Tempus Fugit

I know a lot of people ride the bus, but not me, not until yesterday that is.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the cost of operating a vehicle lately and when you add up the payments, insurance, parking, and repairs it’s an amazing amount per month. So, yesterday was the start of my bus adventures for commuting to work.

I needed to take the truck in to have the windshield replaced, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to start riding. Armed with bus tickets and an app to find my rides I set out on the #57 Express from Southdale to downtown. Nice ride, not crowded, as fast or faster than driving and strangely relaxing. Perhaps it’s just the 1st time novelty.

Going home was equally good. The stop is a block from my office and the bus was exactly on time.

Today I’m on the #19, not an express but moving well. Oops, spoke too soon! We’re jammed up on Archibald with all those darn cars!

Giving up the truck and going to a one vehicle family will be a big change for me. Bussing in the winter seems like it will be OK, and way less expensive. From early spring to late fall I can be on the bike so that will be excellent. I think I’ll turn the mountain bike into more of a commuter bike with fenders and skinny tires and perhaps the reward for my new transportation style will be a new full suspension 29er.

I thought I’d planned well for the trip as far as what temperatures we’d experience but I think I payed too much attention to the daytime highs and ignored the overnight lows and the effects of altitude. Night time temperatures can be a little important when your camping in a tent trailer.

At the Loveland Pass (11,000ft) we experienced snow and thankfully were not camping there. But, later in the day beside the Colorado
River near Arches National Park (~6,000ft) the overnight lows were in the 3° range.

Tonight at Bryce National Park the campground office has a sign requesting that you disconnect your waterline as the overnight low is expected to be -3°C.

Right now I’m by the cosy camp fire. Could be some snuggling for warmth later.

Every other person you see is wearing spandex.

It’s OK to have a Hummer

The grocery store dedicates a whole aisle to energy bars.

All in one day we went from a rainy morning to 1° with snow at 11,000 ft to 21° and a sunny afternoon to sitting around a camp fire in t-shirts at 9pm. What a day!

We’ve crossed the Rockies, seen the Colorado National Monument and driven Scenic Route 128 along the Colorado River into Moab Utah. The scenery has been breath taking.

The most common phrase heard today was “Oh My!” followed by “Look at that!”.

Sleeping under the stars tonight.

Not that my blog posts have any frequency or pattern at the best of times but, for the next week or two I might be a little more frequent as we’re on a road trip in the south western USA.

The order might be a little jumbled as well as the upload is dependent on sporadic wi-fi availability. Hey, our campground doesn’t even have running water, unless you count the Colorado River.

Bike lanes have been showing up around Winnipeg, especially the downtown area over the last couple of year. Until recently, even though a couple of these lanes have been on my normal commuting route, I’ve not given them too much thought. Nice to have, but I was a little indifferent.

Then the city created a dedicates lane on Assiniboine Ave. which caused a lot of controversy and in my opinion was a waste of money. Assiniboine was a low traffic street in the first place and bicycling on it was no problem.

Then one day a few weeks ago a bike lane shows up on St. Mary Ave.! Initially, this seems like a great thing, in fact just the day before I rode up the middle of two lanes of traffic and thought to my self “that was a little crazy”. And then there it was, my own dedicated lane, and for a day or two things were good.

Then things changed. St Mary has parking in the curb lane before 9am and lots of drivers cruise up the curb lane, encounter a parked car, and lane change with no regard to the bike lane or the bicyclist in the lane, that would be me! To top it off they frequently rounded the parked cars and then crossed over the bike lane again with no regard for the cyclist, to make a right hand turn onto a one way street.

I don’t think that bike lanes really help the cyclist all that much and I’d just as soon not have the false sense of security. Cycling on the road with cars, it’s always be ready for the unexpected.

It is looking like there will be a second trip to do some mountain biking on the MDH trail in 2010! A tentative date of Sept 18-19 has been suggested and this also might be the largest group ever. I hope the Ranch is up for this.

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Eric & Doug chomping at the bit
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

It’s early. Some are still trying to sleep. But the keeners in the room next door are up and revving up the bikes in the parking lot. I think they slept in their cycling gear. As the ranch is not fully open for the season yet, there is nobody in the restaurant so breakfast is a combination of bars, fruit and miscellaneous snack food left over from yesterday, a truly healthy way to start the day.

With everybody roused out of bed, bikes checked, water loaded we’re off, heading north on the Buffalo Gap Trail. Our goal, to see how close we can get to where the BGT intersects the MDH. A couple of miles down the trail, I’m having mechanical problems with my bike. After a consult with Daniel, our senior bike mechanic on the trip, he diagnosis it as a chain link that is damaged and sticking. After a quick repair were once again roaring down the trail.

By Big Dadoo

It seems rather quickly we’ve crossed the creek that marked our farthest distance on the Sunday 2009 trip and it seems lake a good time to stop for a mid-morning snack. We power on after the break and enjoy the new scenery and are having great fun on the trail. Well, I am any way. I couple of guys are feeling the pain that was inflicted yesterday and are taking a more “relaxed” approach to the day. If you look very closely at this picture you can see them while some of us are further up the trail. We need to get on the road back to Winnipeg so we’re watching our ride time and have planned a 2 hours out, and 2 hours back, but we stretched that a bit because everybody kept on saying “lets just go over there to that next marker”.

By Big Dadoo

Eventually, we call it quits and turn around an head back to the Ranch. Doug is off trying to catch Josh and Elijah who have at least a 3-4 mile head start, Danial and Scott set a fast and steady pace, and Eric and I enjoy the ride back together stopping to take pictures and enjoy the scenery and a beautiful afternoon. At one point on the ride back I had a very clear and special thought as I watched the riders ahead, that this is “the best of days”. I hope to hold on to that memory for a very long time.

Back at the ranch, so to speak, we shower up, pack up,  and enjoy another round of steak dinners while discussing the days ride. In another 9 hours more or less with a few stops for gas and food, where back in Winnipeg. I think everybody is looking forward to possible the first ever 2nd trip to the MDH and the same year this fall. In fact, we may have booked that ranch already. 

In just under a week I’ll be heading off to ride the MDH trail in North Dakota with the boys. For many years we made an annual trip to ride this outstanding single track trail, but this will be the first time since 2005.

I’ve been taking with some of the guys and everybody is getting pretty excited about the trip. Its quite the action packed weekend with a 9 hour drive thru the night, breakfast at 4am, a brief nap in the vehicles until the sun comes up and then all day riding!
I think we’ll be riding the northern section and taking in some near by trails on Saturday. Sunday we’ll ride for half a day in the Buffalo Gap area. As some would say, it should be GTs. I’m looking forward to it.