Canal cycling adventures

So.  Those of you who’ve been here a while may remember that once upon a time, a few lifetimes ago, I decided to do the Ride to Conquer Cancer (and if you're really bored, you can read all about it - in reverse order - here!).  And I dutifully trained and got fit and while prob not as fit as I should’ve been, did it, rode the whole way, and was in the middle (aka not nearly dead last) each day.  However, since then I’ve done exactly zero “real” rides and only a handful each year in general.   But now that Sasha can’t do the long walks w me anymore, and in desperate need of some outdoor cardio, I’m back into the bike ;)

So I got it all tuned up and had Monday after the cottage off work, so I went for a ride.  I’d intended on about 10k - there’s an out and back again route (I don’t love those but it’s the only pretty spot to ride around here) that has good stopping points at about 5 and 10 k distances from my home.   All good.

It's not as lovely as the lake view at the cottage,
but it's still way better than riding in the city!

Also - remember we live “where the ships climb the mountain” aka at the top of the hill between Lake Eerie and Lake Ontario.  Which means every path from here leads down. 

Now that particular trail leads down slowly.  It’s super gradual.  So I had an easy ride but not a ton of excessive speed and I mentally shelved the fact that the return would be uphill.  Was 100% NOT ready to go home at the 5k turnaround so I kept riding.  I noted the 10k turnaround just cause it always amuses me that it’s there (a random ferry that exists cause a ship took out a bridge 100ish years ago and the city decided it was cheaper to ferry pedestrians across forever than rebuild the bridge - and they still do!  For free :)).  Anyways I was amused by the ferry but failed to connect it to the fact that this now meant my overall ride would be closer to 20k.  And kept going.  And then I started seeing signs for Welland business district (insert sarcastic comment here - those who know…) but also what looked like a park or something, so I decided I’d ride to that and check it out.  Was not anything interesting but did add a few more kms to the out distance, so I decided to be responsible and come home.

I kinda love this bridge;
I may or may not have used it as a mini-break to stop and take this photo ;)

Fair enough - super slow comparatively but I made it and wasn’t overly sore.  Was particularly pleased about my shoulders which usually kill after any ride.  Oh Hindsight is a nasty little gremlin.

By that evening my quads were cement blocks.  FML.  Went for a 5k walk (normal loop) to try to work them loose.   Theoretically it helped.  Really?  I doubt it.  It just made me more tired.

Next day - actually felt not too bad.  Decide to do an easy loop, test out my snazzy new speed and cadence sensors (read - I moved the wahoo ones from the spin bike to the real bike) set everything up (incl learning how to measure wheel circumference — my husband has like half a dozen tape measures; do you think I could find any of them when I actually needed one?  Nope.  Hence why I have my own mini tool box ;).   Anyways - wanted to test if the new toys work.  They do.  However with extreme darkness looming and increasingly large drops of rain falling at an ever-accelerating rate, I basically went around the block and back into the garage.  Perfect.  No leg pain, no shoulder pain, world is good.  We won’t mention the entire ride was less than 3km.

So now we’re into today.  Work was long and meeting heavy and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and possibly Friday so I really wanted to go out after work.  Out I go, things feel mostly good, decide to take the trail the other direction.   Only issue with that is it’s a significantly steeper hill that way.  Lol TONS of fun on the down, less good on the up.  Also, I’ve never taken that trail so I couldn’t just fly down it cause I had no idea where it went.  If you knew the route was clear, it’d be so much fun.  But it's a twisty path which is really pretty but has limited visibility.  And the part that is straight has light posts planted in the middle of the bike path ;-P

Anyways - first, I forgot to tell the app I was doing anything till the bottom of the hill.  Boooo.  Although at least my watch figured it out.   It’s amazing how motivating (or Demotivating) data (and lack thereof) can be.  But anyways - decided I wasn’t in for a repeat of Monday so I’d turn around at the 5k mark.    And I DID (although I admit I gave a moment or two’s thought to continuing to where I could buy some ice cream, but that would be slightly counterproductive).   Turn around and go back up the hill.  And up.  And up.  I had to remember how to switch the big gear out - I basically never use that half of my gears lol but I was getting desperate.   I’m not sure I *want* to see the data on how slowly I was moving!   I made it to the top, but by then my poor shoulders - you know the ones I was so excited were not tired the other day — were screaming (remember the gremlin?), and I was moving too slowly to sit up (spoiler alert - that’s why they weren’t screaming on Monday, I did half the ride sitting up instead of holding the handlebars!).  Then on the slightly flatter portion I got enough speed to sit up, and the second I let go, the wind yanked my tire out.  *sigh*.  Riding (horseback that is) reflexes still reasonable since I caught it and stayed on, but yeah *facepalm*.  Riding along the canal is almost always a giant wind tunnel - some places worse than others.   I know this from walking and running.  Yet somehow didn't clue in to the impact on a bike. Lesson learned.  So even though I was contemplating an extra loop near my house cause the legs were feeling good and I was having fun, my shoulders and dying phone convinced me I should go home and the whole ride was a mere 10k and took me 36 minutes 😂.  Horrifyingly slow even with a solid downhill that could've got me some speed if not for trees and lamp posts ;).

The easy down isn’t as much fun as the steep one - you def don’t get the same speed - but the easy up is a lot less embarrassing!  Lol. Overall though, a reasonably harmless way to enjoy an evening.