Dropped off the face of the blogosphere

I feel burned out, so I'll get back to my blog...yeah - that makes NO sense...

...but I did manage another ride a couple of weeks ago that I never got around to talking about.

A night ride - through the Thorold Tunnel to Niagara Falls for a standing Wednesday night meeting. Always interesting what you see when you ride at night.

For starters, there's the bit about going through the Thorold Tunnel.

You can't take the road, and there's only a pedestrian entrance on one side. However, once you've navigated down the relatively steep approach (and through a couple of steel gates that will test your balance and manoeuverability), the tunnel itself isn't much to worry about. The worst thing I think is the fear of meeting a cyclist or pedestrian while zipping along the sidewalk at 35 km/h.

Anyway, I took Thorold Stone Road from Thorold to Niagara Falls, then down a bit of Stanley to get to my destination. Some people get really freaked out when I tell them I rode Thorold Stone Road. They freak out even more when I tell them I rode it at night.

Considering I cut my teeth cycling in Toronto traffic, Thorold Stone Road or any other road in Niagara's pretty tame by my standards.

You also have to remember that in the country, you get a flurry of cars going by, then a few moments of still and silence before the next flurry of cars catches up. You get to see really neat things if you pay attention.

The thing that caught my attention that night was the turtle trying to cross the road. I didn't stop to see what kind of turtle it was - but it was heading across the road, trying to get from one wet ditch to another. Why? Who knows. I didn't see it when I came back, either alive or as roadkill, so I'm assuming it either gave up on the idea or actually made it across.

I used to have a set of Nightsun lights. I still do, but the battery for them croaked so I made do with an old light I used to ride with in Japan. Now I remember why I used to ride with two of those lights - one wasn't enough. Great spot lighting, but not enough floodlighting to see the potholes in front of me. My suggestion - get a good set of lights if you plan to do any serious night riding. If they cost a few hundred dollars and that seems extravagant to you, consider what would happen if you rode with inferior lighting and had an accident you could have avoided if only you had seen that pothole better...

I ran out of batteries ONCE when I first moved to Niagara. It turns out I was at Vansickle Rd. & Pelham Rd., but I didn't know that. At the time it was pitch black (no suburbs built there yet) and I could barely see the road by the moon and starlight. Freakiest cycling experience at night in the "city" ever. Moral of the story: get good lights.

This ride turned out to be 34 km round trip, so I'm somewhere around 68 recorded km for the year - by May 23rd. What day's today? June 4th. Lots of work yet to do to get ready...