Waiting for tires

When I pulled the rear wheel off the Kuwahara to true it I discovered that the tire needed replacing. It's down to the casing in several places. One of the disadvantages of fenders is that you don't actually see much of your rear tire, so unless you make a effort to check it periodically wear can go further than is ideal. Of course, all good cyclists should check things like this regularly but I'm a slacker. I also have a tendency not to worry too much about the commuting bike. If I were heading off on a brevet I'd check my tires but if I'm just going to work I just jump on my bike and go (day after day after day until something breaks on the way to work and I kick myself for not having caught the problem in time.) I'm also cheap, so I'm inclined to try to stretch tire life as long as it will go. If I start to get frequent flats I'll replace a tire but if there are no flats I tend to leave things as they are. However, in spite of the lack of flats I decided that I really needed new tires, what with both front and back down to the casing in spots. A note on the iBob list mentioned that Nashbar has Panaracer Paselas on sale for $6.95 so I made my first Nashbar order in about twenty years. I don't usually order bike bits online, unless its something I can't get locally but I haven't seen any Paselas around here apart from the Tourguards at MEC, which are $34. My usual commuting tire, the Continental UltraSports, only go up to 28mm and I'm keen to get something a bit bigger for riding offroad. Anyway, I ordered two tires in each of 28. 32 and 38 mm.
Having finally decided to get new tires I promptly had a flat coming home on Tuesday. I was taking a long route home, via the Watts Creek Pathway, and had just gone a little way along the path when my rear tire popped. I discovered that I was almost prepared. I had a patch kit with no patches (used the last patch last week to fix a tire for the kid next door), a spare tube, no tire levers and two pumps. I also had a spare folding tire. I found the folding tire while tidying up in the basement a while ago and threw it into my backback "just in case." It's a tire I bought in 1989, just before G and I went on our big cycling trip so I'm certainly getting my money's worth. Anyway, I managed to get the tire off using my keys as tire levers. (There are people who say they can get tires off without levers. How do they do this? Do they have incredibly powerful thumbs?) The puncture wasn't in one of the really thin spots in the tire but I didn't want to take any chances of another flat (no patches, remember) so I put on the folding spare. While I was fixing my flat I had plenty of offers of help. At least half a dozen people riding by must have slowed to check whether I had everything I needed. On the way home I stopped at MEC to pick up a new patch kit, a couple of tubes and some tire levers, so I'm ok for the next flat but I really would like to get my new tires.

The legs must not stop turning

This morning I rode the fixed gear bike to work after two weeks of riding the Rambouillet. At one point I tried to coast over a bump. Exciting. I think I'd better stick to fixed for the next few weeks to counteract the pernicious effects of coasting.

Rambouillet week(s)

A couple of weeks ago I decided that since I'm doing so little longer recreational (i.e. not commuting/utility) riding if I didn't start riding the Rambouillet to work it would never get out of the house. (The long rides, including this year's single brevet, that I did in May were done on the Marinoni.) Also, the Kuwahara's rear wheel needs looking at as it's developed a distinct wobble. So, except for Thursday, when I had an appointment downtown, I rode the the Ram to work. It's been very pleasant. The trip to work seems to be quicker by a few minutes than on the Kuwahara (although there's no cycle computer on the Kuwahara and I haven't carefully kept track of times.) I suspect the ability to use a higher gear does speed things up. Either that or the time difference is an illusion resulting from the livelier, "lighter" feel of the Rambouillet.

