out of Edmonton and was relieved to see I was due to fly on an Airbus.

Kevin drove me to the station on Tuesday morning. The weather was gray, but not oppressively so. After boarding, I had Canajun bubbly in the Skyline car and mingled with my fellow passengers. I was in the third sitting for lunch, sharing a table with an American man from San Diego and two Brazilian women as the Canadian crossed the Fraser at Mission. As the Canadian was picking up at least one passenger in Mission, it stopped with the dining car on the bridge at Mission. I pointed out for my table mates some gen-u-wine Canadiana heading downstream in the form of a tug hauling several rafts of logs. The Brazilians were amazed that the small tug could haul so much.

After lunch, I made my way to a dome car to watch the upcoming spectacle. As the Train entered the Fraser Canyon, I felt compelled to tell a young Chinese man to stop texting and look out the window. It was fantastic. One aspect that made it so was that the track clung to the sides of cliffs giving the impression of danger while being actually safe.* It was also more intimate compared to the massive splendour of the mountains near Jasper. Tunnels and bridges gave the feel of an “active” track rather than just a “railway”. As well, we could see Westbound freights the CN track on the other side of the river which gave a sense of scale. (Eastbound trains use the CP tracks.) At Lytton, both tracks moved into the South Thompson River Canyon for more dramatic clinging to canyon walls. Again, it was incredibly beautiful and wondrous.

Anyway, the rest of trip was good (aside from a relative lack of sleep as normal on the first night on the Canadian) with a notable exception. The exception was having to wait two hours just short of the station in Edmonton. It is an ill-wind that blows no good as the delay allowed me to have supper on the Canadian.

The next day, I rented a car in order to explore Edmonton. I must confess to having used its SatNav to navigate. Owing to various things, I did not plan my route well and ended up doing little other than shopping. This included the West Edmonton Mall which was less impressive than the hype. The day left me with a feeling of having been rushed.

Around midday, I checked into my flight. It was just after the check-in had opened and there were very few seats unselected and those were all middle seats! When I got to the gate this morning, there was an announcement saying they were looking for volunteers to give up their seats in return for $800 for future travel plus accommodation and food vouchers. I took this up on the grounds I wouldn’t mind a day or so largely doing nothing and $800 is nothing to sneeze at. So here I am relaxing in an airport hotel.

* Just to be clear for the record, while I believe CN, CP and Via Rail have safety in mind, the simple fact of the matter is that the tracks through the Fraser Canyon are inherently less safe than, say, the tracks across the open plains of Manitoba or Saskatchewan. However, the Fraser Canyon tracks are well within reasonable safety. Nonetheless, they give a wonderful frisson of danger.