Well the weather has been somewhat amazing the last couple of days here. Close to 20 degrees and great sunshine. Friday was a little busy as the kids had a half day at school and Alex has swimming then Drew had his friend from across the street over for the night. Unfortunately Tammy is in the midst of wrapping up a huge project and she has been stuck in the offices of her client till the wee hours of the night trying to get things wrapped up. I think it was after 3:00 am when she got home last night (or I guess this morning)
I had planned on going for a long ride with a friend of mine on Sunday but he called and suggested that we come over on Saturday afternoon and that the kids could play together (they have two kids as well) and he and I would bike out that afternoon then come back and have a BBQ at their place. An extremely generous offer as that means Kerrie (Darren's wife) now had 5 kids vs 2. So pack the bikes onto the truck, pack up a bag for the kids (suncreen, pajamas, sweatshirts) and off we go.
The ride was amazing, the weather was almost perfect (that damn wind creeped up again). I think Darren was holding back a bit for the rookie (me) but all in all I was pretty happy with my performance. I think we could have pushed it a bit more on the way there, as for the way back there wasn't much left in the tank at that point. Especially the last hill at the 70km point, had to get out of the saddle to make the last km of it.
The route itself was an out and back to Bragg Creek from Darrens place. Pretty much Springbank Road to 22x into Bragg, very nice ride, other than a little patch right around the 15km point, the farmers fields next to the road absolutely reeked, don't know what the smell was but it sure didn't seem natural. I would bet that we saw at least 100 other bikers on various points along the route. In the ditch just past Redwood Meadows was a perfectly formed Coyote Skeleton, probably hit by a car in the winter and decayed to just the skeleton, should have taken a picture it was pretty cool (well ok to me it was), also a large buck was on the roadside. Right at the four way stop as you get to Bragg is a nice coffee shop were we had a Cappucino and a bite before the ride back, on this gorgeous day there was 20 or so bikes and their riders sitting in and outside of the Cafe.
Here is a picture of Darren, just before we hit Bragg, hard to miss him in the white and blue.
Stopped by the traffic circle sign for the obligatory photo, seeing as I am the one usually taking the pictures I am not often in them.
Same spot but just more of me
One more of Darren
In reality I was following for 90% of the ride so this was more typical of my view during the ride.
We got back to Darrens around 4pm to find the kids happily playing outside. Darren and Kerrie put on a great spread for all of us and we enjoyed a great evening. The kids played outside till well after 9pm then Kerrie got them all bathed and into there Pajamas. We hit the road to come home around 10:30, all three kids were tired but super well behaved.
Thanks for a great day Clark Family...............only one thing missing to make it perfect.
Comments