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ad for a bit because i went at least 10km out of my way further south on the north simcoe rail trail before i realized that i was no longer actually on the loop trail at this point now about 125km into my day tired and thrown off by no longer knowing exactly where i was on the trail i gave up on the idea of navigating back to the trail and heading south down into barrie and then home along the oro medonte rail trail along lake simcoe instead i went into midhurst and then back into orillia via line 15 16 line 15 16 is beautiful by the way but damn the pavement is torn to crap for long stretches and makes for very rough riding while i didn t actually ride the east section of the loop trail which is the oro medonte trail i do know this trail between orillia and barrie quite well it s flat with good traction and easy to ride it s also entirely forest and some fields you don t get a glimpse of water unless you turn down one of the lines line 14 takes you to carthew bay which has a good store with ice cream so what i didn t see and can t comment on is the route from snow valley road near midhurst south down into barrie and the barrie waterfront otherwise here s my cheat sheet orillia to penetanguishene spectacular fun and scenic penetanguishene to barrie farmer s fields some wayfinding issues county road 6 usually visible off to the side barrie to orillia forest forest and more forest go down to carthew bay on line 14 to see water and maybe do 8 mile point and up line 15 back to the trail in order to mix things up a bit and my particular ride on this day i was in love up until penetanguishene and then it started to sour when i got turned back on those tiny trail rollers it felt like from this point on i was fighting the trail a little both with way finding and with enjoyment of my surroundings by the time i realized i was off the trail somewhere above snow valley road i was pretty much shattered and no longer in the mood to head down into barrie i absolutely inched along line 15 16 and would have been an absolute wreck of a cyclist and human being if the helping tailwind that i had on 15 16 had instead been a headwind august 10 2019 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday june 11 2019 virginia capital trail june 2019 folks in virginia u s a running between williamsburg and richmond is the virginia capital trail i rode it one way to richmond and then back again the next day to williamsburg i wish i had something better to say about the experience let s do it this way williamsburg the city of williamsburg is quite lovely and was pretty darn receptive to cycling i found a bike lane on richmond street and a bike lane wide shoulder on jamestown road which leads you down to the start of the virginia capital trail jamestown road is one of the two main ways to get to jamestown where the vct actually starts it does not start in downtown williamsburg and jamestown is the one i d recommend a person use to get down to the trail colonial williamsburg and jamestown down on the river are popular tourist spots the old town of williamsburg largely preserved as it existed in the 1700s this below is a view of the james river from the colonial parkway the colonial parkway picture below is the other main route from downtown williamsburg to jamestown and the start of the vct but despite the fact that you get some better views and vistas from the colonial parkway as compared to jamestown road the colonial parkway is a really rough stone aggregate surface i was riding my jamis cross bike with about 32 mm tires and i still hated the experience of riding on that surface i wouldn t even consider it on a road bike with 23 or 25 mm tires the virginia capital trail is boring i m really sorry i hate to be critical but it s boring the trail is 50 miles of pavement running alongside highway 5 mostly forest on both sides but sometimes fields of wheat i d been thinking that there would be nice views of the james river as you rode along that there d be little beach areas with concession stands park benches and places to stop and look out over something but there aren t not at all so saturday morning i found myself just pedaling and pedaling and pedaling not because i was trying to make good time but rather because there was nothing else to do now if you view the interactive map online and click on the various attractions you might find a few things that interest you but you might not and not all of those attractions are even open to the public at any given time and they re not alongside the trail if you want to see them it s a detour and another beef i have is that there s no physical printed map or guidebook to the vct at least not according to the bike shop i stopped in at in williamsburg to try and find one so cycling along the trail you re riding blind not knowing what you re passing the vct i hate to complain about 50 miles of paved trail but i don t know what i d use it for if i lived down there it isn t fun to ride so i wouldn t spend weekend mornings on that trail it s not super convenient for fast road bike rides though i did see some people doing that on the trail so i don t know better to have it than not have it but i got the impression it was most heavily used by people riding from richmond about 10 miles east to this little parkette where the big bike is below and then back into richmond again neglecting the other 40 miles of trail towards williamsburg richmond finally people life stuff good god it was such a relief to get into richmond and see people again richmond is pretty cool especially since i ride on zwift and one of the zwift courses is richmond due to the world championship which happened in richmond in 2015 so some of the streets of the city were known to me from my virtual experience of riding them on zwift this big bike picture above is about 10 miles east of richmond street art along the canal walk in richmond the canal walk is really fascinating i found myself wishing i didn t have my bike with me so i could just wander along more slowly and enjoy everything without pushing a bike and wearing hard to walk in footwear i also wish i d had a richmond travel book in my hands so i knew more about the civil war history i was passing by and which a few of the bridges are historical reminders of the vct running under old trestle tracks heading into richmond i was in virginia due to a conference and my eyes really opened wide at discovering the existence of a long dedicated cycling trail between williamsburg and virginia so my cross bike equipped with rack and panniers came in the car with me and i was hoping for some lolly gagging along stopping here and there for coffee ice cream or beer as seemed appropriate but with nothing to see or do i just kept pedaling maybe that s what the vct was for me just some exercise in between the history of richmond on one side and williamsburg on the other that s not the end of the world but i was honestly hoping for more june 11 2019 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday august 08 2018 letters to a young cyclist first of all i m obviously never going to blog again the way i did during that crazy downtown toronto to oshawa bike commuting phase that i had i ve changed but blogging has changed as well twitter came along i think a lot of bloggers choose to micro blog these days and that s likely how i now use strava a