Saturday, March 27, 2010

St. Adolphe... almost.

We've been having a little warmer than usual spring here in Manitoba, so the roads are clearing up quicker than normal. Nearly all the snow is gone. Yesterday was a nice, sunny +8 degrees Celsius out, so I took advantage of that and went for a ride south to go see how the roads were out to St. Adolphe. This is a very popular route, and one that I often head out on, it's a nice 30k ride if you leave from the perimeter highway, but can be stretched to 50k if I leave from home and add a little loop just past the town of St. Adolphe.

One reason why I wanted to head out that way was it follows the Red River, which is very high this time of year (not as high as last year when the roads were flooded out). As I came up to the turn to go over the river, I saw a barricade. So naturally I went through it and rode the very loose, and very rough gravel road up to the bridge.

I had to get off and walk a couple sections, so I took a couple more photo ops.

You can start to see the water level and ice on the river.


The geese are coming in already, and there was a herd of deer out in the field too.


And this is why this post it titled 'St. Adolphe... almost"
Last year the bridge was found to be unsafe to drive on as one of the support pillars had shifted.
I remember riding over it a couple days before it was discovered and thought the gaps in the expansion joints looked different than usual. I did forget about it by the time I got back home though. Hopefully the bridge is fixed soon as the residents have to drive a long ways out of their way to get over the river now.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Riding with Abby


It was quite a nice day out, so naturally I wanted to get outside for a bit (even though I'm a little under the weather lately). As I pulled up to the house Abby, Natalie and their mom had been out drawing on the sidewalk (and tree stump) with some chalk. I had mentioned earlier in the day I had hoped to go for a bit of a bike ride when I got home. Turns out Abby wanted to go too. So I got the trailer all set up, got our helmets out, and went for a ride. Abby had a little snack (some gummy bears) to keep her occupied during the ride (~1/2 and hour or so... I think).

She must have had a long day, because when I pulled into the driveway, and opened the cover on the trailer, this was what I found.

It was a nice relaxing ride through a couple of neighborhoods. Maybe next time we'll take Jess and Natalie too.


Thursday, March 18, 2010

Roller Race

Just a quick update. Went to the Belgium Club here in Winnipeg for a 2-up roller race last night. (Click here for short Demo video).

2 bikes are connected to the dial in the middle that measures how 'far' they've gone. It was a 500m timed race, so full on sprint from the start. My time was 23.96 seconds. Fastest time (that I know of) was 22.75 seconds (Nicely done Jeremy). I'll find out today how it all ended.

Had some fun. was good to see the bunch from the shop. I put up a respectable time, but didn't feel so hot afterwards so I withdrew.

Sponsored by Woodcock Cycleworks. Thanks!