My 103 km Day

A bit of catching up first. Hit 1400km on Friday, two days off the pace with time running out. Had an issue with my front break and two flats, joy.  The last flat was just at 1400km so I didn't get any buffer past that.  Kim came to get me, so I could get to PedalHead before they closed on Friday.

So I had 98.5km still to go and just two days to go.  Got distracted by other things on Saturday, so had 98.5 km to go as of this morning.

Left early for Converge at The House in Kensington, used the extra time to take the river pathway turning a 19km ride into a 35km ride.   After Converge I joined Richard's Birthday Ride as it passed through Kensington.  We rode to Eau Claire and then to Sandy Beach, past the reservoir and on to Glenmore Landing. Taking me to the 51km mark


After some food (I had poutine) and drink to celebrate Richard's birthday, the Fellowship was broken and I headed west and north along the Reservoir with Calvin and Dave until they headed back to their homes in the North.  I looped around the Reservoir and headed south along the pathway that took me to 37th Street, took 37th Street over Fishcreek and then home through evergreen.  82km.

After dinner and a break I headed out in the dark for a 22km ride mostly in Bridlewood.  Hit the 1500km Mark by the end of Sept.  Yay!



Hit the 103km for the day when I got home.   I've posted the data from today's ride, if you're really curious.  Most satisfying number to me is the moving time of 5h 23m.  The last time I did 100km in a day it was exactly 100km and It was 5h 30m for moving time.  Not exactly Tour de France speeds, but progress for me.

Now to see how I feel tomorrow, I'd like to get km in before the snow hits on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Goal for October is to hit the 2000km mark for the year.

- Peace

1300km and plan for 1400 & 1500

Hit 1300km on the way home from through Fishcreek Park this evening.  That puts me on track to hit 1500km by the end of the month.   200km in 9 days no problem, except Sat and Sun are booked with non riding events and I'd love to hit 1500km while riding with friends on the 29th.  So that's 200km in 6 days.   Aiming for 1400km by Wed and 1500km for next Sunday.   Doable but not much in the way of recovery time if something goes wrong.

- Peace

Fishcreek at 1200km

Hit the 1200km while riding in Fishcreek Park this afternoon.  If I keep the pace from the last 400km for the next 300km I'll hit 1500 by the end of the month :)

22x at the 1100km Mark

Hit the 1100km mark while riding west on 22x. You can see the point where I turned back east in the distance where the road from the left joins the highway.

- Peace

My Top 6 London Shots + 1

I took over 2500 shots while in the UK.  Of those I published 185 to Flickr.  Of those 18 made it to my Most Interesting of 2012 set.  Here are the top 6 shots as ranked by Flickr:

#1		2nd only to 2008's Sky Canola this shot just took off. 1266 views, 76 favorites and 49 comments. I knew it was a cool shot but wasn't expecting that much of a response. It was the perfect spot for my Sigma 8-16mm Ultrawide lens.
#2		#31 on the all time list, the London Eye does well again with my Ultrawide lens. Taken with my tripod on the Westminster bridge.
#3		The Gothic Ceiling of the St Mary Aldermary Church was listed as one of the reasons to visit it when I googled the church while trying to locate Moot. Moot is as cool as their ceiling. Even if they did mock me for drinking Strongbow. Not a real cider apparently.
#4		A weak shot technically, I think this shot works as the British Police are famous for not carrying guns. The fact that this armed Bobby is a woman just adds to the dissonance.
#5		With 7 favorites and 0 comments I have no idea why people like this shot. I'm guessing the curved architecture, the clouds and the river.
#6		Shot from our tour bus, this is one of those times when things come together.  Cool shiny Austin Martin on a mostly monochromatic background.
+1		Sometimes I get very excited about a shot and post it to flickr and the silence is deafening.  I have a whole collection of these shots called: Personal Favs. I just love this handheld, Lensbaby night shot of a drenched Piccadilly Circus.  Flickr was less impressed.

So that's it for London. I've started posting pictures from Paris.

- Peace

1000 KM and an Updated Plan

Hit the 1000km mark on the way back from downtown. Stopped and took this shot crossing the Elbow River.

It's been eight days since hitting the 800km mark for an average of 25km a day. If I keep that pace for the rest of Sept. I'll pass 1500km by the end of the month. That leaves me with 1000km for the last three months of the year. 500km in Oct, 300 km in Nov and 200 in Dec should be quite doable. I have done 500km in December before though I'd rather not repeat that :)

Only major risk is Environment Canada is calling for a mild fall and winter. So there's a good chance it will be wet and extra cold. We'll see.

- Peace

First Ride With My New Garmin Edge 500

Just after hitting the 900km mark and seeing Kendra, I was riding to meet Kim and Sarah and realized that my Enduro 8 was missing.  I backtracked to where I had last had it but no luck.  Now I love the Enduro 8 except for the bracket, it has a small tab that breaks each winter making it easy to bump the Enduro 8 out of the bracket.   I hadn't bothered to replace the bracket this year as I was thinking I would replace it with a Sigma (much better bracket) or Garmin.

I went with the Garmin after a heavy endorsement from Kendra that night at supper after I mentioned losing the Enduro 8.   Also David M. has been singing it's praises each year when we ride Goat Creek.

Got the Garmin Edge 500 yesterday at MEC with the speed/cadence senrors yesterday and installed them yesterday afternoon, but didn't get out for a ride.

Ran an errand today and looped around the north side of the Glenmore Reservoir.  I've uploaded the data from my first ride to the Garmin site.  Other than needing to prod it to connect to the speed/cadence sensor everything seemed to work fine.

One hiccup I didn't expect was that there's no single odometer on the Edge 500.  So 100km points won't be as easy to track.  Will take a look and see if the data format is easy to read so I can at least automate the math.

- Peace

Small World at 900km

Our back to school tradition is taking Sarah out to UBC. My tradition is taking my bike out to Vancouver when ever possible :) While Kim and Sarah were shopping for some items to make Sarah's new room more of a home I was out riding in Vancouver. I had just hit the 900km mark for the year and had stopped to connect with Kim and Sarah about where to meet when Kendra walked up to me! Small world. We had been planning to get together of supper that night, but the meeting in the park was random.

Kendra was in Stanley park registering for Monday's Triathlon. Since I was over 900km and under 901km I could take our shot as my 900km shot. Yay!

Yes I'm annoyed that the shot is blurry. Should have paid closer attention.

 - Peace