Paris to Ancaster

P2A is a local bike race based upon the famous Paris-Roubaix that is run in early Spring.  This is the Paris-Ancaster.

Full Rack

And it used to be 1 month earlier.  But in recent years it was moved to the end of April instead of the End of March.  Mostly due to the the weather.
So after hearing about this race from my neighbours and asking me if I would do it, and telling me it's fun.   But I'm pretty much a fair weather rider.  I avoid rain and cold like the plague.  But this winter being as mild as it was, I thought, it might be a good time to try.  So I registered about a month ago. But spring weather can still be quite unpredictable.  Like the snow storm that hit us in the evening of April 3rd.  And the temps started to drop.  I began to second guess my decision.

Shoe Tree

All clean

Road to Tim Hortons

But in the last month I ended up riding in the rain a few times.  Once to ride to the hospital to drive Tresa home.  And other times voluntarily.  It wasn't so bad if you have the right gear.  And for the most part, I do.  It's just that 70km on dirt, gravel, roads, farmers fields, rail paths and then there's the mud chutes, where if you don't have your speed, you are walking in mud.  The video below is of the Wave 1 fast suckers.  Later on, this section is packed with people walking through it.
Video: P2A Powerline Mudslide

There is a shorter 40km route in this race (from St George to Ancaster), where you will see all the riders with plates above #2000.  But the more challenging race is the 70km.
70km is pretty routine distance on roads.  Raoul said I should use my hybrid and slap some cyclocross tires on it and I'd be good.  But in this race I saw all sorts of riders Young, Old, Clydesdales and petite, elites and regular joe and mary and mountain bikes, Cyclocross, 29'ers, full-squish, fat bikes, retro, franken-bikes, CanadianTire bikes, even a unicycle.  Still not sure how that guy does it.

It was either that or use my mtn bike.  But 70km on a mtb is a really long way!  I rarely do more than 20km on it in 1 ride.  It's just not set up for long distances.  And there's a 5hr cutoff.
I was hoping to make a cheap CX conversion of my hybrid.  Maybe just tires and single ring.
But then I had to get a new mtn derailleur so that I could use a wide ratio cassette.  So then I went all in and decided to go the extra mile and switched to a 1x10 drive train. Lost the front derailleur, and triple. Put on 40t front ring, with 11-36 cassette & clutch rear derailleur. I lowered the bars and swapped the stem with a longer 130mm one to lengthen my reach.  It was feeling pretty light & racy now.  I'd taken it out to high park to ride the trails (shhh...bikes are banned from the trails there) to test it out.  And it was pretty confident on the dirt.  It was super fun.  I was starting to understand the appeal of cyclocross.  No suspension, just knobby tires with lower psi and dirt, roots and mud.  Just avoid the rock gardens or you'll be walking home.

Hybrid CX conversion project

I was constantly checking the weather forecast up till the day before.  The last few weekends have been up and down.  But I did do my first long ride at 89km ride in +2degC and my toes were a bit numb at the end and I was really tired.  Then started to do hill rides no matter what the weather and then did a solo first half to Kleinburg, and felt pretty good.  So I felt confident for P2A.  However the weather wasn't looking great.  But it turned out to be almost perfect.  A little chilly, but only just before the start of the race.  As the sun came out the temps rose to 15degC according to Garmin.

Road to Start line

The logistics for this race can be complicated.  It's not a loop.  And it's a 70km race so the start is far from the finish.  Two cars and lots of bike trays are required.  But it went surprisingly smooth.  I left our car at the finish where we picked up our race kit (plates with chip for the bike and a food ticket for end of the race) and hopped into Raoul's to get to the start.

View from Wave 4

A chilly warmup had me thinking i should have dressed warmer,  My upper body was fine but lowers were chilled.  But it ended up being fine.  I just packed away my windbreaker just before midway. Then I was good.  I was trying to monitor my exertion so I wouldn't suffer at the end.  I was also trying to stay topped up and hydrated.  It was dusty out there on the farms!