On Sunday I did my first longer ride since May, riding home from Maitland, a little more than a hundred kilometres. The first forty kilometres, to Merrickville, is mainly through farmland, with occasional wooded areas. It's relatively flat, with some small rolling bits. I kept up a fairly brisk pace (at least for me) although there was a bit of a headwind. At Merrickville I turned east towards Kemptville but just out of town turned onto River Road, which runs parallel with the Rideau River. I crossed the Rideau at Upper Nicholsons lock, stopping for a few minutes to eat an energy bar and have a drink. No sign of the ospreys that nest here. I suppose they're long gone from the nest by this late in the summer. Once across the river it's east on County Road 43, through Burrits Rapids and on to Malakoff Road, where I head north. Just after turning onto Malakoff Road I saw a line of birds walking across the road. My first thought was that they were pheasants but they were too large and bulky. A car passed me and the birds on the road ran into the bushes, while a couple more flew up and over the road. I finally realized that they were wild turkeys. Up Malakoff Road, which is particularly nice, wooded on both sides and with little traffic, right onto Roger Stevens Drive and in to North Gower. From North Gower it's a more-or-less straight run for about 30 kilometres into Ottawa. I ran out of water about half an hour before I got home so I was quite thirsty on arrival. The ride took a little more than four hours, which is a little faster than usual, mostly, I suspect because I didn't stop for long.

During the week I had been trying our a Brooks Professional saddle, but hadn't found it particularly comfortable. I swapped it for a B17 before we left for Maitland. Although I think the B17 needs a bit of breaking in, it's not as comfortable as the Champion Flyer on the Marinoni, it was much more comfortable than the Pro, even with the bars on the Rambouillet a bit below saddle level. It seems the B17 is the shape for me.

Another Rambouillet note: On Tuesday I rode home from work via a couple of pathways as I wanted to measure the length of the route I sometimes run at lunchtime. The path is crushed stone, well-compacted in many places but with areas, often on corners, where the stone dust has piled up. I was surprised at how much less secure I felt on the Rambouillet versus the fixed gear Kuwahara. Both have similar sized tires (Ruffy Tuffys on the Ram and Vredestein FlexSport (front) and Continental UltraSport (back), both 700x28) on the Kuwahara. The fixed gear certainly seems to make a difference. Perhaps it's just that I'm uncomfortable braking on loose surfaces instead of controlling speed with my legs.

Bibliographical serendipity

Searching for a half-forgotten reference to a book describing a PBP ride I found this page. Before I made it down the page to Both are Better by Jane Schnell, the book I was looking for, A Trip Around Lake Ontario on a Bicycle by Fred Gardiner caught my eye. Many years ago I worked with Fred at Sunwheel Bicycle Couriers in Toronto and somewhere on my bookshelves I have copy of Fred's Ten Bike Tours in and Around Toronto. I also have a copy of his The Freewheelin'Thomas Hardy, although I've never had a change to follow any of the routes. Every time I come across Ten Bike Tours in and Around Toronto I wonder what the rides described in it would be like, after twenty years of urban expansion. Well, it turns out there is a 2006 revision of the book (unfortunately the original link has stoped working in the two weeks since I found it but there's a Google cache here.)

Along the St. Lawrence

Apart from riding to work, most of my cycling these days consists of short rides with the kids. On the weekend we went a bit further afield as we were camping at Riverside-Cedars Campground, on the St. Lawrence between Morrisburg and Upper Canada Village. On Saturday we just rode around the campground but on Sunday we drove to the Upper Canada Migratory Bird Sanctuary and cycled along the St. Lawrence Recreational Trail to Upper Canada Village and back. We didn't travel very far, about half an hour to the village, with one stop to look at a deer and one stop to look in a pond, and about twenty minutes return but it was a pleasant ride. We may go back in a couple of weeks and camp and the bird sanctuay. Then we could explore the trail going in the other direction, toward the Long Sault Parkway. We saw quite a few cycle tourists riding along the highway in front of the campground. I think a trip along here would make a nice, relatively easy tour - scenic, fairly flat, lots of campgrounds so you could adjust your daily distances as required. It might be a good thing to do with the kids when they're a bit older and capable of longer distances.
Hint to campers and cycletourists visiting Riverside-Cedars: get site 300. It's not where we stayed but we discovered it on our travels round the campsite. It's the only walk-in (or ride-in) site there.