When I saw the Chris Ware animation for This American Life, I was impressed as most of the people linking it were by the creativity of the animation itself. But what struck me more than that was the actual story itself. I won’t spoil it for people, but I want to know from those readers in a long term relationship - has this happened to you? It certainly has to me and it was fun to see that I was not the only one to have such an experience.

Didn’t I see him at Critical Mass last month?

As we had yet another gorgeous weekend, I hopped on the bike and headed out to explore some more of Quebec. This time, my destination was Montmorency Falls and Ile d’Orleans. While not totally successful, I did manage to have a good time.

Getting to Montmorency Falls was quite simple, and like many of my trips in this area, required only a minimum of on-street riding. All I had to do was go from Vieux Quebec down to the Vieux Port where a cycle path waits. Once on this path I needed only to cross a couple of streets and a couple of railroad crossings but otherwise had only to deal with bikes, pedestrians, rollerbladers, and the occasional stroller-pushing person. Traffic wasn’t bad and I could keep a reasonable pace. Well, as reasonable as I could considering that I was riding into a stiff headwind. And so, after only about 10km, I arrived at the falls.

Okay, so that’s not the falls but a smaller waterfall just before the big falls but for a minute I thought it might be. A few minutes later I did make it to the falls where I had a quick snack and headed over to get a closer look. I didn’t get too close, though, as before too long i was caught up in the mists at the bottom and despite the fact that it was a warm sunny day, I got really chilled.

I headed out, hoping to find my way across to Ile d’Orleans. Unfortunately, I didn’t check my map and headed off down the wrong bike route. It wasn’t a loss, though, as I headed further northeast along the St. Lawrence River through several small towns ending up eventually in Chateau-Richer, about 20 km further down the road where, thinking it was a bit of a long time to wait before finding the bridge to the island, consulted the map. My suspicions had been confirmed, I had just made a 40 km round trip wrong turn out of my way on what I had hoped would be a 60-80 km tour. Still, I managed to see some nice sights along the way.

At that point I turned around and headed back. The headwind that I had fought all day became a tailwind and I made excellent time back towards Quebec City. When I finally did get within sight of the bridge, though (within sight of the falls, ironically), I couldn’t find an easy way across. No worries, though, as my total distance was going to be a moderate 50 km and I was tired from pushing into the wind for much of the way. So I headed back into town but had to stop for a moment to check out the migration of the snow geese in Beauport. While there were a few there when I had haeaded out in the morning, there were tons now, and flocks coming in all the time.

On the way back in I got behind a someone on a racing bike who was making excellent time. I was barely keeping up but it was still being fun. As we rounded a corner we heard a shout that sounded like a warning. All I could understand, though, was the word ‘Eau’. Not sure what he meant, I kept going. It didn’t take long to figure it out, though. The next tunnel was full of water to about knee-level. The guy in front of me just lifted up his legs and coasted through. I tried the same thing, but my wider tires and fenders slowed me almost to a stop nearly immediately and I had to plunge my feet, shoes, pants, and all into the water to pedal my way out.

On the positive side, in my just-under-15km commute home, I saw 53 cyclists. Pulling out of the driveway in the office park where I work, I watched four bikes go by almost one after the other before pulling in behind them all. This significantly beats my commute to work in Toronto.

OK - enough with how much more enjoyable cycling is here in Quebec as compared to Toronto. It is pretty inspiring, though, to see what it could and hopefully will be in a few years. And there still is little that beats cycling down Queen Street on a summer evening or riding with Critical Mass (which happens to be illegal here in Quebec City, I might add).

Enough for one night - I am pretty wiped out. Maybe more tomorrow.

Comes more cycling - and I’ve been out rather a bit this week.

Saturday, though it was a bit chilly and windy I got on my bike and headed northwest out of the city along the Corridor des Cheminots trail - part of a pair of dedicated car-free trails leading almost 80 km out of Quebec City. All it took was about a km of on-road cycling from Old Quebec before I was on the path. There’s definitely a fair bit of cycling infrastructure here. The trip north was relatively easy taking me first through some gritty industrial areas and the railroad yard.

After about 5 km things cleared up and I saw more trees and fewer buildings.

Unfortunately after about 15 km, I found that there was a fairly large construction project on the trail and the ride was over. Looking at a map later, I found that I could’ve taken some streets and bypassed it. Perhaps this weekend.

I noticed a couple of things as I rode the trail. The first was that there were a few ‘billboards’ from Desjardins on the sides obviously targeting cyclists. I wonder if that was part of how revenue for the trails’ upkeep is generated. Another is that at least one business saw the advantage of catering to cyclists by creating a dedicated cyclists’ entrance and parking area for their dairy bar.