And in the end I felt tired, but good.   The last 1km uphill to the finish was tough after nearly 70km of racing.  I also had a flat with 1.2km to go.  I had just reached the bottom of the final hill when I heard my wheel rim clunking against the dirt path.  So close to the finish.

One rider said "you're so close, just walk it!"

But I didn't want to.

It took me 10mins to make the change and get back on. I probably could've used my CO2 cartridge to save time and get the pressure higher than with my pump, but I didn't want to fumble with it.   I already couldn't see where my tire levers had fallen - there were so many leaves on the ground, so left them and my old inner tube and got back to the race.

I could still stop

I had also finished with a bunch of filipinos.  I could hear them for the last 10km talking Tagalog.  It was driving me crazy.  I heard one say we had less 7km to go and that he was tired and he wished the race was over.   In the last mud chute one of them lost control and wiped out in the mud. 

So I had dropped them in the last set of single track but then my flat caused them to catch and pass me.

The final climb was harder than i thought.  People walking, people cramping, people helping the cramping, people cheering. It was so cool.  I did get off my bike for a bit, then I got back on and crossed the finish line riding.

I was expecting to finish between 3.5 to 4hrs.

So I was happy to be well under that.

Still my moving time was 3hr 8mins,

Elapsed was 3hr 24min 43s. (1 pee break and 1 flat)
Lost a bunch of places cuz of the flat, but I felt good at the end.

Next year? maybe if Mother Nature is kind.  I couldn't do this in crappy weather.  Its not in me. I'm not that badass.
P2A photos

http://www.parisancaster.com
Video: entire race from Wave 1

Uxbridge Spring Fling Concert

We were in Uxbridge on Saturday for a violin concert, held by the violin teachers that have been friends since childhood.   This violin and cello get together has been going on for 16+ years and flips between Uxbridge and Ottawa.

Most of Kieran's violin concerts have been in churches.  And it probably has much to do with the acoustics.  The music was so vibrant in the church.  You can clearly hear from anywhere.

We brought the seniors to enjoy the concert music and have a chance to watch their grandson perform for them.

It was a nice crisp spring day.  We even drove by Annina's cafe and bakery in Goodwood that I had visited on a club ride last summer.  It was basically minutes from Uxbridge.  I didn't realize how far away that place was.  It's an hour by car from our house.  And that's taking the highway.

Unfortunately it closes at 6pm on Sat so I couldn't take Tresa and Kieran there for baked goods.  But the pot luck spread was FAN-tastic!  I was set to do Paris-Ancaster race on Sunday so this food was sent by God for me.  It was just what I needed to prep for the 70km gravel road/off road, farmers fields, whatever.  Thank you.

Uxbridge Spring Fling Concert Photos

Kieran isn't in this video, but I hadn't heard this Canon in D in a long time and it sounds great. Glad Tresa recorded it. This piece was originally composed for violins by Johann Palchelbel in the late 1600s according to Wikipedia.




He is in this one. This piece is called the Two Grenadiers.




And this one is so cool. It's called a tabletop duet by W.A.Mozart Basically it a single sheet of music and it's put on a table so that each violinist will play the same notes but from their vantage point across the table.

11-Eleven

It is amazing that simple things like balloons can still make a birthday morning all that much funner and brighter.

Eleven years old and still very much a kids.
That's a good thing.
Growing up is eventual.
Being a kid is a gift.

Where smart phones, texting, tweeting are becoming commonplace.  Is it the norm? It's a choice.

Bowling for fun.  It's back in again.  And was great for us parents.  The kids are old enough that you don't have to do a single thing.  They can get their own shoes.  If it didn't fit then they went and asked for another size themselves, just point them to the desk. I didn't even have to enter in their names on to the screen.  They set it all up for themselves.

For the first time all I did was sit back and take photos and enjoy watching them have fun.

The group was smallish. Which is great.  It wasn't the sometimes it seemed like the entire class plus parents and siblings.  It was a close knit group of buddies and the 1 token girl.  Who is a school mate and a neighbour.  Tresa planned it for right after school so we trucked the kids in 2 cars +1 and they were done by dinner time.
Very little food prep, no mess, no worries, ALL fun.  1 VISA.
It may have been full of GMO, but it was the easiest birthday party we've ever had.


