Saturday Morning

I've been fighting a cold all week and haven't been out on two wheels since the rally.  On top of that and with the build up to school I've been putting together a computer lab all day every day.  Teaching is a good gig, but there are no down days once it starts and the change in pace from summer to fall is a big step.  Going from off to 100% all the time takes a good clutch.

I woke up Saturday morning to crisp 10°C air and a flawless blue sky.  For the first time in days I hadn't woken up with a crushing sinus headache so I did the one thing that always makes me happy even when not feeling that well and stressing over work (teaching anxiety dreams are always a good time), I went for a ride.

The hills of Erin, just outside of Hillsburgh

Max wasn't up yet or I would have asked my trusty pillion to come along.  I threw a single pannier on the Tiger and disappeared into the morning mist.  The temperature was cool, but I like it like that.  No wind, empty roads and a happy Tiger.

The ride over to Belfountain took me through Erin and Cataract and onto the Niagara Escarpment, where the roads get bendy.  It isn't much, but it got me loosened up for the post-coffee ride.

I pulled in to Higher Ground Coffee Co on a Saturday of the Labour Day long weekend at about 8:30 in the morning.  In a couple of hours this place would be a hive of activity, but now it had a couple of early risers drinking a hot beverage and quietly reading; it was mercifully empty of loud talking spandexies going on about how hard what they just did was.

After a hot cup of very well made coffee that warmed me up and getting the Holtom's bakery order from the family just waking up back in Elora, I got back on the Tiger and went for a philosophical ride up and down The Forks of the Credit.  It's only 7kms of bendy elevation changes, but beggars can't be choosy in Southern Ontario.

Sometimes I feel like really attacking the corners, but this quiet Saturday morning I was in a contemplative mood and was going for smoothness.  Strangely, this made me faster than when attacking.  There is a real sense of Zen when you sort out corners properly on a motorbike.

Back in Belfountain I turned off the video on the phone and headed over to Erin.  Holtom's was in full swing, having opened half an hour before.  The lone pannier was filled with fresh bread and bakery treats and I rode back to Elora, feeling at one with the world.

I didn't have any fancy media devices with me, only my phone, so I hung it over the windshield and got this!

Regular Riding

A bit of paint and I can now tell the
ignition key from the nearly
identical pannier key.

Regularly riding is a nice thing in mid-April up here.  It rained yesterday, so I commuted in the box, but today has dawned foggy and damp but with no rain in the forecast, so it's off I go again on two wheels, hopefully with the actioncam on video this time.

Getting to work after a ride in is invigorating.  Instead of a tedious trundle in a car you're full of oxygen.  You've smelled everything on the way in and you're switched on because you never ride a bike half aware.

The other morning I was at an all day meeting only five minutes from home, so rather than go straight there I shot past it and went for a ride along the river.  I still ended up being one of the first to arrive, and I was cold but lit up in the way that only a bike ride can do.

At the end of a day of meeting about something I get the sense has already been decided (but we had to talk about it all day anyway - yes, it was tedious), instead of going home I took the bike down the Grand River to the covered bridge and then came back on the north shore.  Even a short, twenty minute ride like that put the spring back in my step and cleared away the Kafkaesque cobwebs in my head from that day of soul sucking, meaningless blah blah.

The foggy and damp ride in this morning.  The smell of earth and new shoots filled the heavy air as the Tiger purred to work...