Category: outdoor adventures

Slapped in the face by a butterfly.

~ Lkvy ~ 8 Comments

Does that count as a bad omen?

Yann and I were feeling cocky after having completed our first double century the previous weekend. This weekend we decided to attempt a back-to-back imperial century ride involving lugging way more than a single air-filled pannier. In my two rear panniers, I packed a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad (newly repaired after having been punctured by the cat), camping chair, e-reader, miniature toiletries and some warm clothing as the week-long heat wave had died down.

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Baby’s first double century.

~ Lkvy ~ 2 Comments

207km in 10 hours and 37 minutes.

I’ve just completed my first brevet. I’d be strutting right now if it weren’t so hot today. It was almost too hot yesterday.

Wait. It WAS too hot.

Two weeks ago, Yann and I purchased a GPS (Garmin Edge 1030) to take with us to the Pyrénées. The first unit we received turned out to be a dud and had to be replaced, so we didn’t get to really test it until yesterday. The amount of data this device collects is mind-blowing: speed (average, average while moving, max), time (total time, moving time), heart rate, cadence, elevation, calories, temperature, and a map of the route.

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Mount Desert Island.

~ Lkvy ~ 1 Comment

Hope everybody had a fantastic Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day! If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry: neither do I. I just know that it means I get a three-day weekend, and get paid for not working on Sunday. This year, I decided to distance myself from the francophone revellers by not just leaving the province of Québec, but the dang country too.

Yann and I spent 1100km riding under our bicycles while they were strapped to the roof of the car to get to Maine. There, we did 101km on our bikes.

“Does it still count as a century ride if it’s done in the USA, where they don’t use metric?” I asked Yann, who responded with a glare.

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Prelude to Toulouse.

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I don’t know how we did it, but Yann and I have decided on a destination for our August vacation: Toulouse, France. As we will be taking our bicycles, we now need to decide on our sub-destinations.

Assuming we train hard for the next two months, remain injury-free, and in perfect health, we aim to cover between 800-1000km in the 12 days we’ll have to explore the Pyrénées.

Admittedly, this is ambitious. I haven’t been as fortunate as some when it comes to completing a trip in perfect health: I suffered a sunstroke in Beijing, China (2010), and caught a terrible cold at the end of my Japan trip (2014). Yann and I were even supposed to do our first overnight cycling trip on Friday but this was cancelled as I woke up feeling unwell.

My dodgy wellness has taught me to never expect trips to go according to plan. For our France trip, we’re going to have a plan B, as well as a plan C, D, E, E.1, E.2i, E.2ii, and so on.

We did have a plan B for the weekend, and this backup plan involved Ruth, and the hillbilly town of Grenville, QC.

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Living for the weekend.

~ Lkvy ~ Leave a comment
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Summering like a boss.

All week, I make sure other people have a bike ready to enjoy on their weekend. All week, I think about riding one of my bikes. I also think about camping. I think about beer. I think about squirrels. I focus on planning my weekend while I am supposed to be concentrating on twisting the nipples on a mis-aligned wheel.

It was too late to make any camping plans/find someone to watch the cats, so on Thursday night Yann, Mélissa, and I attended a festival that promotes binge drinking: Mondial De La Biere.

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