It was even easy to get the ice cream cake.  As this place is right next to DQ! I wish i had a photo of the kids fighting to take off a candle to lick the ice cream off of them. HA!

Bowling for turkeys

All we are is dust in the fridge

After I moved our 2002 Kenmore fridge into the garage back in October, it decided to stop chilling our food stuffs.  I thought it was just upset because it was being kicked out of the house and into the garage.

It was probably a good thing that it was late fall when our kitchen came in cuz the cold weather was keeping our leftovers from becoming petrie dishes.  In fact the insulation of the fridge was making it warmer inside than outside.

But now that spring is really here and not pulling our leg, I was able to reclaim space in our garage to finally move around.  Those benches I made for our kitchen have been reused as storage and it is fantastic!  I can finally get to our chairs so much easier now and our ladder so I can get to the storage above.  Before I'd be doing some Indiana Jones type teetering on something to get to stuff we had up there.

I can also get to our bikes and I can keep my bike stand open and work in the garage on our bikes instead of out side.  And if something drops on the floor I can find it.  Before it would drop, hit some cardboard and I could not tell where it went.  It was so frustrating.

We still had cardboard from our tub and other large boxes.  I could have put it out on the curb for recycle day, but it was just under the 20kg limit so I took it the depot.  It's so awesome to purge.  It feels amazing.

This weekend I was finally able to have the room to pull out the fridge and take a closer look at what was bothering its chilling internals.  Like it's not that complicated.  There's a compressor and there are coils for heat exchange and a fan motor to move the air for heat exchange.  I didn't want to toss it into the landfill.   We wanted to use it as an overflow for our new fridge.

So what I found was dust.  We've vacuumed our fridge in the past, from the front, but after all the demolition and construction and drywall dust.  I didn't just find dust.  It was like fur. You couldn't even see the coils.  And there was no way the fan could even turn. I had to use the compressor to loosen it up so i could vacuum it.

Afterwards though, was the moment of truth when I plugged it in.  And I could hear the hum of the fan going.

Yea! It was alive and kicking.
time to stock the beer fridge!

Hungry like the Kitty

This is Kevin.
He's not our cat.  But belongs to some asian neighbour up the street.  So maybe he thinks I'm his owner since I'm asian.
Nah.  That's not it. He's been coming around and we've been playing with him since he was a kitten.  So it started with some home made play toys, and then with some cat treats, and then with food and water.
So he comes around pretty much every day.  Why not.  He's a really nice cat.  If I meow.  He'll meow back.  It's like a conversation, cat-style.

For a while though I didn't see him and I was a little worried that he might've been hit by a car or something.  He is an outdoor cat.  Like he sleeps outdoors.
How do we know that?  Well when it has rained in the evenings he's come by our door in the morning soaking wet.  Meowing. So I let him in a bit to get out of the rain.  He wasn't so eager to come in initially. I would open the door and he'd just look in but not come in.  Then eventually he'd come in look and then run out onto the porch.  There was one day it was thunder storming and he was scared.  So I sat out on the porch while he hid under the little table.

But he's been my little companion as I was working on the kitchen this past year.  When I was home alone working on installing the flooring or baseboards or trim, he would come around and visit me.  I guess he knows he's got nothing to fear about me, so if I open the door, he'll come in and I'll give him a treat or two or five.

I wasn't sure if he was getting fed for a while because he was always coming by, and so I started buying him cat food.  And he'd polish it off like he hadn't eaten in weeks.  I did that for a few months, and then neighbours would come by and say "who's cat is that? he comes by my house too and I feed him."
I know of 3 or 4 neighbours that feed Kevin.  So I've stopped buying him cat food and only get the denta-bite cat treats instead.  Kieran chose those so that Kevin's teeth are cleaned.

But this past weekend we noticed something odd on our front lawn.  I thought it was a lobster.  But it wasn't a sea creature that had escaped that closed down Asian grocery store on St Clair.
It was a cardinal.
It wasn't like the other cardinal we found at the back of the house.  That one looked like it wasn't looking where it was flying and hit the side of the house. This one was mauled.  Feathers were everywhere like a big pillow fight. And it's head was torn off.

