On the pittie of the Cittie of Yorke

I have a confession to make. I flew business class to London on Air Canada. My logic was that I might sleep in the comfort of a pod and thus be better able to cope with the logistics of getting a UK SIM card, assembling Leonardo at Heathrow, leaving box and unneeded bits at left luggage and then taking the Transport for London (or TfL) to Paddington from where I was to ride to the St Pancras Youth Hostel. In the anticipation/worry about flying indulgently, I fear I botched the shipping the bike bit. There is something off with Leonardo which I fear might due to bad packing. He is not shifting well and the wheels feel are weird. I found a bike shop near St Pancras. They didn’t have the time in their schedule for a tune up in my time frame, but wondered if the bearings in my axles were worn. I am considering booking a date with bike mechanic in Edinburgh as I have down time there.

I then set off for Stanford’s book/map store. I found the navigation rough, which seemed odd as the last time I didn’t feel as stressed. Then again, last time I was nowhere near as jet lagged and sleep deprived. I bought a couple of bike maps featuring Newcastle-in-Tyne and Edinburgh.

I then returned via the Cittie of Yorke pub. The spelling is that used when the place was opened something like four hundred years ago. The place is stunning. Old wooden brewing vats are suspended above the bar. There are little wooden cubicles to drink in and all kinds of weird features including a triangular stove. I came in and my jaw dropped. The barman asked if I needed anything as I was just standing there with my mouth open. Even at the best of times, I can have an awkward manner. In this case, I was able to take refuge in the truth by saying: “Sorry, don’t mind me, I am both jet-lagged and stunned by how incredible this pub is.” He accepted this, doubtless having had to deal with similar reactions in past as well as far more problematic patrons.

I ordered a BLT and a pint of bitter hand drawn from an oak barrel. I sat down in a cubbyhole and waited for lunch.

The pittie was that the Cittie of Yorke, easily the most amazing pub I have been to, was rather empty. The Saturday was sunny and warm and London was bustling with tourists. However, I guess it lies in a less touristy area and is part of London’s legal district near the Inns of Court if I recall the term correctly.

On wee bairns and "whee" bikes

About a month ago now, I made a quick trip out to Vancouver to inspect and marvel at Louise and Thomas' Tessa and John and Caitlin's Arthur. They are both very cute. What was really fun was to witness Tessa's first go in a Jolly Jumper. It took her a few minutes to figure it out, but she was screaming with happiness by the end. I also go to witness her first encounter with her cousin Arthur. As well, the two were put in their Jolly Jumpers attached to the same doorway so they could bounce in concert.

Inspired by a comment I had made in an earlier post, Margo very kindly rented me a carbon-fibre road bike, or whee bike in the parlance of Margo as you can go "whee!" very easily. It was good fun, even if it did distract me from the wee bairns a shade too much. However, I am not about to rush out to buy one. For one thing, I am leaving tonight for the UK. Also, true whee bikes start at around $3000.00 and I am not sure how much I would use it. Living in Montreal means that it takes quite a while before you can get out into good biking territory, unless you have a car and I don't own one. As well, storage space in my flat is already at a premium.  Furthermore, the rented whee bike revealed one weak point in the system, namely me. I felt it showed me up as being relatively out shape. Which of course I am, but I don't like being reminded of it. ;-)

On Laurentian roads

This entry is a bit late owing to various factors including a serious heat wave and family politics.

The middle Vélo-Québec bike challenge this year was in the Laurentians. The Parents picked up Leonardo and I early on the Friday afternoon in the hope of avoiding St-Jean Baptiste long weekend traffic on the Laurentian Autoroute. We might have made it had the Parents thought to start out with a full gas tank. As it was, a stop to fill up the tank in Laval meant that we spent something like nearly three hours stuck in traffic.

We had supper with Thierry, his daughters and a boyfriend of one of them. Thierry is a family friend from way back. He and his older brother Christian (my best friend from high school) were with me on my very first Tour de l'Île back in 1993.

I had to look up that date via a slightly arcane and somewhat sadly relevant connection. In writing this, I had frisson from thinking it was 25 years ago that I first did the Tour de l'Île.

The next day (Saturday), the Challenge's route took us along a variety of Laurentian back roads which had made with no discernible logic. There was an awful lot of up, down, left, right, repeat, etc. The short hills lead to a lot of gear changes and I confess at times I lost track of where I had shifted to fore and aft. This resulted in some less than desirable gear combinations.

I arrive at the lunch stop to find my Father who had taken a shorter option before lunch. He regaled me with how his route had taken him along a road that went by a camp he had gone to in his youth. He spoke as if I had gone along that road even though I repeatedly pointed out that I gone a different route.

After lunch, there was a longish bit of old provincial highway leading towards Lachute. This was parallel to the Ottawa River and thus on level ground. Unfortunately, the end of the Challenge was up in the Laurentians and climbing was in order. While climbing a hill on a more sensibly laid road than normal, my chain hopped off the front rings with a crunching sound. I managed to get the chain back on via adroit shifting and pedalling. However, the sound was enough to attract the attention of a nearby encadreur (volunteer). He expressed concern, which I dismissed. Nonetheless, I noticed that gear shifting on Leonardo was becoming less than crisp.

