Blog reflection: Lovely Bicycle

Posted on 1/25/2017 by boj Posted in Bike, General

Lovely Bicycle talks about elegant bicycles and the bike-oriented lifestyle. Also knitting. I particularly enjoy it because it covers everyday commuting and sport in equal measure. It is intelligent and relevant to my own lifestyle.

One recent post discusses how cold weather causes the cyclist to slow down and questions the possible reasons for this effect. For me, there are two slow downs in a regular season. The first happens towards the end of September. Whether this is because I have to use energy to bring up the temperature of the air I breathe or because I am getting fed up with sports cycling at the end of a good season or something else entirely I don’t know. By now I have come to expect to slow down which could be another reason for the slow down itself. At this point so I don’t even know how to prove or disprove any of these hypothesis or even show that I am actually slowing down as the temperature drops.

The second slow down is much more easy to pinpoint and diagnose. Towards the end of November, early December, the air becomes so cold that biking at my regular early fall speeds will give me an ice-cream headache. It takes me about a week or so train myself to bike gently enough so the air has time to warm up and not make my head hurt. I call this period the ice-cream headache week. This season I actually had the pleasure of a second ice-cream headache period as I returned from balmy Croatia into -20C Kanata. Fortunately, I remembered to power down quickly and I only had to suffer the headache for a day.

We have had an unseasonably mild January which made my fat bike commute pretty good thus far. I have only taken the bus two or three days since the first serious snow came down. Getting a fat bike is a bit of luxury. You pay two or three times as much for the bike as you would for an equivalent regular one only to pickle it in salt and grime for four months of the year and ignore it for the other eight (or at least I expect I will ignore it). Even if you account for the money I would otherwise spend of winter fitness (say, spinning classes) or transportation (monthly bus pass or tickets) the cost per ride is high. However, this is the first year that I am riding every day, something I was not able to pull off with my original winter bike.

Somedays the conditions of the trail are rough with deep snow and sunk in footprints. The ride then becomes very technical or as we would say in non biking terms, difficult in a crummy way. Those days I wonder at the people fat biking on the weekend for fun – what’s wrong with you!!! But then, with more gentle snow and constant traffic the potholes get filled out and the fluffy snow piles straightened out. On those days all I say is Whhheeeeee!!!!!

Blog reflection: Sandra Juto

Posted on 1/17/2017 by boj Posted in Travel1 Comment

Sandra takes long walks and beautiful photos. There are a lot of blogs out there with beautiful photos but I find these to be particularly good at capturing the beauty in everyday objects.

I am at a loss to do a proper blog reflection here as I rarely take photos because my experience of an image is rarely matched in a capture I make. This makes me reluctant to stop and take the camera out when I see something beautiful because I don’t want to distract my attention only to not even get a good photo of whatever I was enjoying. Fortunately, Chris is the family photographer so we have a record of beautiful long walks. Here is a series from our hikes from Crikvenica to Drivenik and from Drivenik to the nearest peak a few days later.

Crikva!

From the first hill above Crikvenica you can see Island Krk and Cres behind it.

Looking towards the interior.

I have never seen cyclamen in the wild.

Descending toward Tribalj in the dusk.

Drivenik Tower seen from the house we were staying at.

Climbing to the nearest peak. Brushes were exactly Owen’s height – he did not appreciate it.

Trevor’s favourite rock face.

View from the top.

Same but towards the interior.

Yay us!

Velebit in the distance.

Blog reflection: Fit is a feminist issue

Posted on 12/15/2016 by boj Posted in Bike, Engineering Princess

There are a couple of blogs I follow and instead of just listing them and saying boring stuff like “this is a cool blog” I thought it would be a good exercise to explain why I like it and then give a personal take on one of the issue discussed in the said blog.

Fit is a feminist issue is run by two philosophy professors from Toronto. There are a number of contributors, mostly friends and colleagues. Topics range from personal fitness endeavours, health studies reported in media, body image, accessibility, aging etc all seen thought feminist lens. I like it because it touches on many interesting subjects without being tedious. A number of other feminist publications I followed were either not very relevant to me personally or very angry. There is certainly a need for these in the World, but I want to read something I can enjoy or learn from. This blog is pretty good that way. The latest topic was tracking fitness, particularly with fitbits, garmins, and similar gadgets. Shall I wade into it?

I track my weight using The Hacker’s Diet spreadsheet. I use a basic bike computer on my touring bike only. I used to, but no longer, record my rides with Endomondo or Strava. I think that’s about it.

The Hacker’s Diet worked well for me in losing the baby weight and I find that it still gives me a good insight into what is going on with my metabolism. I tend to go for a big bike ride every few weeks in the summer and the spreadsheet allows me to make educated guess about the effects. If I am eating like horse for a week after a challenging ride and losing weight anyway I am probably still recovering. I have learned that on long bike rides the heat will stress me much more than wind or distance (horizontal or vertical). I have also realized that I lose weight on vacation because I only stress snack while working.

