another windy day

Thursday was windy again. I put Miranda and Hubby's new bike into the van and drove to 118 Avenue and 95 Street to meet #4 Son, whose car was in the shop, and we went for a bike ride, another attempt to figure out a route from Callingwood to downtown.

This ride involved several firsts for me:

• riding with #4 Son:
  
• riding in the Boyle Street, McCauley and Alberta Avenue neighbourhoods
• riding on the "Rail with Trail" bike path that runs alongside the LRT
• seeing grafitti-in-progress along this trail
• riding on the on-street bike route along 97 Avenue between 149 and 163 Streets
• crossing the Whitemud on  a pedestrian overpass:
  
  
• riding through the Chinatown Gate:
  
  

It was a good ride, involving a sampling of many interesting sights. There were several representatives of the 118 Avenue demographic also riding bikes along the LRT trail. A couple of them apparently were not sure where they were going or how they would get there, and they held up traffic as they wove their way in and out of lanes. I think they wondered what #4 Son and I were doing, stopping at the light and complacently waiting our turn instead of meandering out into the street.

When we left the LRT trail, we rode through downtown and into the River Valley along my normal route. As usual there was some bone-mass-building, body-jarring action on the Fortway Road hill's potholes, crevices and bumps.

The River Valley has recovered nicely from the flooding earlier in the week. I was happy to see that.

Once through the McKinnon Ravine, we exited at Crestwood. At 149 Street, instead of continuing west on 100 Avenue as I usually do, we turned left and then right and serendipitously ended up on the signed on-street 97 Avenue bike route. This is a beautiful route on a wide, nicely paved, low-traffic street with few or no stop signs.

At 163 Street this bike route ends, but it's an easy jaunt over to another residential street and a short ride to 165 Street, where we turned left and rode until 87 Avenue. Here we met up with a bike/bus route so we rode on that to the mall, where we crossed 87th and followed a multi-use pathway to the pedestrian overpass. A short ride took us to my chosen Callingwood parking spot,

I was ready to turn around, but #4 Son said that since he had ridden so far, he had to go a little farther and visit his niece. So, we called #2 Son and Daughter-in-Law to make sure they were home and rode the 2 km to their place. Little Grandaughter was as cute as ever, crawling and sitting alone, smiling and laughing.

We rode back on the city streets, #4 Son pleading with me to be allowed to avoid climbing the hills we had ridden down a couple of hours previously. I reluctantly gave in, and we rode a good part of the way on the 102 Avenue bike route. This has got to be one of the stupidest bike routes in existence, with its frequent 4-way stops and excruciatingly long-lasting red light. The road was busy and slow, and I was not sorry to see the Chinatown Gate and quieter streets ahead.

It was a gorgeous day, with the temp in the mid-twenties and sunny skies. The wind was strong, but of course in the city it's not as daunting, so all in all it was an excellent 40 km ride.