A cycling FAIL… of sorts

I didn’t make an official plan for this past weekend, but I’d have to classify my unofficial plan as an unquestionable FAIL, at least in terms of cycling. It all started I suppose Friday morning during breakfast. I mentioned to my wife that the Toronto Criterium was scheduled for that evening around Lawrence Market in the downtown core and that I was thinking of going down after work to watch. It was a beautiful sunny day and I thought it would be ideal to join in the festivities and snap a few nice pictures. I had planned to go to it last year, but rainy weather made me think better of that.

After getting to work, I sent around an email to a few of my friends to gauge their interest in joining me. I figured we could head down, grab a bit to eat and a beer or two at one of the bazillion pubs that litter downtown Toronto, and take in the race. Due to various commitments, I only had one taker but that was plenty. The plan was sealed. Soon after though, my one cohort told me that his cousin was coming in from Waterloo (an hour outside of Toronto) with tickets for that evenings Blue Jays-Red Sox game. Since he decided to take advantage of that, I decided join in on the game as well. So, the Criterium was out and the Jays game was in.

Not the Toronto Criterium but great seats at the ball game. Boston's Big Poppy gets ready to fly-out again.

This was probably a dubious decision as I’m really not much of a baseball fan. I more or less consider baseball the athletic equivalent of watching paint dry. Mostly overpaid, and from what I can tell, over-weight guys whose maximum athletic expectation is to sprint 90 feet….or 180 if they’re lucky. If they’re really lucky, they get to run 360 feet, but they are only expected to do that at a jogging pace. Regardless of that, baseball has beer, hot dogs, and all the rest of the essential food groups, so it’s good for a chuckle if nothing else, especially when the drunken guy behind you starts yelling slurred obscenities at the poor players. Anyway, in the end the Jays won 6-3 and the Toronto Criterium was missed 2 years running.

Saturday was sunny and warm and my plan for that day was to do a short warm-up ride in preparation for a longer group ride on Sunday morning. I was thinking maybe only an easy 40km, but that quickly turned into a fairly fast paced 66km. It was largely uneventful, except for the fact that Toronto’s drivers seemed to pick this day to reach for a new height of idiocy. Over 66k, I had 4 separate run-ins with drivers doing either stupid or outright dangerous maneuvers. I won’t go into all of them but suffice to say I will be doing everything I can to avoid cycling within the city from now on. Normally I don’t anyway, but I had to ride downtown to retrieve my car from my office, which I left there overnight.

Sunday’s forecast wasn’t promising, but I figured it was good enough at least to get my group ride in. When I got up however, not only was it cold, but the wind was howling again. Like I said before…cold I can deal with, wind I can’t. I could have forced myself out there, but since it wasn’t ideal, I had other things to do including taking my daughter to her equestrian lesson so that my wife could catch up on some work. Besides, I figured I could get in an afternoon ride when it warmed up a bit. By mid-afternoon though, it was even windier and thus colder than the morning, so I opted out altogether. Instead, I stained my deck, a job overdue now for a little while.

So in the end, my weekend of cycling and cycling related events turned into nothing more than a mere 66km solo ride. A great little ride, but a far cry from what I set out to do. My next stop is next Sunday’s Becel Ride for Heart charity ride. And the early forecast calls for rain. *Sigh* The deck looks good now though.