bike ride a few words of description a photograph and i m done no need to open blogger and try to be eloquent one brushstroke in a strava ride report does enough of the job that i don t need to explain any further today is unique i had a miserable ride that i thought i d comment on a little bit and i happen to have time to open up blogger what a surprise it rained like mad on my commute this morning i wore full rain gear and almost immediately began questioning why i bother to wear full rain gear it really does nothing except become an extra layer of sodden clothing you have to deal with when you get to work the rain was warm i could have just ridden naked and it d have been less hassle oh and that phenomenon which i ve potentially written about before in the long history of this blog where the rain washes through the cushions in your helmet and sweeps all the old sweat out of the pads and the old sweat washes down your face into your eyes into your mouth and you ve enjoying a salt bath as you ride priceless anyway in the spirit of rilke writing letters of advice to a young poet here is one piece of advice from a seasoned bike commuter to a young bike commuter carry bungee cords with you bungee cords are good for lots of things like securing a 12 case of beer to your bike rack but they re also good for wet clothing situations your pile of wet gear on the floor of the showers can become something like this plus does everyone know the newspapers in your shoes trick if your shoes are soaked stuff them with newspapers and through the course of the morning or afternoon the newspapers absorb the moisture from the shoes often your shoes are totally dry by the end of the day if you replace the newspapers once or twice by the way this passage see below from rilke is quite intimidating if you feel like you could live without writing then you shouldn t write at all i assume he would extend that to the arts generally painting dance etc but how much further would he extend that if a person is a hobbyist painter who gets pleasure from it in the few spare moments he she can do it but is also a busy parent and can live without painting do you really never paint at all seems harsh only practice your art if you can commit 100 of yourself to it otherwise you re a fraud that s too harsh rainer but after this descent into yourself and into your solitude perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet if as i have said one feels one could live without writing then one shouldn t write at all nevertheless even then this self searching that i ask of you will not have been for nothing your life will still find its own paths from there and that they may be good rich and wide is what i wish for you more than i can say rilke letters to a young poet letter 1 august 08 2018 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday may 10 2018 shedding plastic like a crazy man riding your bike on a trainer in your basement leads to a lot of laundry a lot of laundry on a longish ride of 40km or more i ve often pulled one wicking sports shirt off and dropped it on the floor beside me and put another one on and i ve yanked off my head band and wrist bands and replaced them with others and i ve mopped my forehead and neck and head with a variety of scrap clothing so i often get off the bike and toss all this sweat drenched stuff right into the washing machine and run a wash lycra shorts some manner of micro plastic sweat wicking sports shirts which makes you think about the plastic microfibers in clothing problem you re an active person you own a lot of this sweat wicking athletic clothing you wear it and wash it over and over again and you re sending plastic microfibers into your local waterways and adding to the large range of environmental problems the world is experiencing yay us if you want to stay active and also want to minimize your impact on the earth what do you do i guess as a cyclist you look at wool there are wool jerseys out there but they re a bit hard to come by they re expensive and it worries me a bit that vintage velos where the image below comes from has a repair link has one of the three main links on their homepage image from vintage velos i don t think i can ever buy another one of these sweat wicking shirts it irks me too much from a tree hugging perspective to think of buying even more of these things and i guess i ll start trying to phase my current ones out and treat myself once in a while at christmas to one of these expensive wool jerseys may 10 2018 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest the zwifting treehugger it s may and finally warm in central ontario i ve been bike commuting to from work again and it s as rejuvenating as it always is there s really nothing quite like the feeling of pedaling away from your workplace on a summer afternoon i zwifted like a madman this winter my strava account tells me that i have nearly 3200km in my legs from jan 1 to may 10 2018 in comparison i did 4280 km for all of 2017 i think i d be pretty bored with zwift if i hadn t discovered all the races that you can do and then the big organized group rides like the tour of watopia the races obviously fulfill a competitive urge and the organized rides provide a nice social element both much more interesting than simply pedaling around watopia or london or richmond by myself now that it s spring and bike commuting season i anticipate my zwifting will be relegated to just two or three races or a group ride per week with the bulk of my mileage now coming from the commuting i ve started using strava the way that i used to use this blog taking pictures of things i pass on my rides musing about the things in those pictures it s interesting how the medium changes over the years instagram is obviously where everyone is these days but for someone who is wordy a blog still makes some kind of sense though people have to go to so much trouble to navigate to your blog these days as opposed to having your instagram twitter streams come up on their phone every five seconds i like this tree it s on a route here in my town that i don t take often but every time i do i look out for this tree that looks like it d be very much at home in a tolkien book or film it looks like it is waiting to give you a hug one that you may not be terribly pleased to receive may 10 2018 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday january 29 2018 strava news and a few reflections strava is in the news this morning due to some data that has apparently been online for a few months now at first blush it is somewhat astounding that strava exercise data and maps can reveal hidden military bases but then you realize wow this makes total sense of course military personnel use strava to map their rides runs workouts and of course a number of these people like the rest of us don t go into the settings of the app and really figure out what information they should and should not be sharing though at the same time you would have figured that some military officer who uses strava him or herself would have thought about this in the past as he looked at the map of his daily run on the strava site and realized that it showed the exact distance around the bagram air base in afghanistan here s a good version of the story from the bbc in active transportation circles the strava heat maps are a tool used when talking to cities municipalities about streets and ...