Melting dog poo = Spring

I was reading Matt's blog post over on the Tall Tree Cycles blog about his past weekend, getting out riding and how he knows that Spring has finally sprung.  I, unfortunately, was nowhere near a bike this past weekend and instead found me out-of-town, surrounded by family eating birthday cakes.  Yes, cakes.  Two in fact.  It's not that I didn't enjoy myself with family and eating cake (cause really, what's more fun than eating birthday cake?!?), but I would have loved to have gotten out on the bike this past warm weekend.

I regress.  I know it's Spring when there are copious amounts of melting doggie doo-doo everywhere.  When I see that, I know it's time to be riding outside.

It was only my second outdoor ride this season Tuesday and it was a beauty.  Despite the -3 degree temperature (-7 with windchill), it didn't feel all that cold at 11 AM . . . that is, after the initial ice cream headache went away within the first 5km.

I made my way up into the Gats and avoided my usual south-of-the-city-Spring-boringly-flat-route.  The teeny weeny hills seemed like mountains this early in the season.  Still, it was so nice to be outside on the bike.

Rode up to P7 (Kingsmere).  I'm always torn this time of year.  The skate skiing is near perfection - fast and almost effortless with the warm temperatures.  But this is the time of year that I need to be putting on the Spring miles. 

Even with fenders you're going to get dirty.  I wonder how much melted dog crap were in all those puddles I drove through yesterday?  The bike got a thorough washing when I got home - no poopy, no salt to remain.

Bobcaygeon-Haliburton-Tory Hill

Rode from Bobcaygeon up into the Haliburton Highlands Tuesday afternoon. Traffic on the country roads was very light - made for a beauty day to ride. My first two hours or so I was averaging a nice pace of about 28.5 kms/hr. Once in the Highlands it dropped a bit with the increasing rolling hills. All said and done I put in 115 kms and felt good throughout the entire ride, even turning into a slight headwind the last 30 or so km. Wifey & The Peanut picked me up in Tory Hill and we made our way back to Ottawa and was treated to a big chicken Shawarma platter for dinner to replace the fuel I burned on my ride.

Was pleasantly surprised how many "Share The Road" signs there were out in the country. Drivers, for the most part, heeded the road side labels and gave plenty of room to pass.



You know that you're in cottage country when you see a float plane on almost every lake you pass. This one was on lake just in and around the village of Haliburton.

Poo in my pocket

My new career has it's benefits. One being shift work. Some might not see that as such a great thing, but I do. Monday afternoon, no traffic on the roads cause everyone is at work, sunny day and I get to go ride. Put in a nice 70km loop yesterday afternoon out past Aylmer, road some great gravelly roads, up and into the Park and then back home. Laa-dee-daa.

Riding along a long road in farm country I spotted this big heaping smelly pile of dirty horse crap . . . and immediately I thought of Peter. Not for the obvious reasons: like he stinks . . . or he's full of shit . . . but for the reason of sending him something. You probably don't read his blog, and I can't really blame you (there's nothing to really read anymore other than the odd post about a t-shirt he bought or lengthy multiple posts about Florida), but if you did, you may remember him moaning and groaning about people not sending him stuff in a while. So, I thought, "What a perfect gift for Peter, " and picked it up, stuck it in a bag, lugged it home and will be sending it to him shortly.




Traveling over the Kingsmere overpass, which 'overpasses' the Gatineau Parkway, you can still see lots of snow on the road and where people have still been skiing. If you ain't from Ottawa, the Gatineau Park/Parkway is closed to vehicle traffic over the winter and the roads/trails are groomed for skate and xc skiing.

The gate to the entrance of trail # at Kingsmere on the 15th of March.

One week later and taa daa.



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