Close encounters of the tree kind !!

Up early today as I was going to meet Bob at the Ravenshoe forest for some mountain biking, we agreed for 9 o’clock and I just made it, I had forgotten about all the lights between home and there !!!

Evelyn and the pups came also as they were going hiking with Marie while we rode. 

The Ravenshoe has a lot of great tight technical single track, if you do the whole thing it’s about 17 km and of course we did it all today!!!, it took us about an hour and a half.  And I’m not kidding about the technical part, today three times I found myself separated from my bike ( ok, I fell !!! ) nothing serious, actually two of the times were rather embarrassing, the third I ran into a root on a turn and left the bike there as I kept on going on foot !!!, and there were a number of times I scraped against trees that just would not move out of the way, leaving chunks of skin on a few !!!.

There are many 90 degree turns with stumps, many narrow single track where you can just, and I mean just get your handlebars through the trees, lots of bumps, stumps, twists and turns that keep you on your toes!!! and hopefully on your bike. With names like Cry Baby, Big Meany, One Gee, Stinky and Stumpy to mention a few you know your in for a good ride !!! and that’s exactly what we had today “a very good ride !!!”, it’s great to be riding with Bob again, I get a workout !!!! and have fun doing it. 

The trails are actually easier to ride now then when I use to ride them about 8 years ago when many of the trails were new and it was impossible to do them at speed, now they are still challenging but on can get some speed up also, lots of fun if you like technical.

I need to figure out a way to carry a camera as there are lots of great picture opportunities and I’m missing them all. At the moment I carry it in the Camelback but that means stoping taking the pack off, fishing the camera out, so action shots are out , and once the picture is taken the camera needs to be packed again. So I’m researching options. 

To find the Ravenshoe is quite easy , it’s on the south west corner of Ravenshoe Rd and McCowan Rd. with the main parking lot on McCowan. It’s also used a lot for hiking , jogging and a lot of people were walking there dogs,nice to see the place used !!

Its official name of the forest is "York Regional Forest - Brownhill Tract"

It’s a bees world out there.

Last week I went down to bush-hog one of my fields , the only one not done this summer , so it was quite overgrown with weeds,( I am using the word weeds loosely here for the moment.) 

As I was cutting  up and down I soon realized that these weeds were a small thriving eco-system , bees, grasshoppers, dragonflies, bumblebees , wasps and butterflies to name a few . I soon started feeling very guilty about destroying there home especially when three Monarch butterflies kept dancing around the tractor looking for flowers that I was mowing down . ( I think they were Monarchs but they could have been Viceroys , the two look very similar ) I have a great admiration for the Monarch as it’s the only butterfly that actually migrates south in the winter and returns the next spring , amazingly it’s an offspring that returns as the monarch does not live long enough to make the round trip ) 

I didn’t get the whole field done so yesterday I went down with the camera to take some shots of this amazing eco-system before I totally destroy it or winter does. Here are some of the pictures I took , unfortunately I saw no butterflies so either they were migrating or just moved on , I like to think they were migrating !

Funny how we kill off the so call weeds just to plant flowers , what's the difference ???

The small eco-system, doesn't look like much until you have a closer look ( next 4 pics )

I wonder why we call them weeds, they are quite beautiful !!

Busy bee !!

Look how full it's leg sacks are !!!

I love spiders, amazing colours !!

Here a bee got caught in the web, now it's spider food, natures way!

Lots of Bumblebees, the one on the right was coming out of it's burrow.

Wasps sunning themselves , they are just about done for this year the cool weather keeps them close to home.

Autumn is just around the corner and with it's cold weather all of this eco-system will disappear.

Montana was helping, at least she thought so !!

A very interesting mushroom I found growing on the side of a dead tree.

Eastern Bluebird, for some reason I only see them in the spring and the fall.

Chickadee, a regular visitor to our bird-feeder , but not so much during the summer when it's off rearing it's young.

Milkweed pods, Monarchs feed of the flowers.

Achy breaky body !!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Loading the bike onto the car 

I thought that after a summer of biking across the country that I was in good physical condition, after all I did cover over 8,000 km, but Sunday morning I found out that that was not the case, my adventure in the Durham Forest left me with an aching body !!! , arms, shoulders, stomach , back all ached for the next two days !!! , I should have known , mountain biking is a much more demanding sport then road riding , but it still caught me by surprise !

So I have decided that if I’m going to play this new game I’d better get my body use to it , with that in mind I loaded up the bike today after work and headed to my local park “ Centennial Park Centre” that’s literally five minutes up the road. 

I know the trails there quite well as I use to race on them a few years ago.It’s a small park with three loops ( easy, intermediate and difficult ) totaling just over 5 km and a number of connecting trails were created once racing stared to be able to create a variety of different courses. 