On Monday we found out that it was Kevin that killed that cardinal.  The neighbour kids saw him kill it on Friday.  And left it on our lawn to leave me a gift for all the denta-bite treats.  Or he wasn't getting enough Tender Vittles so he went for some KFC (Killed Fresh Cardinal) and wanted to let me know he was hungry.  I'm not too surprised it was a Kevin that did it.  We've seen him looking at birds, perched high up on a fence near the trees staring at something ready to pounce if they came close enough.

One good thing about Kevin, he keeps the critters away.  Like I've seen him toying around with a mouse on the road, like it was a ball. I thought it was dead, but it was a live mouse that was trying to get away but Kevin would let it go and then pounce on it and then do it again.  For fun.  I'm figuring he'll keep the birds away too, because I just seeded our lawn (after I cleaned up his KFC mess on the lawn).

But he's out all night so sometimes when I head to the garage or when Tresa goes to her car in the early morning, Kevin comes out like the Batman, and it spooks us.  But better Kevin than a skunk or raccoon.

He may not be our cat, but that's okay, we take care of him anyways.  It's as close to a pet as we'll get.

Ghost Project

This project was more for me than it was for Kieran.  He had outgrown his 20 inch bike and was ready for the next size up.  I was hoping that he would grow enough to move to a XS 26 inch bike.  So I wouldn't have buy the 24 inch since the 26 was basically an adult version.  But I was dreaming.

There was nothing wrong with the stock bike.  It's actually fairly decent.  Has great reviews. A little heavy for it's size but good quality build.  The MEC Ace was also a 24 inch and $50 bucks less, but the only problem was the rear hub was a 7spd.  And they aren't upgradeable to 10spd.  Only the 8-9-10spd cassettes fit on the same hub.  It also had mechanical disc brakes which worked great, but it was either get a new crank or get a new rear wheel.  The crank was way easier and cheaper.
And to be honest, Kieran doesn't really care.  He's happy with any bike I brought home.  If it had some blue in it he loved it even more.  In that way I'm pretty lucky.

I was really hoping to pick up a used one, but couldn't find a decent 24 bike.  Well I did, but it was in Calgary. Doh!


But then I found this YouTube video of this fellow that modified his son's Ghost bike from a 3x8 into a 1x10 drivetrain.  And it inspired me to do the same thing!  I had already done the same conversion on my 3x9 Norco Faze bike and have a 1x10 with a 40t extender cog.  And I could not believe how much weight I shed off that bike by going 1x.

The other big reason (other than the coolio factor) is that it simplifies riding, you lose the front derailleur and shifter, so you only have to think about shifting between the 10 sprockets at the back.  I took Kieran riding with me off road and sure enough the chain came off the front rings.  Not because the components are crappy.  They aren't high end, but dropping the chain off a triple is a common occurrence.  It's just the nature of where the chain is going from a bigger ring to a smaller one, I've done it a few times on my road bike with the double ring crank.

With off roading, this can happen a lot due to the rough terrain and the jostling of the chain.  Going to a single chainring doesn't automatically fix this.  You need to 2 specific components - a Narrow Wide chainring and a rear derailleur with a clutch.  These two components help to reduce the likelihood of the chain from falling off when the bike is bouncing over the trail.

The video was a great run down on how to do the conversion.  I wasn't sure if it was possible since many kids bikes have parts that may not be upgradeable.  Since they are on the cheap side.  But this bike was able to use much of the same parts I have on my adult sized bike.

I wished i had paid closer attention to the video, because i didn't realize that the stock crank was 1 piece.  I had to order a JR sized crank where the chainrings can be removed so that I can put on the 30t Narrow Wide chainring.  Luckily a phone call to Suntour saved me a lot of online frustration and $$.  I could get my technical questions answered and it was cheaper buying direct from them than from some eBay store that didn't even have the part physically there.  And I thought a local bike store would be better. But it was even worse.  No one stocks a 152mm crank.  And if you wanted it special order they were robbing you (neighbourhood of $150!).  So I was forced to go online.

