Author: Greg

Trillium Flat

Had another great mountain bike ride today. Rode from home out to the dump. Unfortunate I left a few minutes later than I intended too, but wasn’t too late. I met up with a couple friends on the parking lot, one to ride with, and the other was going for a trail run. We started off and I thought we would head up to Trillium, then hit Snakes and Ladders. The trails were in pretty good condition considering the rain we had two nights ago.
As we were riding along, it turned out that our runner friend was playing paparazzi. Every once in a while he would appear out of nowhere taking pictures 🙂 

  
  
  
I rode home along Munns Rd again. It is a little to usher, but I think it is also a bit faster. Definitely more downhill than Interurban (which is very flat).

Walks Pouring

Last weekend Sue had some seminars to attend, so the kids and I had a weekend to ourselves. We did a bunch of fun things including two dog walks. One walk was at Knockan Hill, which we had never been to, the other was to Gowland Tod park, which we had been to once before.

The skies were a little ominous on Sunday, and sure enough on our drive out to Gowland Tod, they opened up and it started pouring. We kept driving out there hoping it would stop raining before we started walking, and it did.

We hiked down to the, played on the beach a bit, then hunkered down under the trees to eat lunch when the rain picked up. Once the shower had passed we headed back. Very fun outing.

  
  

  
  

    
    

    

 

Project Shelf

One of my weekend projects that has been in my list for a while is to do something to clean up my desk surface. The monitor rider got it to the right height, but takes up a lot of surface area. 

My plan was to make a corner shelf for the monitor. I’ve done a few household woodwork projects and although they are fun, I need more experience, and maybe some different tools, to have the turn perfect like I envision them. 

This shelf though came together pretty well. It only took me a couple hours to mock up the size with cardboard, cut the wood, assemble it, and move everything over to it. Not bad really. 

Here is my desk before:

  

And here is the after picture.

That gives me a lot more room, and allows me to organize a lot better. Nice!

 

Movie Questions

Last night I surprised the kids with a movie night. Not just a movie night, but a trip to the theatre, and they had no idea it was happening until we got there.

At dinner I asked them to hurry a bit because we had an errand to run after dinner. They were fine with that and right after dinner we piled into the truck and headed out. Amy wasn’t entirely thrilled about having to go out, and started asking questions about why we had to go that night, and what the errand was.

I managed to answer her questions without giving away the end goal. Both of them started reading at some point and when I pulled into the parking lot they didn’t see where I parked. As we walked across the lot Amy said to me “That looks like Silver City”

Me: It is

A: Why are we here?

Me: I have to buy some tickets.

A: For a movie?

Me: Yep

A: I want to go to a movie.

Me: We are.

At this point they both perked up and said “We are?” Yep. There was much rejoicing, especially when they learned it was Kung Fu Panda 3. We got our tickets, some popcorn, and settled into our seats for an enjoyable evening. 

The surprise worked out perfectly.

Different Consequence

Today’s rides was a lot different than last week. I decided to ride out to the dump even though it was pretty cold when I started. I warmed up pretty quickly, though my hands took the longest to unfreeze. I met up with a friend at the dump and we started to ride.

Pretty soon I realized there was a lot less standing water over last week, but it was still pretty mucky. The rocks were also stil pretty slick, a combo of still being wet, and lots of moss. My friend pointed out that even though it hasn’t rained, it really hasn’t been warm enough for everything to dry out properly.

The first route we talked about was a trip to Trillium, then down South Ridge. This changed into a trek to Green Ribbon/Hot Cherry. I then said no to those since I was starting to get a bit tired, and those trails do require some mental acuity (they are pretty technical with some high consequence). We ended up going down South Ridge, hit some trails lower down, then I made my way home.

My plan for getting home was to take the parks Southern exit over to Munns Rd, then take the Goose home. I wasn’t sure if that would be longer or shorted, but it would be different than going home along Interurban (flat and boring). The downhill on Munns was fun, but where I hit Munns meant a couple big uphill sections, which on my mountain bike, really weren’t all that fun.

Overall, great ride. Would recommend 🙂

Donation Uncoordinated

Since I am doing spin class on Thursdays, I thought it would be a good idea to move my blood donation to a Friday so that I could still do both. My first test of this happened this past Friday. I donated for the 77th time, and other than it taking a while to get through the process, the whole thing was pretty easy. 
Sunday however was a different story. Originally I had planned to ride to the dump, do a tour, then ride home. I evicted against that for some reason, and in retrospect I am very glad. On the trails I felt pretty bad. My heart rate would shoot up and I would easily get out of breath. It reminded me a lot of riding at altitude in Rossland actually. I felt slow and sluggish and uncoordinated. The ride was also very, very wet.

  
Still, I was glad to have gotten out for a ride and to get some fresh air and exercise.

Dump Bump

Last night I had plans to ride with a couple friends today, but sadly they had to cancel last minute. My plan was to ride out to the dump, do a loop, then ride home again. The road ride felt really slow and hard, and on one of the flat stretches I could feel a weird clunk while pedalling. On the hill climb up Hartland Ave I looked back and noticed my rear quick release was open!  Ooops. Tightening that made a huge difference.

 

Once I got to the parking lot I happened to bump into some other riding friends out in the parking lots, so in the end all was good! We climbed up skull and I heard someone mention my rear tire looked  a little low. Sure enough it was pretty soft (again explaining why the road portion felt so slow). The trail ride was great, though while climbing some of the trails, I could sure feel the road ride exertion in my quads.

 

At the end of the ride, someone suggested we stop for coffee, but since I was pressed for time I was about to back out. But then a ride home was offered. Yes please!

Leaking Trillium

I got out for a ride yesterday, and it turned out to be more fun that I was anticipating. I had texted a few guys to see who was up for a chilly morning ride, but in the end it was just me. Getting my bike from the garage I discovered a flat rear tire, which was unexpected given that I have switched to tubeless tires. I inflated it, but could hear air leaking out still. In less than 5 minutes the tire was nearly flat again. I quickly added more Stans reinflated the tire, and tried to get the liquid everywhere inside. That seemed to do the trick and I was off.

Once at the dump I wasn’t sure what route I wanted to take. I meandered a bit before deciding on Trillium, then back over to Snakes and Ladders. The route was just what I was looking for.