While the bike computer does keep track of cumulative distance, I don’t remember when I last reset it or why which makes otherwise rather impressive mileage meaningless. The bike computer readings are only useful to me while on the road. I do make a point of checking the trip stats when I get home but they get erased the next time I set out.

The most obvious reason I no longer record GPS signal of my bike rides is that my cellphone is getting old and can no longer keep charge for long enough. Also, I don’t care as much which makes me forget to turn the tracking off at the end of the ride so I end up with the data about my trip inside Costco or a car ride somewhere (breaking all kinds of speed records! Whee!). Three years ago when my phone was new and my cargo bike was new and I started getting into longer distances I found Endomondo app really useful. For one thing, I wanted to justify buying the cargo bike by proving that I am using it a lot. It also gave me a good idea how long it takes me to get places. I could look at my last three trips to Farm Boy and get a good sense how long the next trip would take. After a year I had as much data as I need. These days I appreciate checking out the trip reports my friends collected but I prefer the untethered feeling of having the phone off. I enjoy the ride in the moment and then confine it to the mercy of my deliciously selective and subjective memory.

It took us well over an hour to get the eggs.

Film: Dual

Posted on 11/29/2016 by boj Posted in Film1 Comment

At the beginning of the year the one intersection that Trev has to cross on his way to school got a crossing guard. For those of you not living in Canada, a crossing guard is an adult with a stop sign that helps kids cross the street on their way to school. As an extra bonus, the crossing guard is a friend of mine and I always enjoy chatting with her as I walk Trev to school. It had been my plan to start sending him to school by himself, but he still prefers to walk with me. We always have really nice conversations in the morning and, as it is on my way to the office anyway, I take the extra ten minutes and spend it with him.

At the beginning of the school year there were a lot of kids, with and without parents, crossing the intersection, but as the weather got colder the numbers dropped. On a nice day you still might get two or three families, though most of the time it is just us. At first I was wondering why people are freaked out by weather. Now I am worried that I am not.

October getaway

Posted on 10/11/201610/11/2016 by boj Posted in Bike, Travel2 Comments

This October we spent five days at Mont-Tremblant. We rented a gorgeous log cabin overlooking Lac Mercier.

Over the years we have developed a number of traditions to do with this short but sweet holiday. A gondola ride and a hike down the mountain is pretty much a standard now.

We opted for the most direct route down the black diamond.

It was fun, but next time I would like to take a more meandering path.

The next day we biked on La-Boucle-des-Chutes-Croches at the Mont-Tremblant Parc. Waterfalls are definitely a tradition with us.

We mostly hid indoors on a rainy Saturday but came out to check out Le P’tit Train Du Nord path on Sunday.

It has been a long time since I have been to Mont-Tremblant, and even then I was there for a very short time. I was surprised at how much there is to do in the area. I would definitely like to visit again.

No droughts here!

Posted on 8/16/2016 by boj Posted in Travel2 Comments

Dan’s annual family backcountry trip is becoming one of my favourite events of the summer. I haven’t been away from the house since the Beaverbrook camping trip earlier this summer and despite the rain in the forecast I was not willing to miss it. We had said that we would not go if there was a lot of rain, but how do you determine what “a lot of rain” means? My final deciding point was “If Dan is going, we are going”. We’ve had a drought all summer in Ottawa and I was looking forward to rain.

I got soaked through on my way back from work so the little evening drizzle we encountered once we reached the lake was pleasant. How I missed the grays and the dark greens of an overcast evening!

We booked off a cluster of sites on Lac La Peche. The remaining camp clusters were so far away it felt like we were alone on the lake.

Saturday had huge rainfalls in the morning and in the late afternoon. Our tarps held up quite nicely and as the weather was warm and the fire sustained through the downpour, the time passed pleasantly.

The older kids pretty much entertained themselves, but the families with younger kids ended up calling it quits half way through Saturday.

They could not leave before playing The Most Extreme Elimination Challenge

Sitting in the middle of canoe and not paddling is called “princessing”.

It was time for me to improve my steering skills. That is me doing a tack in the background.

The kids were fishing like crazy.

A really cool thing about tarps in rain is that they are a constant source of water. Markus went a bit too far…

Sunday morning was absolutely gorgeous!

We were sad to pack up, but it was time to get back to civilization.

Getting ready to show off the paddling skills…

There was a bit of a worry that the rain would make us miserable. I found that it was not so much the rain itself that was the problem as it was warm and hence not actually unpleasant. The worst, for me, was worrying if it would get colder, or if the kids would get sick or if our clothes or equipment would start leaking. None of this happened and the worry was moot. The lovely company more than made up for any worries, but the best part was how happy and engaged the kids were.