Ryan organized this just for fun. “To ride through the streets of Saskatoon after dark… enjoying the fresh night air and less traffic” is what the e-invitation said. I guess there’s been a few. Maybe once a month? Or every other week…?
I set out at around quarter and ran the gauntlet of 20th Street – which still had quite a few cars on it… - and met Ryan around 11:30 at City Hall. He seemed to think that we might be the only ones showing up. While I was gassing up my tires that felt a little soft on the way there another fellow (who’s name I have forgotten already…) showed up wondering if his brother had showed up – which he hadn’t – so we waited a bit and sure enough brother showed up. We were all on fixed gears. Brother was on a Japanese Keirin Racing bike, with no brakes!
So we set out… down to the river and then headed north on Spadina. There’s still a lot of traffic out there at midnight in ‘toon-town. We swung up Pinehouse Drive and made our way over to over to 51st. At this point the brothers ditched us. Neither had any lights, reflectors, or helmets, only one brake between the two bikes, and I think they were feeling a bit sketchy on their new rides. So Ryan and I bid them adieu and headed west along 51st.
We didn’t get far when we had to stop and wait for a train.
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
Ryan stopped at the stop light. You can see a better picture of Ryan’s street machine here.
A really, really long train…
When the train finally passed we made our way down 51st to …. Uh… just before Idylwyld. The street that Value village is on… Miner? Millar? I can never remember which is which. We went down that street. Even out here in the industrial deadlands a few cars passed us, one way or the other... We then deeked over to Quebec and rode that all the way down to 33rd.
We took 33rd all the way back to the river and turned North again as we wanted to check out the new pedestrian/bicycle way under the Circle Drive Bridge.
Ryan on the new walk/bikeway.
It kind of looks pretty but it’s just suspended between the two roadways with nothing over top of it.=. I could SEE trucks driving by up above, they’re that close to the guard railing. I imagine that it’s going to SUCK in the winter or during the rain and will soon be covered in brown glass like every other walkway beside every other bridge in town…
After crossing the bridge we headed south along the Meewassin trail which was dark. Really dark! There are no light along there at all until you get close to campus. The batteries in my light were going, luckily Ryan’s light was pretty bright and so we made our way along the trail to the top of the University bridge. There we called it a night and went our separate ways. I crossed the bridge and took Spadina south to 20th – ran the gauntlet and was home by about quarter after one…. About five hours before kids started waking up…
Good fun. I think I’ll have to go out again.
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