Simcoe Day

It was Lord Simcoe Day.  Thank you for this holiday in the summer.  Long weekends should be mandatory.  I had brought Kieran's bike up as well since it has a front suspension fork and gearing for him to be able to climb Sir Sam's.  I was a little unsure if he would make it, but he is a trooper.  The climbing part was a little tough for him, but when it got too difficult he would jump off in stride and push his bike up the hill.  

I tried to avoid the black trails since those are the advanced trails since they would be too steep for his little 20" bike.  I'm hoping that his next bike would be the 26".  There is a 24" but if he can jump to the 26" that would last a lot longer.  But riding a larger frame might be a difficult task.  Handling it would be more challenging.  But we will come to that road when we cross it.

His new MEC bike has the grip shifts.  I'm not a big fan of the grip shift.  But it is very simplistic.   His bike has 1 chainring and 7 or 8 speed cassette.  I think it's 8.  But Kieran basically rode on 1 gear the whole time.  His largest cog on the back.  He'll learn to spin at a high rate.  That's a good thing.  The path up to the top zig zags quite a bit.  I found it hard to translate the map to the hill.  But the trail is pretty clear.

This bike has only V-brakes.  So my first priority before taking him to the hills was to get him used to them.   No more coaster brake.

His balance is really good.  He's bash his pedal against a root or rock and it would bump his bike a bit, but he would give a little yelp, but continue on.  Sir Sam's pretty familiar territory for us since we ski here when we are up during the winter.

At the top of the hill there is a little obstacle track that he can ride.  And there are wooded trails that are pretty flat but there are roots, rocks and bridges that make it challenging, and we did them.  It's too bad it started to rain.

I was hoping that the rain would be an isolated cloud and move on. But it started to come down steady.  And having ridden in wet weather before.  It can get pretty slick.  So we headed back down the way we came.  I didn't want to bring him down the left most trails because I thought they were a little too steep, but I think he could have done them.  Maybe next year.  I think he's a little small still.

We'd ridden for about an hour straight and we'd covered 5.5km.  That's enough for him.  Especially since he had to climb for a long time.  He said his legs were getting tired climbing.  So an hour was good.

The day before the Orillia kids came over.
It doesn't matter that it wasn't too hot out.
They still went in the lake for a good few hours.
They came out of the water shivering, but they didn't care.  They wanted to play.  They wanted to do a campfire and s'mores.

And even when they were all dressed and ready to go home, they still managed to go into the lake and play.

Going back and forth under the dock.

Then floating away into the middle of the lake, almost.