Monday, August 13, 2018

The BiQUE Ride - Day One - Part One

Good morning and what a glorious day it’s going to be. I’m on another cycling trip - a short one, but better a short one than none at all. The final destination? There’s a clue in the title of today’s blog.

I was up early doing last minute stuff yesterday - namely writing blog posts. There will be TWO posts today so watch for both of them and there will be two tomorrow as well. We packed up the car and we were off. The start point of the ride was right downtown Toronto at Old City Hall so DH was able to drive me there.

While I do miss the camping part of these bike trips - no camping on the short trips - it’s nice to only have a small suitcase and a small backpack. I had just madly thrown stuff into my suitcase when I was packing - not really counting stuff. I brought way too many pairs of socks. Oh well - at least they are small.

Got a chance to meet the others - we are 12 in total including the driver of our truck which is carrying all our stuff. The owner of the company and his wife are with us as well which is very nice. I’ve known them for a number of years and Bud has ridden a few days here and there on the various trips, but never Margot.

Then we did something that I don’t think I’ve ever done in the entire time I’ve been doing these trips - we rode together as a group. Which was fine. We had a good pace and all is good. Right down Bay Street and onto the cycling path (Waterfront Trail) along the lake.

I’ve never cycled along there before and it’s quite awesome to say the least.

We arrived at a public washroom at Ashbridges Bay and had a quick stop. Then a HUGE group of cyclists arrived. Wow - it would be hard to ride on that multi-purpose path as part of your hard core cycling route. And these cyclists looked hard core. Back on track after a quick pee break.

We did stop at a couple of places. Rosetta McLain Park and The Guild. Both are beautiful places but I’m not into that kind of visiting when I’m on the bike. I know - bad me.

But something interesting happened at The Guild. There was another group of cyclists who arrived. AHA - they are part of the group that we ran into at Ashbridges Bay. I got to chatting with one of the cyclists.  Oh - they are a cycling group from Oakville. The owner/leader of the group is doing a cross Canada trip (supported) and with one or two others I think. Since they were in the neighbourhood of the rest of the cycling group, they tagged along for a one day ride. Some were going further. Now how cool is that. Their destination was Oshawa and they were taking the GO train home.

But what was really fun is that we kept tag teaming each other all day. More on that in a bit.

Then at about the 38 K mark, our driver (Seamus) had a little picnic set up for us. Well - a snack break. Butter tarts, fruit and water. I’ll take a butter tart please.

Emily and I decided to slowly get started again and let the others catch up. We had gotten about 2 KM away and she decided to wait for the others as we weren’t 100% sure of the route. I forged on and was soon on track. I never saw the rest of the group until they arrived at the hotel.

Much as I like riding with others, I much prefer to ride alone. I can stop to take pictures whenever I want and as often as I want. Like - the little orange bird house that was completely by itself in the middle of a forested area. Really?

OH - I lied - there are going to be THREE posts today and THREE posts tomorrow. I forgot about the ruddy iPad with its buffer limit.

Catch up the rest in Part Two.

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