At this time of the year, the light becomes dim by 8:00 and it’s dark by 8:15 PM. The leaves have started to turn colour and fall. It has been a rainy and cold summer. So far, we have managed to keep up our rides in the evening and we have not have to resort to our cycling tights and cold weather headgear, but the MEC shells have been useful. We started our rides at 6:30 PM during the summer, and we have rolled that back to 6:15 as the days have become shorter.
We have had some interesting rides. Last Sunday (Sept 5) Mike and I cycled to Lockport via Bird’s Hill, on Rebeck Road. It was a new route, without a lot of vehicular traffic. This ride will be memorable for the return trip. Mike and I rode from Lockport to Winnipeg by Henderson Highway, for about 17.5 K into a moderate headwind, at speeds of 27-29 Kph. On Thursday (Sept. 9) Mike, Steve and I rode through Point Douglas and along Scotia to Kildonan Park, and returned by Kildonan Drive, Elmwood and Whittier Park, about 35 k in less than two hours. It was an urban ride with lots of stops and traffic signals and some sections on gravel and dirt trails. At one point we were behind another cyclist climbing and descending the Peguis Trail bridge at the stately pace of about 15 kph. We rode around Kildonan Park at 30 kph.
None of us thought, last year when we started cycling regularly, that we would be fit enough to ride that far and that hard.