"Thank Goodness It's Friday" Ride

Joy here...Yesterday morning The Man, the professor, the Trainer, and I all met up at 8am for our TGIF ride out into the countryside around Ottawa.  The whole ride was a 50km out-and-back ride on flat, country roads.  We began on the bike path close to our house...

Getting the ride started...

...and then we hopped off the curb and onto the road with the rest of the cars and began our ride in earnest, keeping our pace at around 30kms/hr and sticking to the right side of the road so that cars could whizz past us.

And whizz past us they did.

Most gave us a wide berth as cars are legally compelled to do when confronted with cyclists sharing the road with them, but some were fairly oblivious to the fact that driving at 60kms/hr only 30cms away from a cyclist creates a fair bit of wind and drag that can be dangerous.  Basically, I didn't enjoy one moment of it.  While there was beautiful scenery to either side of the road of us, country fields coming to life in the bright, August sun and even the odd horse pushed up against a fence to greet us with interest and ears pointed forward, I barely registered it all.  I just kept feeling like I was riding to the ride, rather than in the midst of a ride itself.

See what I mean about the crappy road quality?

What I mean by that is, I realized that I don't mind riding around cars, by cars, and among cars, for a short portion of a bike ride.  If that's what it takes to get to somewhere beautiful (like the park where I do all my loops), then I'll take it.  And if Friday's ride involved cars for the first portion until we reached some lovely, deserted country roads, then I would have taken it in my stride, smiling and pedalling all at once.

However, that was not the case.

We just rode on a street with lots of traffic and terrible road quality for 25kms.  It was about an hour straight of uncomfortable, bumpy riding with cars going past us quickly.

And while I can pat myself on the back as a novice cyclist who didn't lose her cool, didn't fall off, and didn't get upset by all those cars, I can't pat myself on the back for feeling 100% at ease, because I certainly didn't.

A deserted, country road.

After our turnaround point, we took a slightly different route home, one that did involve one, small stretch with more deserted country roads (that were still pretty bumpy and in bad shape, but at least devoid of cars for the most part), I still couldn't really shake the feeling that I was just trying to "get through" our little TGIF ride rather than enjoy it for its own sake.

And after we were finished with that one stretch of deserted country roads, we then turned on the Airport Road to get back into the city.  Here the situation was the opposite of those country roads:  the road quality was fantastic -- new asphalt, smooth riding, paved shoulder -- but the traffic was intense.  There are two lanes of traffic on that road, and because it's a highly used thoroughfare both to the airport itself and to some of the surrounding suburban areas, there are always cars coming in both directions, which means that even if the cars riding beside you on your bike want to give you a wide berth, they can't really, because they'd be pulling into oncoming traffic.  So we all just had to make the best of it in that situation, riders and drivers sharing the road and hoping for the best.  And I, for one, have a healthy fear of drivers in that context.

Such a healthy fear of drivers, in fact, that after Friday's ride, I've decided to join a local ride on August 28th that is designed to raise awareness of cyclists on the road:  Ottawa's Share the Road Ride.

The TGIF riders!

And after getting home, I sighed a big sigh of relief, which is really at the heart of any "Thank Goodness It's Friday" sentiment, but for me, my sigh meant "Thank Goodness my Friday's Ride is Done."

Over and out,
Joy