My route took me off the sensible road and onto a back road, the same one that my Father had been going on about. I had decided that between the relatively high humidity and the hills that I would "only" the basic distance which amounted to 107.75 km (average speed: 19.7 kph, maximum: 55.4). This road proved particularly perverse as it climbed up paved roads only to have the descent on gravel!!!!  This was less of an insult to me than to the people on skinny tires.

It was not a great day. Furthermore, a week and half later, I took Leonardo in to the shop so they could figure out what wasn't working smoothly, the diagnosis was that the drive train needed to be replaced.  I have faith in my local bike shop and their logic seemed very sensible to me.

On the 2018 Tour de l'Île

I volunteered again as a Bénévélo Méchano this year. For various reasons, my friend J.-P. didn't do so. The weather was about ideal. Coolish, but warm enough for T-shirt and shorts and very sunny. The wind was out of the East (mostly) which was about ideal. 

I took the Metro to Sherbrooke Station and headed to the Sun Youth Building to pick up my stuff from Vélo-Québec: a red t-shirt, inner tubes, various bits of paper and lunch. The Sun Youth Building was formerly the Baron Byng High School which is most famous for having been the Alma Mater of Mordecai Richler. After 30 minutes of waiting, my team set off for Parc Avenue to await the start of the Tour. 

While I waited, I stood around occaissionaly waiving my pump, hoping to attract customers. A couple of them came. I was dealing with one man with a bike featuring inner tubes with Schrader valves (i.e. the common ones). There seemed to be oil in the valve for some reason. As I was filling out the tires, the valve stems inflated, which was odd. As I was finishing with the second tire, the valve exploded, to my consternation and that of the rest of the team. The decision was made to replace both the inner tubes.

Not long after the start of the Tour, I was flagged down to help a someone with a flat tire. He was apologetic about the bother. However I assured him that A. it was my job for the day and B. owners of Devinci Toscas had to stick together!  Like me, he was riding a Devinci Tosca! Quite possibly the same model year! The problem turned out to be the failure of the rubber at the base of the valve stem. 

A few kilometers later, I heard a bang and a hiss from the bikes in front of me. I saw someone veer towards the sidewalk followed by some friends and then myself. He was pleasantly surprised by my rapid appearance, making favourable comments about the high level of service! His Schrader valve stem had blown apart much like the one at the start. I replaced his inner tube with a Presta valved one. It was a bit weird as all the flats I encountered that day involved stem failures.

Nearing the back river, some firemen had extended a ladder over the road as well as a sprinkler. While on Gouin Boulevard, a first aid Bénévélo flagged me down to ask me to raise the seat on his young daughter's bike. He was a bit apologetic until I explained that people riding bikes with seats far too low was something of a pet peeve of mine! I was only too happy to raise her seat.
 
Later, the route took us through the Lafarge Quarry and cement plant. As per Lafarge's more or less standard procedure, there was carefully clean heavy machinery lining the route for the perusal of the cyclists. There were also employees wearing long-sleeved T-shirts with the Lafarge logo on them to talk to cyclists wanting to persue the machinery more closely, and to prevent the cyclists from getting too close!

Also as per standard procedure for Lafarge, the drums on the cement trucks were turned so that the brand name was very obvious. I have written about this more than once.

The one downside of the day was that there was no milk left at the end.

Mummy writes:

My stats for the Tour de l’Île:  9 km to the start, 66 for the tour, 9 km back. 

Perfect weather, cool and sunny. 

We met Joey (Michael was in Hong Kong) on the Charlevoix bridge as usual.  We were there at 7 having breakfasted, so pretty early.  I was worried about running into and having to go around all the people lining up for the regular Tour de l’Île, as we had to pick up Hugh’s bib, which for some reason had never arrived by mail.  In fact there was nobody lined up to start, they were still getting everything set up.  They had a package ready for Hugh, it all took practically no time.  So off we went. 

There were several streets where there were lots of tow trucks blaring warnings, then hauling off the many many parked cars.  There must have been every tow truck in Montreal out making money.  I wondered if they had unfairly put up the no parking signs after everyone had gone to bed, but I’m sure they really didn’t.

We stopped for a red light and the young man volunteer was very enthusiastic and insisted of taking selfies with each of us.

The Rivière des Prairies was very impressive.  A strong east wind (Daniel would say the weather gods were on our side, for once) against the considerable current.  No boats out, but one sea plane.  So many pretentious houses, a few lovely old ones, quite a few modest 1950s ones.  Lots and lots of small parks by the river.  And a big one near the end of the island.  Hugh and Joey followed the 60 km tour signs to lunch, I went over the bridge, tough against the wind, to Repentigny, then back with the wind, just for fun, and joined them at lunch.

Back along Notre Dame mostly.  Lots of bike path.  Joey was impressed with how many bike paths there were.  She has always done the closed streets version of the tour.  We took a detour into a park to watch the shipping.  Eventually we joined the closed street tour, then Hugh and Joey went straight home and I went to the finish.  Going up Berri, I was impressed at how many quite small children were able to pedal up.  And quite a few people who looked young and fit were pushing their bikes.

So many people at the finish.  I got our chocolate milk and headed back to Daniel’s before 2.

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.