Maiden Voyage

So I finished building a fancy carbon road bike yesterday, after getting a sweet deal on my boss' barely used SRAM Force group. (Yes I know I am supposed to hate SRAM, but I will give them a chance when/if the price is right). The build took place at the shop with said boss drinking beer until almost 2am. I was a little worried that the late night would put a damper on my ride, that I was claiming yesterday would be 200km (knowing full well that wasn't going to happen).

So after my bedtime of almost 3 in the morning, I miraculously awoke just after 8 itching to go. Step 1: coffee. Step 2: food. Step 3: getting all my stuff together because I was NOT gonna bring my bag (yeah I know what have you done with the real Andrew you fancy road bike riding HRM wearing imposter). Yes that is right I even wore my heart rate monitor because I am totally cereal, baby!

Out the door around 10:15. Saw my friend/neighbour Adi on the street right by my house and we rode downtown together. He peeled off and I kept riding, stopping to buy some bananas and fix a loose stem clamp about 15km out from home. Took a pee break at exactly 20km and 1hr after leaving my house at Scarlett and Eglinton. I had a general plan to get to King St. (the one north of the city) and ride it west almost to Georgetown, then cut back down to the lakeshore and back home. This was taking into consideration the SW-erly wind, so that I wasn't going to have to fight it too hard on the home stretch.

I rode up Islington out if the city in Zone Chill, with occasional zone "blinky HRM" tempo thrown in to mix things up. Peeled off in Kleinburg, headed a little east then north again on Kipling. Turned into a dirt road after a few km. Then that other road I had planned on turning off on, was also a dirt road. Good thing I got the new bike cheap enough not to covet it.

So after the northbound haul, it was time to turn west, which I knew was going to hurt....but wow. After heading through Bolton, all I could do was turn back south after a couple of clicks because redlining at 20km/h (on 80km/h roads) is neither safe nor fun. The headwind was equally menacing as a crosswind, but at least I could ride at a respectable speed. As I approached Steeles, I remembered the dirt road I had ridden through Claireville Conservation Area this past summer, and figure since the bike was already dirty, I'd give it a shot. Big mistake.

The road was fine for a while, a little soft with some puddles here and there.....but then I hit the ice flows. Some low land by the river that had flooded, froze, and then heaved apart into thousands of chunks of ice that obscured a few hundred meters of the road. Had it still been cold it would have been okay, but the chunks were small enough that many would break or slip as soon as I set foot on them. 15 minutes and a half kilometre later, I cursed the mud clinging to my bike, ate a banana and hit the road once more. The ride home from there was rather uneventful, all on familiar city roads. I was looking at my watch the whole time and hoping that the ride would tally at least 120km since ride time was over 5 hours door to door. Just barely made it! Taking moving time into account I would say avg speed was about the same as my 4 corners fixy ride but a much windier and slightly hillier route.

OBLIGATORY MAP

Can't wait to hammer the bike again, but without fighting wind, ice or gravel.

And for those who care, my avg HR was probably about 145-150 (my cheap ass HRM might give me that info, but I only got a french owners manual so we will never know).

Also, my camera is still busted. If anybody has an old digi camera (even of dubious quality) they want to sell me real cheap lemme know. Then I can enhance entries like these with blurry pictures of boring inanimate objects.