The weather is dismal here at the moment, we had about 2 inches of snow which is now melting in the rain today so its that horrid slush we have now!
You've got our normal May weather!@David Berry Can you send your lovely blue skies my way please
Yesterday!
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Today!
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Years ago May was like this here also, I'm so glad its a thing of the past!
Now May is usually one of our best months!Simply the best days are they not, Ive been listening to the wifes friend who is the Sports head in the school, she came along on our rides and and kept ridiculing my ebike, now shes got one and it was a day of preaching of the converted, revisited trails and the breeze in her hair.Coffee with Jazza (No Pictures)
I'm gaining weight. With short days and (luckily) having more work, I had to limit my rides to grocery shopping. Finally, I said "inuffa dat!", and asked my manager for a half day off. The day was sunny, with manageable frost but strong cold wind. The clothes I put on turned out to be adequate, especially my good winter gloves. I took my Trance E+ for the ride because I felt that e-bike had been used too little recently; and I wanted to take the benefit of riding on bike paths, and slower. (My experience I gained last Winter is nothing makes you cold more than fast riding).
The pretext was seeing my old friend Jazza in Warsaw (the shortest road distance between our places is around 20 km). I was properly insulated against the elements and the ride was pure pleasure even if I had to ride quite slowly against headwinds on the way out.
There was something on the trip that made me amused. A section of the bike-path along the Southern Beltway of Warsaw sports a 7.4% incline; it is steep enough that the majority of cyclists have to walk their bikes uphill. Needless to say, my e-MTB enabled me to ride over that section without even blinking
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What would be normal in a hilly area is an exception in our flatland.
Another thing that makes me so happy riding e-bikes is independence on the wind (one simply needs to increase assistance levels as long as the battery charge allows it). I could see traditional cyclists standing on pedals to restart their rides. Doing what?!
It was good I agreed for the coffee with Jazza. Riding for one hour and twenty minutes net under winter conditions makes my toes suffer even if I wear heated socks. Unfortunately, the ones from Glovii are not very much reliable. Once I reached Jazza's, I could recharge the bike's battery (not that was really necessary) and warm up.
I inadvertently made my ride back quite interesting. I took local roads I haven't visited since the times of my traditional bike rides, and even plunged into roads I can't remember I've ever ridden before! For instance, there was a long dirt road near to Suchy Las (which I hated). It is a perfect new asphalt road now. Or, I wanted to take a shortcut through a small bridge over Zbiornik Komorowski (a small reservoir, which was frozen) to find out the bridge was closed because of the road reconstruction. It made me ride some roads unknown to me, partly with off-road forest ride (hah! I was riding an e-MTB!) I even got lost for a while...
The ride was completed by making some grocery shopping as I was out of bread. Jazza had suggested some cooking ideas for me, so I also bought some potato, olive oil etc
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Adventures.
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A good workout, finally!
Are the vertical poles in the orchard picture for hops for beer? They are grown with similar supports here in the western States.
I have the same issue with face coverings, they fog my sun glasses. I don't really have the option of simply taking the glases off as they're Rx bifocals; hard to see without them!
Stefan, your goggles keep your glasses from fogging? Brilliant!
I discovered EBR and ebike videos while healing from major shoulder surgery (tore the bicep in half ends barely holding together by a thread of tissue and severed my supraspinatus muscle across the top. It was so easy and quick to destroy that shoulder. I bought ‘Blue’ (Liv Valle e+) and started riding before my surgeon said ‘yes’ to the idea. I can still remember the thrill of my first ride. Best therapy ever! My advice...get an MRI, if it looks bad get the surgery, if a little time will heal, your pals here on the forum will be celebrating with youThe last two days I've been our riding with my bum shoulder, and for the most part it was fine. I purposefully stayed away from as much snow as I could, which is becoming much easier as today I think was an all-time record high for December 3rd. It hit 16.1C today, shattering the previous record high of 12.8C set in 1939. Yes, I was over dressed...
Yesterdays ride was mostly paved pathways which were for the most part bare and dry. There were some less travelled areas that had snow and ice and I either slowed down or rode on the edges of the mainly scrub grass.
Here's my route:
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In my last post I had indicated that there wouldn't be much for pictures, and I am keeping my promise. The first shot is looking over the top of the park towards downtown and the second is the cockpit and a bit of the ground conditions. I still had to contend with some snow and ice on some shaded areas but those pictures were both on my way home.
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Note the mirror - that's post crash (last Friday) and still fully functional. I haven't had to do anything to it other than the usual realignment. For those that don't have a Mirrycle, I can only say that if you were looking for a mirror for your ride, I couldn't recommend the product more, it's a fantastic and durable device.
Today was a beautiful day and I chose to be a little more adventurous to start, but still trying to not stress the shoulder too much.
So other than the first 7 KM over Nose Hill, I rode paved paths and side streets.
This was my route today:
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Across Nose Hill, I rode on a lot of the major unpaved paths, but had to do some packed snow. The view to the west towards the Rockies was glorious! To be honest, although it can get cold here, we get skies like that pretty well all year round.
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If you followed my route south from Nose Hill, it's pretty well all developed residential, although I rode down to the Bow River via the University of Calgary grounds as well as by a couple of the hospitals, one being our Children's Hospital.
Once I got down to the Bow River, I rode east on the MUP system for about 7 kms and it's the busiest I've seen it in a long time. It was not the most enjoyable part of the ride but I really had no destination in mind anyways so I slowed down and went with the flow.
Somewhere along the line I decided on my route home and wanted to climb one of the paths up to an area called Crescent Heights. AT one point I semi-muscled my front end around on a tight switch back and got a very sharp reminder as to why I wasn't riding my normal pats and ravines closer to home.
I stopped for some hydration at the top of the bluff and had a look at some of Calgary's more expensive real estate. One house was getting it's Christmas decorations put up, but not by them. Spot the Electrician's van off to the left. I really don't know the housing prices for that area, but the one getting decorated is likely in the $5M+ range.
You can pick up a 2 bed , 2 bath, 1300 sq foot detached home 7 blocks east of there, and 2 blocks away from the bluffs overlooking the bow River and downtown, for $2.3M
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From there I rode home without taking any further photos, and without jolting my shoulder any further.
Our weather forecast for the next week is really nice, so I hope to ride everyday. It can get nasty here in a hurry, so these sunny warm days need to be used appropriately!
And that may include a patio with beverage(s) while social distancing with a fellow EBR'r...
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Based on personal experience I would agree with the MRI. It shower me the way forward away from unrelenting shoulder pain.I discovered EBR and ebike videos while healing from major shoulder surgery (tore the bicep in half ends barely holding together by a thread of tissue and severed my supraspinatus muscle across the top. It was so easy and quick to destroy that shoulder. I bought ‘Blue’ (Liv Valle e+) and started riding before my surgeon said ‘yes’ to the idea. I can still remember the thrill of my first ride. Best therapy ever! My advice...get an MRI, if it looks bad get the surgery, if a little time will heal, your pals here on the forum will celebrating with you
I'm looking for a pair of goggles...can you suggest a pair ,also do you feel polarized lenses are important?
How good is that pic!
www.100percent.com
Polarised are a "no-no". The point is, any polarised glasses can prevent you from seeing spilt oil, for instance.
No, no. Hops are grown in the Lublin Land, same as tobacco. The soil is extremely fertile there, and the climate is better. The vertical poles in orchard are to prevent the young trees against bending (Poland has rather hard climate: think of winds and snow).
