Long Weekend!! WOOHOO!! I headed to Brantford to visit with Denis and Lisa (thanks for hosting!) for some good times and some outdoor activity. First up is the ride along the Rail Trail from Brantford to Paris and back. Great path, nice and quiet and lots of nature (the kind the hops or walks as opposed to the kind the buzzes and annoys).
Friday made the ride a bit dicey as we headed out to the farm to visit Lisa’s parents for some BBQ. After some drinks and some absolutely awesome homemade (and homegrown) sausage and burgers and a crazy good black bean salad (may have been my favorite part) we headed back to the house with two gents that may or may not have been tipsy.
I figured the ride would be touch and go the next day, but Lisa was rearing to go. We had a great plan, get out early, before it gets to crazy hot have breakfast and then head back. We hit the trail and headed off. It was great! There was a bit of cloud cover and the nature present was really cool and included a deer, turtles, rabbits and assorted chipmunks. Everything was going along swimmingly until we hit the hill. I don’t know how I could have forgotten about this friggin behemoth, but it was crazy. Now the first time I did the trail with Fred and Char, Freddy and I walked up over half of it. This time, due to a gearing miscalculation on my part, I had to kick out and walk the last 20 yards. Big improvement.
Ok I did get passed by a jogger, but that’s another story. This ride was also the first time the mountain bike has been out and compared to the Argon, the thing was heavy and SLOW. Just had to get used to it again, but I digress. We roll into Paris and sit on the river to have a late breakfast/early lunch (I had 2 grilled cheeses and they were perfect, but I was worried if I was going to keep them down). The problem with lunch is you end up sitting and tightening up, so we cut it short and got a move on.
The ride back was a lot quicker as we came back on a different route which was a little shorter and included some city streets. When it was all said and done, the total round trip was over 41Kms and took 2 hours and 20 minutes. My average BPM was 145 with a max of 184 (on that stupid hill for sure), but because of the computer, no cadence info. The machine also says that I burned off 2,596 calories on the ride.
All in all though, Paris was a bit far to ride for breakfast,
Beez