The trip home was a bit more difficult. Though I hadn’t noticed on the way there, there was apparently a 30-50 km/hr wind blowing. I cursed it as I rode into it on the way back.

These past couple of rides have been extremely pleasant. Today, in particular, was really nice with 19 degrees C, sunny weather, and a small tailwind. The dedicated trails are particularly nice. The one I take for the first 5 km or so is particularly nice.

This one is mostly this well taken care of the entire way (there’s a bit of mud under one bridge where we had flooding last week). The trail works much like an expressway with on/offramps to major streets and otherwise going nonstop the whole way. The result is that I was able to make incredibly great time today as I could keep a good pace and rarely needed to stop for signals or any other reason.

It made me wonder - what would it be like if we had a series of these in Toronto. Maybe we support them with ads along the way, or usage fees like on the 407 (but perhaps with a sliding scale). I feel confident that if we had a good network of trails like this in Toronto more people would commute by bike as it would clearly be faster than a car, but without much of the stress and conflict we currently experience on the roads.

What I also notice about the trails are the number of people of all ages there. I see everyone from people in their 60’s-70’s all the way down to 2-3 years old. Again, remove the risk/conflict with cars and it seems like a much more viable option.

This weekend if the weather cooperates I will likely head north again and see if I can’t get more than 15 km out of town. Meanwhile, it looks as if cycling to work every day but Thursday is a very viable option.

Sage is looking for minions to help with the QN Podcast. Maybe you could go over there and give her a hand?

If you haven’t seen the travel videos made by Da Vaz you really need to see them. I’ve seen the ones on Sikkim and Calcutta and they are mesmerizing. Unlike the typical “Palinesque” travelogues (which I like in their own right), these have little or no commentary and the result is that you’re put right into the film itself. Highly recommended.

Da Vaz - Abstract Artist from Switzerland | Works | Movies

Okay folks, I just was looking at my stats for the past couple of days and a look at the search listings made me realize that I need to sit down with you guys and have a serious heart to heart talk. See, at least one person searched “Sage Todd Tyrtle Divorce” this week which on the one hand is funny and on the other hand makes me realize I may not have explained what’s going on very well and as a result at least one person is speculating. I almost feel like the parent who has to explain to his kids about what is and is not indicative of a relationship problem. “No, honey, just because we aren’t living together at the moment doesn’t mean we don’t love each other very much.”

Okay, so here’s the story. My job involves consulting within the pharmaceutical industry. I’m not going to bother explaining because I still haven’t figured out how to explain it easily and concisely to folks like border guards and relatives so I’m not even going to bother. Let’s just leave it as I go to various pharmaceutical companies and help them stay compliant with FDA regulations, OK? I work for a company that is contracted by the pharmaceutical companies to help them out. Sometimes the projects are quick - a day or two, sometimes they are long like my 18 month job in New Mexico. Often they are local and I am home every night. However, every once in a while, my skills are in sufficient demand outside the local area that I have to get on a plane and go to visit the client.

The job here in Quebec is one of those cases. They’ve sent me out here and paid my expenses to stay here and help my client. In addition, Sage and Paul have been able to visit about once a month and I’ve been visiting them some as of late. We’ve also been hanging out online via skype video/audio chat every night. Being virtual daddy isn’t the optimum but it beats email or the phone hands down.

Yes, we could be upset about it and bemoan our misfortune at having to be apart. But we choose to look at it as a great opportunity. I get to practice my French. Sage and Paul get to come and visit and have a place to stay (there’s lots of history and culture to be seen here in Quebec). On top of that, as I’m paying for expenses on a credit card that turns dollars spent into air miles, we have a plan that Paul and I will take a long, probably international trip when this is over. On top of that, the extra effort is helping me save up ‘banked hours’ that should amount to a month or more extra vacation time by the time I’m done. And most importantly, it’s temporary. This too shall pass, and I’ll be back in Toronto and meanwhile we’re enjoying what we can of it.

I think of it as maintaining a balance. Sure, it would be great to be home every night but that isn’t possible in the path that we’ve chosen. The path, however, has led us to some great things we do want (including eventual Canadian citizenship, learning new languages, living in Toronto, being able to be car-free). It also is a balance in that while I may be away now, I am very often able to work from home. In fact, from October until February with the exception for a couple weeks that I traveled to Pennsylvania, I was working from home nearly every day.

So worry not, folks. I haven’t moved out or anything weird like that.

Sometimes it is French / Wendat:

Keep driving, keep on consuming. We like it this way…

(found here)

Next time you’re in the car heaving a big sigh as you hear the latest traffic report, perhaps you should remember that you are the traffic. Not convinced there’s a better way? Have a look here