Hot Sticky Smoky July Suckiness

They said the temperature cooled down today from the heat wave but thanks to the humidity it was still hot wet and gross. With the new job the sweaty long days in the shop are now 4 hours a day less spent in a gross sweaty shop. Still it was 8 hours in a gross sweaty shop.

People who work in offices have no idea of that feel of a humid July shop and the feel of bunched up sweaty underwear with coveralls doing their best and covering all. I did ponder the idea of going home but figured to give it a shot at least. I was packed and Cameron Heights is right on the way home. 

Still not my favourite starting point but coming home from work is insanely convenient and tonight I hit new trails in behind Mustang that help the area out a lot more. 

The ride started with realizing I left my water pack at work and I had nothing for the ride. Ahh shit. "I'll just drink right from the river if I have to!" and slammed the door of the Civic and I was on my way down Bottle Rocket. I somehow rode it a completely different way and really enjoyed it. 

I don't even know how I did that and it was amaze, what the hell batman? 

I crossed and had the intention of riding Mustang and took the Henday climb up rather than riding up Mustang. I'm sure this trail has a name but it followed the top of the Henday and eventually lead me to Windemere where I was in the midst of million dollar houses all backing onto a major freeway and yes the traffic noise was quite noticeable. 

Again... what the hell batman?

I suspected trails in the trees and found one and even stopped to look it up on Trailforks and I rolled through new territory on a trail called Two Garths which rolled into Moose Knuckle and so on and so on.. It was actually pretty freaking good and I did connect it to the top of Mustang eventually. The irony is I have spent lots of time looking down that other trail thinking it was a bad dead end. 

I was quite wrong about that one. 

The humidity and heat did kick my ass and I just rolled back up to the car after exiting the area. I did ride to River Ridge golf course remembering all the rumours in the 90's of a land owner armed with a gun chasing mountain bikers out of the area. 

Pre internet times were so much better. This one was short and sticky but a winner.

Chafe Chaser. Lung Puncher

 I had enough. I had to get out. With the high heat we have had forest fire smoke infest our area making things go from kinda shitty to super  mega holy fuckballs shitty. 

Not only was it hotter than David Hasselhoff's balls when he was probably filming Baywatch episodes out in California. Now he have heavy forest fire smoke to deal with.  Whoa baby, life is so grand in these 2020's. 

Life really ain't that bad though. You know why? Cause damn you we get to ride bikes!

*cue fireworks

It didn't seem too bad out today smoke wise and am assuming cause it was windy? All the smart people on my phone said don't do it but I did it anyways.  I went for a bike ride.

*cue 2nd round of fireworks

It called for an easy paced gravel bike ride and I didn't want to go into gross Edmonton so instead I chose the truck nut capital of Canada. Leduc. It was the usual same old thing except I took an extension loop coming out of the cool park with the T-33 on a pedestal named after some dumb politician  and followed the CPR tracks and found the Leduc campground path entrance and I rolled through and back to Telford.

Not a soul on the trails anywhere. It was creepy. 

Does that make sense? I'll just post the gps tracks below although Strava doesn't seem to work on here anymore so you are gonna get what you are gonna get. 

*cue 3rd round of fireworks

Beer Friday. Driftwood Brewery, Fat Tug IPA

 Well here we are bringing back beer Friday after a few absent weeks.  Or so I think..  I feel like it's been a month or so but who knows. I don't want to scroll back because eveeevery time I do I find grammatical errors ant spelling mistakes in my old posts and I get annoyed at my lack of professionalism. 

Ahh well, whatcha gonna do? 

I did cancel today's planned after work ride. The heat is a bit much and I did spend a lot of time outside at work today and I'm fat and old so I might have a cardiac arrest on the trail somewhere and then die and where would the world be without Lonebiker? 

My God! I could not imagine such a sad sucky world!

So here we are on the start of a four day weekend which doesn't get me too excited cause I am sadly used to seven glorious days.

From Victoria we have Driftwood Brewery who have an assortment of beers and if you are in the area they have a pub and patio which I would imagine in Victoria would be quite nice. Or who knows, it might be an absolute dump but based on the website these people seem to know what they are doing. I guess we will see in a minute *cue audience going 'ahhhh.' 

We had the full crew in for the pour and this IPA poured a more golden and beautiful IPA that could rival the best Lagers around the world... well maybe I'm getting a little carried away. 

Definitely more golden than most India Pale Ale's and rivals some fine lagers. It looked amazing but the high heat index has me looking at things like beer differently and that is a little disturbing. Was this orange golden sun Goddess a figment of my imagination or did it look that great? It had a nice hoppy smell to it. A hoppy smell that reminded me of being in the outdoors.

It was quite delicious and the hops were not overwhelming and of course with these new IPA standards there is no bitter hoppy aftertaste. I mean what the fuck man?  There is some hoppy aftertaste and at seven percent it is a bit of a bad ass and I could see this one sneaking up on you if you are not careful.  It does have a pine like taste to it reminding me of the outdoors. 

One of the more delicious IPA's I have had kids. 

This beer gets 4.5 suds out of 5. 

Chafe Chaser

 A pretty great short and sweet after work ride in extreme heat. Well at least extreme heat for us cold weather assassins known as Canadians. I have a love hate relationship with hot July days. I have been hating them until today. This short ride was quite memorable.

