All Downhill From Here

Last weekend was an extra long one for me, as I took both Friday and Monday off. Monday morning I accompanied Little Runner on a short bike ride to her day camp, and then kept on going. It took me 15 minutes to get out of the city in a very roundabout way so as to avoid construction, but I wasn’t committed to being anyplace at a certain time. The goal was just to get out and ride for over an hour.

I contemplated doing the same simple ride along the highway to Cochrane as I’d done previously, but the thought of the wide, straight, boring out-and-back on the bald prairie didn’t intrigue me. I turned off a side road north of the Bearspaw Country Club instead. There I enjoyed beautifully smooth, gently rolling, tree-lined, paved roads.  My route wound between gorgeous, peaceful country estates tucked around little ponds. I startled a doe in the ditch, but I was going so fast neither of us had much time to react to each other.

On the way back into town I again followed the same bike path in the middle of nowhere that Nancy and I had encountered back in June. As I rounded the final sharp corner of the path I was surprised with a huge puddle. Ah! And then just past that, an even bigger one. The small ponds on either side of the path had joined, leaving about 4 inches of water on the path. I actually stopped and wondered what to do. Could my skinny tri-bike tires handle a puddle that deep? Only one way to find out…

The water was clear enough that I could just barely see the yellow line of the path through the water. I followed it through and got my feet wet. Wasn’t that refreshing! This would have implications later that I hadn’t considered, however.

I tried different route back to my neighbourhood and was pleased to find the construction there was more cyclist-friendly than my other options had been. Whee, I descended back down through suburbia. I tried to clip out as I approached a stop sign. Ut oh… it wasn’t as easy as it usually is. The water had made my bike shoes all stretchy, and I had to assertively crank my foot out to twist it out of the clip! Note to self: clipping out is harder in wet bike shoes.

I stopped my watch at home after a 1:20 ride. I had planned to make bread, but it was too hot. Instead I re-laced my road shoes with bungee laces (for easy transition in next month’s tri) and snapped an extra i.d. tag onto my new trail shoes.