Sunday 1 May 2011

Delta 98k

Today's track took me down to Delta for the longest ride of the year so far at 98km. The rolling hills of the last ride took a lot out of me, so this time I wanted something flatter. Well, you don't get much flatter than Delta.

I took a few pictures today. I don't think I can give them captions through this app so I'll just describe them here. One picture shows a pet peeve of mine. On River Road in Richmond there are these little reflectors in the road. I'm sure it is really good for safety at night, but they are almost always exactly where I'd like to put my bike on the road. If you hit one on a bike, it's not the most pleasant experience, so you either have to dodge them, which is dangerous, or ride farther into the lane, which pisses off some motorists. I notice that a lot of them have been scraped off, presumably by snow plows, so hopefully another snowy winter will take care of the rest.

Another picture shows my turn around point in Delta. Nothing too picturesque but on a day like this it just feels good to be out in the fresh air.

The most exciting thing about today's ride was conquering the Alex Fraser bridge not once but twice. Last year I started to go over this bridge but had to abort because I couldn't cope with the narrow walkway. I was so tense, I felt like I was putting myself at risk by being up there. This time I was able to soldier on, aided maybe by lighter winds. The thing that irks me about this bridge walkway is that the railing is so short. Would it really have been that expensive to add another foot to the railing? On second thought, they probably didn't want to obstruct the view from the roadway. That's kind of legit, I guess, but I'd still take the added safety if it were up to me.




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