Gravel Again

This week The Girl is in a week long "camp" at the Persephone Theatre School, so I told Finnegan that he and I could go for a ride everyday this week. I was hoping we'd go out for longer rides pushing a little further each day.

Today we headed out for gravel roads Southwest of town. After a couple of weeks of riding in temperatures in the high 20s and 30s (°C) it was night to head out in mid morning with a temperature in the teens and a light breeze out of the east.



Given how we've been going through water the last few weeks I decided to quickly add another bottle cage under the downtube on the Fargo - to carry an extra. When I put the bottle in I was a little surprised to see it only had about a centimetre of clearance! Looked a bit dodgy. But turned out just fine. With the cooler temperatures and light breeze, we ended up not really needing any extra.



Heading out the washboardy gravel of Spadina Crescent West - our usual route out of the city. Spadina Crescent turns into Township Road 362 (Google maps shows it as Hodgson Road, and the new Maps program I have on my iMac shows it as Cartwright Street...?). We usually carry on out that way crossing Valley Road. I used to ride down Valley Road a lot, but it has a bit more traffic that I like for a pleasurable country ride.



On previous trips with Finnegan we've usually turned north on Range Road 3062, but today we turned south to go exploring a bit!



a little way up the road I spied something cresting a rise and heading towards us.



It was a deer - it stopped when it spotted us and watched and waited as we approached and then scarpered off into the nearby brush.



When we got to where the deer had been we found a bottle in the middle of the road. Darned boozing deer - leaving their bottles all over!



Approaching the intersection of Range Road 3062 and Township Road 360 (Merrill School Road)



At that intersection there were swarms of grasshoppers. (if you look careful like you can see them) they'd jump up and bounce off of us and the bikes as we rode through them. None seemed to land on us though.



At the intersection of  Township Road 360 and Range Road 3063 (Cedar Villa Road) we'd been out riding almost an hour so we stopped to check the lads blood-sugar level and he had a snack.



Heading north on Range Road 3063.



Still heading north on Range Road 3063.

Originally I'd planned to head back when we hit Township Road 362, but instead we carried on across Township Road 362 and did a loop around Cedar Villa estates before heading back south towards Township Road 362.



Near the Chappell Marsh Conservation Area we spotted ducks and DUCKLINGS!



Mama and baby ducks!



MORE mamas and duckings.



Still more pictures of baby ducks.



I know, I know... Enough with the pictures of baby ducks already!



Finally back at Township Road 362 heading east towards home - which had a fair bit of traffic on it today!

We were out for a little over two hours and covered 30Km. Not bad for a scrawny bookish kid and his fat old dad.

Tomorrow, we shall go FURTHER!