I stayed on the loops today and did them three times, they are fast flowing single track and I had fun !! I was swishing left and right !!!, hopping over the small rises !!!, dipping into the hollows!!!, dodging root, stones and branches !!!, taking the bends at speed , breaking coming in and letting loose in the turn , climbing the banks when there were banks !!!, dodging the trees with just millimeters to spare !!!, bouncing like crazy over the exposed roots !!!!, just having a ball !!!!! no wonder my body aches !!!! 

I ended up doing 16.6 km in 1 hour and four minutes with an average speed of 15.4 km/h, a good work out that had me huffing and puffing !!!

I am toying with the idea of perhaps doing the 8 hour ride up at Hardwood Hills ( Duke's Fall Epic 8 Hour Relay ) on the 25th , crazy perhaps ? 

On a sad note as I was driving to the park I spotted a squirrel crossing the road and stoping , I slowed right down to see which way he would go but the oncoming car didn't and ended up running him over and killing him , I just don't understand why the car couldn't just slow a bit and let the squirrel get out of the way , what’s the rush ??? why the indifference to life ??? You could say it was just a unimportant squirrel, but that just goes to show a lack of being able to live in harmony with the creatures around us, we can get all upset about people killing elephants in Africa and clearing forest in the Amazon  and at the same time don’t give a dam about a squirrel in our own back yard , strange how that works !!! ( I’ll write more on this another day , it’s something that concerns me ) 

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Into the forest we go !!

I’ve been sitting around all this week pondering what to do with the rest of my life now that I’m back from my odyssey across the country, quite the task I’ve set for myself, eh ?  Now a week is a short time for such a huge decision I must admit, but then when you spend it sitting around doing nothing it turns into a long time !!!. So far the only decision I’ve come up with has been to get back on a bike, ( which is good as I wasn’t sure I wanted to bike) and I’ll just have to do some more pondering to come up with a strategy for the rest of my life part.

Then last night Bob calls me, he had read my last blog entry and was all exited that I was thinking of perhaps getting the mountain bike out, he wanted to go for a ride with me as it had been at least two years since we last rode together, his excitement quelled my hesitation about ridding and we arranged to meet 1 PM at the Durham Forest.

Bob and I back together on the trails !!!

So this morning I went over to the garage and took the bike down from the rafters dusted off the cobwebs (real cobwebs) and took it over to the house to patch the rear tire that had been flat now for about two years !!, yes you heard right , I have not ridden this bike since I started training for the across Canada trip two years ago !!! and that is how long the tire has been flat.

Found the hole quickly and patched just as quick , I’ve got good at it with all the practice I’ve had this summer !!!. That was the easy part , I had to do a bit of a cleaning as I had left it quite filthy , and after two years that dirt just didn’t want to be parted from the bike !!, I did my best concentrating on the drive train and then oiled the chain, the rest of the bike kept it’s coat of dirt. Then it was time to find air pump, spare tube, tool bag, camel-bag, etc ... , all the stuff needed to be out in the woods, this process took the longest as I must admit I’m not the most organized person in the world !. But finally it was all together and in the car and bike on the rack, I hoped it was in working order as I didn't have time for a test ride. 

After a stop at the bank and Tim Hortons for a coffee and two donuts ( I was starving !!! ) I arrived at the forest right at 1 and found Bob , Mary and the kids already there. The first spin around the parking lot felt really weird , different seat hight , handlebars , shifters etc .. , but I got the hang of it and off we went, Mary and the kids doing a short ride , Bob and I a longer one. Now riding with Bob is an adventure in itself , easy and slow are words he uses , there meaning, well not quite what Oxford has written down! , so today I set out once again for one of those slow easy rides and I must admit I had the time of my life zooming up and down those trails !!!!, I was huffing and puffing and sweating like a pig, but enjoying every turn , climb and especially every down hill !! , rocks , roots , ruts and all !!!

We went out for a 2 hour ride that turned into a 2 1/2 hour ride during which we covered 23 km of trails averaging 12.5 km/h even setting a 55 km/h max on one of our last down hills !!! 

Bob has been a mentor to me in my mountain biking life, he has helped me improve my skills, and instilled a competitive drive in me , he first introduced me to the Durham Forest about 15 years ago and I’ve been chasing him since then without being able to catch him !!!! Todays ride brought back many memories of our single track days together with Mark and Deb and Mary . 

The Durham Forest is my favorite mountain biking trail , great single track , a lot of fast flowing trails mixed in with some technical stuff , beautiful deciduous forest and a huge area that is not overly busy.  

You can find it just south of Uxbridge on Concession Road 7 just south of the Goodwood Road. Not only is it one of the best mountain biking areas around but it’s great for hiking and used for horse back ridding also. 

Beautiful trails of the Durham Forest !!

Bob

Myself on my Specialized Epic Marathon