RACING, COACHING, ADVENTURE, WAIT THAT’S JUST LIFE FOR ME: Not as good but close

After the thrills of hitting jumps and playing on bikes for hours it was back to business. Since the weather was pretty much leading to crap snow for skiing. I think it was the newly renewed excitement to be on the bike had a long(ish) road ride set for the day. After staring at the weather reports more than once I decided to hold out for the sun. It was supposed to come out in the afternoon.

By noon it wasn't looking promising and the ride I planned would be starting to rub the curve of daylight if I waited any longer. It was mild, the roads were clear, from what I could see and drove on earlier so I swapped out the spiked and super glue covered wheels for my semi slick on the cross bike. This could be a good thing or a bad thing but I figured that all those bike handling skills I got fired up yesterday would get me through just about anything.

So where was I going. Big Chute Loop. My favorite ride. I figured the safe way to head out was up by way of Honey Harbour direction. If the roads are crappy this is the area that should be the worst and I'd be able to redirect for some other type of loop. Well to my happiness everything was clear. I got a few strange looks from sledders. I bet they were thinking that the little bike boy probably has some sort of voodoo doll for the weather. Luckily there was no snow on the roads for them to chase and run me down.

Made the right onto South Bay road and to my surprise it was looking ice free. It didn't take long though for me to figure out that most of the road was ice but there was a good inch of sand on top giving more traction than clear roads. This was one of the sections I was concerned with but with no traffic to worry about I could pretty much wander all over the road to the smooth sections.

Why oh why do I love this route so much it's because of road like these. A roller coaster for the bike

Back out on the open roads things cleared off, well until I hit White Falls Road. I thought things would be rainbows and butterflies but this ended up being the worst section. I was pretty happy that there were no cottagers out for a drive. Made a quick stop at a great little place to relax at during the summer. It's not as soothing during the winter but still a great view.

I had originally mentioned doing this ride to the boys but ended up wanting to spend some alone time with my bike and my Ipod. This meant lots of bad singing out loud, hey no cottagers around. It was also probably a good idea because there was not a lot of running in a straight line for half the ride. Lane wandering and 3-4 bikes would have probably been an accident waiting to happen.

Rolled through the boat lift, been there seen it, past the trippy house in Severn Bridge and out on the long flat sections heading back towards Coldwater. I had a time cut off and a fork in the road to decide on. As I got closer to the split to either home or extra km I glanced at the hr monitor. I smoked around the loop. I was actually a little impressed on how quickly I got around. Not all that much slower than on my road bike, during the summer not wearing 10 pounds of clothing to stay warm pedalling into cold dense air etc etc. Looks like I'm putting in the extra miles.

Rolled into Coldwater and by this point my feet were a little mad at me. Ok they were mad at me but they were numb enough now to stop complaining. I stopped in at the best idea for warming up. TD bank keeps their bank machine area nice and warm. I have accounts with them so I was in doing a heat with drawl. It was just enough to get me through the last 30 minutes of the ride. The sun, well it never did come out.

Back home after thawing at the fire, the clean up begins. Hey Kris check this out.