The one thing the video didn't show was the effect of the chain line.  With the stock bottom bracket the crank is way out from the bike and the chain angle when on the largest cog is severe.  May not look it, but it is.  What that means in non-Bike-Tech-person speak is that, it works, but the gears will wear out faster.
So luckily for me, my neighbour noticed and said to get a shorter one, and even luckier, I was able to swap out the stock one with the one from my hybrid and install it on the Ghost.  And it works great. It's also quieter.  Which means in non-Bike-Tech_person speak - parts will last longer.


I've packed all the stock parts I removed in this conversion so that I can put them back on when I re-sell this bike once Kieran's out grown it.  I planned to use the parts on his next bike.  Since 1x10 will be here for some time.  (I saw they came out with a 1x12!)  So I went with the higher quality parts.

I even put on some better pedals that I had kicking around.  So it rides great!  The front chain ring may look tiny, but the stock crank came with 42-32-22 rings.  So take off the big and the small and you are left with a  32 which is what you use most of the time anyways.  So it's like just having the middle only.

The stock 8spd cassette was a 12-32t (8 gears going from 12t on the smallest to 32 on the largest).
Now this one is a 10spd 11-36t.  So with his 30t ring, he loses some top end and a bit on the low end (and even with that I can put a 40t extender cog and to make the hills easier).

At the end of the day, this wasn't exactly a cheap thing to do on a perfectly good bike, but i can reuse the parts on the next one, and the bike is lighter and pretty kick ass (just like his papa's), it'll make riding up Sir Sam's a bit better, but now I won't be getting my fingers oily putting his chain back on.

26 inch mtb are pretty much old tech now with 29'r and 27.5 bikes the current stuff.  I was gonna pass this bike to Kieran and get a 29'r or something, but what for.  This bike is great!  My fave out of the lot.

bDay bLunch

Not sure what Mother Nature was thinking but she brought Tresa some below freezing temps and a few inches of snow Sunday for her birthday.   I'm not sure if it was just a coincidence that my family was coming over for bLunch on her bDay, which started Friday for clean up, and continued  into Saturday with a Superman vs Batman movie night with all the PG-13 kids and a sleep over. Tresa didn't want flowers or cannoli but I got them anyways.  Can't have too many flowers, and this time I only got a few cannolis.

We wanted to have family over to see our finished kitchen and bath in real life.   It always looks so much better in real life.  Also the in floor heating just doesn't work by looking a pics.
It had been a long time we have hosted a family get together.  There are so many of us it's hard to find the room.   Our little house just didn't have the layout to make it work, but now it does so we made it happen.  And bLunch was a great idea, because the biggest reason we took down the wall was to let more light come through the space.  People can really experience first hand the open space and light.

It was the usual high stress prepping for this.  Lots of cleaning and putting stuff away.  Food prep that I didn't even contribute to.  That was all Tresa.  If it were me, I would've ordered take out.  Although we did order take out chicken from Flock (which is really good, no left overs).  And the rest was home made and vegetarian...mostly.

Lots of people meant great practice session for Kieran in prep for his Kiwanis festival concert on Monday morning.  He loves his violin, just doesn't want to do these workshops and concerts, but it's all part of learning to be a better violinist and performer.
And it is a great life skill performing in front of people.  It's all practice and repetition that makes you better.

So does doing push ups and chin ups.
I think it was a good wake up call to see who could actually do what.  It's good to show that if an adult can do it, the kids should be able to do it no problem.
Being active is an important aspect of life.  Active and healthy.
Active also doesn't mean you eat junk.  That's where the healthy eating comes in.

I think March was warmer.  It definitely had less snow.  I had switched over to my summer tires this past week. I wasn't expecting the amount of snow accumulation over night.
With snow removal contracts expiring end of March, I'm guessing that we will probably have to wait for the Sun to remove this last bit of winter.
Messy and slick.





Kieran's Birthday ice cream for you.

Happy Birthday.