Victoria on a Bike

Ride 41 - 1 November 2019 Distance 60.7km (Distance to date 1272.2km) Time 4hrs 5mins (Time to date 97hrs 22mins) So, it's November.  I'm not going to lie, I've been starting to panic about getting this challenge finished; so I took action and have commenced a two day extravaganza of exploration!!  Two days to cover every road in the Esquimalt Peninsular 👊! Esquimalt Peninsular Roy G Bi? Bob? Richards Island.  I'm a mere apostrophe away from having my own island!  As the map shows, I started this ride from Oak Bay Bikes.  A departure from the normal green bikes, I decided to rent myself a 'proper' as a treat.  My intention when I started this was to get bikes from a variety of places round Victoria, but that never happened, but I am no way tied to green bikes (before you ask)! I took a days vacation to do this ride as the weather looked passable; turned out it was a peach of a day! Throughout this challenge I've had great we

Ride 40 - 27 October 2019 Distance 35.4km (Distance to date 1211.4km) Time 2hrs 57mins (Time to date 93hrs 17mins) The green rental bikes of Victoria have a lot of pros, but they also have a lot of cons.......they only have three gears was a pretty pertinent con on this ride!   The clue was in the name, I guess.  Summit Park.  The roads surrounding the park too; The Rise, Summit Avenue, Highview Street! Obligatory Bike Shot In reality Summit Park isn't a mountain;  just a mere hillock but heading up and down the inclined roads surrounding is exhausting! All that work for this stunning view 🤔 The low point of my challenge occurred on Summit Avenue, I failed at a climb.  The road was narrow and steep and I just ran out of legs.  I still rode to the top (so challenge isn't failed or anything), just took a couple of goes and dented my perfect record (and ego!). You can take Victoria out of the tree, but you can't take the tree out of Victoria Poin

Ride 39 - 26 October 2019 Distance 41.7km (Distance to date 1176.0km) Time 3hrs 16mins (Time to date 90hrs 20mins) Rule of thumb for this challenge, the more waterfront the nicer the ride.  The Gorge Waterway did not disappoint! All my fall rides have been great.  Weather has been kind and fall colours never fail to disappoint! Leaves One thing I do regret is the lack of pictures I took of the Gorge.  I walk my dog quite regularly along the gorge, so it's a pretty finaliar area, but I really should have grabbed more pictures for the blog.  You (my one reader) will just have to imagine a road alongside water with well manacured public plants and gardens! The Gorge  In today's ride I did discover this alongside some stairs, to push your bike up!  Why don't all stairs have these rails?!  I can imagine life altering injuries could be suffered riding don, so maybe answered my own question!   Fail Army is waiting Points of Interest..... Bird A

Ride 38 - 19 October 2019 Distance 26.4km (Distance to date 1134.3km) Time 2hrs 6mins (Time to date 87hrs 4mins) Time is running out.  So much so, with a wife 6 months pregnant, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, I went out biking*.  My wife is the best (I could say anything here as she doesn't read this blog!). I stopped here for a skype conversation.  Not recommended! So this ride saw me heading back to the Oaklands area, which means plenty of painted telegraph poles! They have tails too Not sure why, but I liked this one The ride was fine, everything was going to plan until I got home and glanced at my GPS (see below).  AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!  I'm not a very particular person by default, but it is hard to explain how much imperfections in my map niggle me!  The benefit of this is, I don't let these imperfections accumulate and I don't forget them (mainly as I lie awake grinding my teeth until they're fixed!). NUTS! I missed a bit *