Monday, January 13, 2014

first commute of 2014

After three weeks of vacation, it was back to work today... and a perfect day for bicycle commuting. At 6 a.m. the temp was already +1 C. Big happy smile!

Yesterday after riding to and from church, I poured a couple of pitchers of hot hot tap water over the really messy parts of my bike -- the derailleurs, the brakes, the hubs, etc. Then I brought the bike into the house, let it dry and put it up on my new Christmas-gift repair stand and cleaned and lubed the chain, to get it ready for a week of riding through slush and gravel and ice and snow. 

Well, it's not clean any more! The a.m. ride was pretty clean -- the paths heading east were covered with a thin layer of fresh snow so there was no spatter, and everything was still fairly dry. A couple of places, in the bike lane and then again on 100 Avenue, were rather wet, but all in all, it wasn't bad. But the p.m. ride -- another story altogether! I took 102 Avenue -- a big mistake, as it is covered in brown sugar-type slushy stuff that was simply impossible to ride through. Lawbreaking in the form of sidewalk riding was required. Even there the snow was kind of unstable and I had to walk a couple of times. After 124 Street, I rode out in the road all the to 149 Street; it was very wet and there were lots of puddles, but otherwise it was decent riding. Not sure if the drivers of the cars that passed me agreed, but it's not too busy at that time anyway. No one honked or made rude sounds or splashed me. I then took the 100 Avenue shared pathway back to my car -- that was also okay, although the snow under my wheels was a bit soft and wobbly. 

A great ride, both ways. My time wasn't even too bad -- 32 minutes there (7.4 km) and 35 minutes back (7.9 km.) Only one small complaint -- I was overdressed. Tomorrow something cooler is in order, as it's supposed to get up to +6. Can't wait!

The first day of class went well. My Korean student told us a funny story. When he first came to Canada 37 years ago, he lived in the small border town of Frontier, Saskatchewan - population 300. He got his driver's license and a good job. On Chinese New Year he took his family, all dressed in their Korean New Year's finery, to the big city of Swift Current - my home town, population 15,000 -- for a party.  He needed gas, so he turned onto the road leading to the gas station and was quite surprised to see flashing lights behind him. He pulled over and the Mountie told him he had been going the wrong way on a one-way street. "Huh...?" he asked. "What's a one-way street?" The Mountie felt sorry for him and kindly escorted him to a gas station and from there to the road he needed to take next. Life is not easy for people like Mr. Kim, who leave their familiar surroundings to come to a completely new country. But he and all my other students are so grateful to be in Canada. And I am grateful for reminders like this of how good life is.

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