The sun has barely peeked over the horizon when I am startled awake by my wife bearing coffee. I vaguely remember agreeing to get up extra early for a bike ride—it sounded like a good idea at the time. Michelle takes McDuff for a walk while I drink my coffee and try to wake up. Out the window I see nothing but blue sky and there’s no wind: it’s indeed a beautiful day to go for a bike ride.
When I am feeling awake, I get out of bed, change into my biking gear, and head out to the garage to load up our road bikes and collect our biking shoes and helmets. When Michelle gets back from taking McDuff for a walk we drive to Ardrossan, where we plan on biking. On the way Michelle downloads a 35K ride onto our phones using an app called Ride with GPS. The Edmonton Bicycle and Touring Club tests many rides that are then made available to its members using this app. It’s really helpful because we get verbal directions on our phones as we ride.
Strathcona County is a popular area for road biking, but we are still the first to arrive at the arena parking lot in Ardrossan. The temperature is nice and cool unlike the temperatures we have been experiencing recently because of the heatwave. The wind is calm, and the sky is cloudless. There is no traffic and we’re surrounded by green countryside, except where it is interrupted by yellow fields of canola. Along the route we pass ponds filled with ducks and their chicks, and we can hear birds in the trees. In the fields we see deer and then later a coyote running away as it catches sight of us. We also pass farms and acreages that have either horses or cows in the field, and there is the smell of freshly cut hay in the air.
I had planned on a hard workout today. Michelle’s a strong biker, but testosterone gives me a big advantage, so she generally rides behind me at her own pace, and I make sure that I don’t get too far ahead. During the ride today I sprint up the hills along the route, and when I get to the top, I gear down and wait for Michelle to catch up. On two of the longer hills, I turn around when I reach the top and bike towards her on the opposite side of the road and allow her to get ahead of me, and then I turn around and race hard to catch her. It’s a hilly route, so I get a good workout.
Whenever Michelle and I ride together, she works hard because she thinks she is ruining my workout if I have to wait for her at the top of a hill. I don’t think she ever ruins my ride, but I have always had a difficult time convincing her.
Today I notice Michelle is never too far behind, so with 10 kilometers left in the ride, I ask her how she is feeling.
“Fine,” she answers.
I’m not good at reading verbal cues, so I am not sure if she really means “fine”. It could mean that she is fine or it could mean that she is tired and doesn’t want to chase me anymore. Either way, my legs are feeling fatigued, so I drop to a low gear and we finish the ride together.
When we finish we run into Terry, an organizer for the Edmonton Bicycle and Touring Club, and talk with him for a while. It surprises him to hear that we have already finished our ride. Michelle mentions that she has been having some mechanical problems shifting gears so Terry is nice enough to give Michelle some tips on the proper way to shift gears.
Once we load the bikes onto the Subaru, we drive back to Edmonton and chat along the way. Today we discuss the pandemic, and how we are looking forward to having everyone in our family fully vaccinated so that we can all get together again for the first time since the pandemic started. We’re both hungry, so I offer to cook omelets for breakfast.
Before we get home, Michelle says, “We should get up at 4:30 on Canada Day and go for a ride, just as the sun is rising to avoid the heat.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” I reply.
And we did just that.
One Last Kick 