pre-season preview

Well, not exactly, but due to a wonderful day, my wife and I took a walk at the turn around spot for one of my favourite routes. The wind was bitter, snow was everywhere, but the sun is starting to have some staying power and is melting snow anyplace it touches.

This ride I mentioned above sees me leave from North Waterloo heading towards South Kitchener via my good friend's house. We make our way down past Conestoga College, across Highway 401 on a footbridge, and through the hamlet of Blair into South Galt (Cambridge). From there, we take a ride down a rail trail to Paris, Ontario. Locals to me will know the trail - it is one of the more beautiful ones around the area.

Total kilometers, my door to Paris, are around 54km. We ride it as an out and back giving us (well me unless my friend comes by my place and then home again) an easy 108km. There is not a lot of climbing on this ride but for a few sharp spiky hills where we drop in and out of the Grand River valley. Mostly, it is a low to no car spin fest, with the option to add some seriously steep nasty climbs in and out of Paris if that is desired. Roads down that way are truly marvelous if road riding is something you are interested in. There are some very nice roads, both paved and gravel, with steep gradients which I intend to ride more this year while down that way.

Here are some pictures of the town taken today. It is a lovely place.

Mid picture here is the cafe we usually stop at and grab a snack or shake. It is called the Brown Dog Cafe and Frittery (they make excellent apple fritters). The shake I usually get has two scoops of vanilla ice-cream, a double shot of espresso, a banana, some chocolate sauce, and is topped off with whipped cream. Holy banana pants does that get you going. It usually fills the energy deficit caused by riding there and gets me home without an issue. I should eat something real though but the shake is sooooo good. It is called the "Brown Dog Shake" if memory serves.

The climb out. We drop down this, and climb out again after visiting the downtown. It does not look like much, and really it isn't, but it spikes a bit part way up the hill and steepens up on the right fork you can see mid picture. This is not the steep climb that I mentioned above. That one is on the other side of the town and is very hard to capture as a picture. Let's just say that I can sprint up this one flat out and not get winded, while the other one sees me grinding at a walking pace risking muscle cramps. It is much more evil. This is the margarine of evil.

The Grand River. We pass by the Grand several times - follow it actually - on this ride. Come spring time, this will be a very nice spot to sit and watch the river flow by. Today though? Cold and windy it was. If you drive a Toyota Corolla and live in North America, there is a good chance it was taken over that rail bridge. Exit along the track picture right and you will end up at the Cambridge Toyota plant (TMMC).

There you go, a bad photograph of the sign for the Brown Dog Cafe. Go there. It is worth it.

Exit picture right and you will be on the start of the evil climb. Basically, it scales that cliff you see mid picture right. The road in front of you bends to the left, and then spikes up a bit while bending to the right. If you want the easy way up, keep following to the right and it loops around back a bit and follows a gentle arch up to the top of the cliff. That is the way the trucks take when they grind up the hill. Want to cause some pain? Head left instead of taking the bypass. You will reach "Main Street." Turn right. Enjoy. It climbs fairly sharply for about 2/3 of the way up and then gets very very steep for the last third. That is the spot that can induce leg cramps in people who do not live in areas with a lot of climbing. For me, it is nasty. For someone used to constant non stop up and down, it would not be that bad. But, this is all relative isn't it?

Final shot today. This is the rail trail as it enters Paris. 21 km down it is Cambridge. Before we use it again, that snow has to be gone, and the trail has to harden up again. That usually does not take long since this is an old rail bed and has been seriously compacted. Even spring melt off does not soften it up much. I anticipate riding it by mid-April if all goes well. If not, soon after.

girl you're amazing

The above was posted today by RANTWICK, a blogger friend of mine. Thanks man, that made my day.

Happy Valentine's day everyone.

Why Chris Hadfield, The Barenaked Ladies, and the Wexford Gleeks simply rock

One of the niftiest things I have seen in a long time.

This is one of the reasons I really like Chris Hadfield.

http://music.cbc.ca/concerts/Chris-Hadfield-and-Barenaked-Ladies-ISS-Is-Somebody-Singing-2013-02-05

I would have embedded the player, but Blogger won't let me since it is not from YouTube. Follow the link, it is worth it.

The first Grand Tour of the year is coming. I love this promo.

***

I have been doing a lot of different (for me) training this winter on the bike. Instead of doing a whole lot of nothing - something that happened a lot in the past - or just riding outside when I can, I am trying to ride in to work several times a week, and am riding on a borrowed trainer in the basement for around about an hour each evening.

What makes this workable for me is YouTube.

I park the bike and trainer in front of the computer monitor, turn up the speakers a little bit, and watch while spinning away.

Slowly, I am working my way through the various stage races and classics from the 2012 season in Europe, all thanks to kind folks who upload things from ITV4 and EuroSport.

Wonderful stuff. Very inspiring.

I wonder if I will fly by my bandwidth limits for February?

creative brick wall

It has finally happened.

Truthfully, it happened sometime last summer, but it has taken me until now to acknowledge it.

I have hit a creative brick wall. Full tilt. Hard.

Time was, I would not leave the house without a camera with me. I would always find something interesting to see in the everyday. I would "see" things that others would question, would not "get". And I was ok with this (still am) but the problem is that I have, for whatever reason, stopped seeing things.

Or, to be more accurate, I have stopped caring about seeing things, or at least have stopped caring about recording what I am seeing and displaying it in a meaningful way. Make sense?

I am struggling with why I bother to take photographs. Who am I taking the pictures for? Me? My friends? My family? The public at large? I don't know.

I have tried the "social thing" on flickr and other sites and came to the conclusion that I just don't like social networking enough to make my pictures popular. Truthfully, I just don't care enough about people pleasing to bother with a lot of meaningless tripe to garner attention.

I feel as if I have taken every picture around where I live that I can take. It is funny. When I am out walking or riding about, I see something and think, "That would make a nice picture. Wait. I have that exact picture in this exact light at home on my hard drive. I took it last May. Or whenever." And then I don't take the picture.

Picture taking has been for me a social thing as well. I love taking pictures with people. However, the overwhelming majority of my friends who are interested in photography are simply, and legitimately, too busy with life to have time to use their cameras. They have disengaged from the hobby, at least to some extent. And when we do manage to get together, I often won't take any pictures worth looking at if I even take any pictures at all. I always have a great time though, so I doubt that this is the cause of my picture taking blahs. And truly, it is the people in such circumstances not the photography which matter anyway.

I am honest enough with myself to know that I am a bit (ok, more than a bit) of a gear head. My two hobbies, cycling and photography, both rotate around gear to some extent and I genuinely enjoy working with fine gear. This is not a beg for new gear since my cameras are not holding me back either technically or creatively in any way. They will only be an impediment to creativity when they stop working.

What is missing, I think, is purpose. Why bother has sunk in rather deeply.

I have to find that groove again. That track. That drive to take what I see around me and show it to the world and say, "See? This is what I saw today!" I need to get excited about the creative process and about breathing life and light into the mundane.