 I fuckin loved the heat on the ride today and I don't know why. 

It was a hot day at work and the chaffing was quite questionable as I spent half the day outside. I had a bad feeling about that part of the ride but I wasn't gonna let it stop. No sir, the first mountain bike in a while thanks to back issues. 

It was a Cameron Heights start so Bottle Rocket started things off. I was across the river and up to Staff College and then Go Trail. I did feel the heat though so I decided to turn around after doing a lap at the base on top and refrained from riding down to the lower fields and parking lots. I traced my route back and apologies to the dude in the white jersey. 

I was being s complete jackass  and had stopped for a possible picture and with headphones on was kinda into the trail. I don't think it was close but I had my back to him and was oblivious. 

I normally wouldn't do that but on hot days here the trails are very quiet and I didn't see a soul until him late in the ride. Still, I should have known better.. 

In the end, the chaffing was minor. Giddy up. 

Still Stuck on Gentle Old Man Rides

 A local Leduc ride cause it's just better than Beaumont. I had pondered the idea of riding out to the International airport from home base but didn't want to risk any sort of added back pain. 

So I chased down Boomers on  e-bikes around the lake and found myself following the railroad tracks south before looping back to the park all about Veterans which has a former RCAF jet on a pedestal and is named after some lunatic politician. 

Ahh... he might not be a lunatic. Could be a hell of a guy. Is he dead? What's his name again? Sheeeit. 

Lots of people out and the headwinds seemed to be coming from all different directions. Mountain biking rules cause you are mostly sheltered in the trees and away from the headwind bullshit. 

Not a bad ride given the current situation.

Ride Bikes, Get Refinery Cancer

A ride on the gravel bike in Fort Saskatchewan after sadly another failed after work attempt to ride the trails yesterday. It was the Moots on the singletrack and was concerned the whole day regarding an annoying back issue. I left last night with tail tucked not wanting to risk any escalation. This was the fourth attempt at riding after work in Fort Saskatchewan on a Friday. Enter today. Let's take care of that back.

So yes. Ride the bike that crippled me some time ago. I'm a bloody genius. 

Stop judging me. I know my back and bikes better than you so lets get to this shortened ride as a light summer storm shortened my plans. I had started at Turner park and wanted to ride through the refineries on the back roads which is actually pretty fuckin pleasant. Once you head out of the park towards the refineries  they have the road closed to vehicles for a bit and it is short but it rules. The road you ride on up through the refineries is quite wide shouldered making me feel a bit more comfortable as there are semi trucks running on this road mainly. They are sparse which makes it tolerable. 

That could be a huge downer for some people but I don't like riding roads and I feel comfortable. 

But I might be an idiot. 

The planned route was through the refineries and to Josephberg Airport and back through town and to the car most likely pretending I was in the Tour De France the whole time. I got into Dow Chemicals weird ass park and took shelter under the information sign as a storm rolled through. No rain gear but the rain was quite heavy so it wouldn't matter. It would have sucked out there. 

The shelter did it's part as the rain came down hard and lightning and thunder rolled though the lands of the Dow Chemical wonder park. It actually has a nice looking pond glittered with classic Canadian wetland stuff so god bless Canada and God bless Dow Chemicals! 

Mostly bless Dow for the shelter today. it did rule as I sat there nervously awaiting a fork lightning strike to one of the trees in the area and me probably dying of a heart attack at the insanity of that happening so close 

The rain died and I knew I wasn't making my planned route. I was soaked from the road within a couple hundred yards as I rolled outwards towards the railroad tracks before turning back. The headwind I never complained about until now turned into a nice tailwind pushing me back to the car. 

 This Fort Saskatchewan to Josephberg airport ride could happen one day but don't hold your breath. 

i got cozy under a shelter in dow chemicals weird ass (but kinda nice) park during the storm 

turn around point after the summer storm

i imagine if these lights are flashing you would want to turn around and go the other way

 

Beaumont Back Checker

I use that title a lot lately and this shit is getting old. 'Back Checker'... ugh. This episode never got serious, I just get very nervous as this was how it started in the past before going full cripple. So when there is a little pain I get nervous.

So around town on one of the hottest parts of the day on one of the hottest days of the year cause I cannot time anything right. I took it easy on the gravel bike and could not believe how quiet it was on the back paved walking trails. Not a soul was out other than people sitting under shelter in their yards with drinks on hand. 

I did have big plans for a river valley Moots romp but I cannot handle time so I switched from River Valley to Leduc to Home. I could not believe the amount of overdevelopment on the Beaumont outskirts with traffic already much heavier than ever. 

You could jump from roof to roof on all the new houses being built. The new neighbourhoods look like garbage as the houses are all identical and there are zero trees and these developers are making millions off these neighbourhoods trying as hard as they can to squish everybody in. A drone shot of these neighbourhoods is urban hell as it's a sea of brown shingles. 

In the end the ride was fine and the back held up so hooray. I did feel a bit overheated when I got back but cooled down good with a Tilly hat soaked in water. Yes it's hot and apparently the whole world is super hot so maybe go get some ice cream or something. 

it literally will never end