I've been an avid commuter for a few years and especially over the last year I really began pushing myself to go faster on the short rides I was doing on my old Norco road bike, which was slightly too big for me. I rode the bike every day no matter what the weather until I rear-ended a small car during February totaling the bike and receiving a small concussion. Later that week I bought two bikes in two days, an old Gitane roadie from the sixties from some friends that build bikes, and a new 2006 Litespeed Sienna, which I had been saving for for some time. It wasn't until late April or May that I finally brought out my Litespeed and went on a few rides of 40-75kms.
I decided for my first century I was going to ride the Peggy's Cove loop which is a fairly popular metric century (100kms) around the Halifax area. Unfortunately I discovered how bad my direction is on this trip when I rode approximately 40kms past the exit I was supposed to take to start the loop and cycled all the way to Chester. When I finally asked directions and turned around I was still feeling good and decided I was going to find and complete the loop anyway but by the time I was over 100kms in and well into the loop I was exhausted. I pushed myself on to Peggy's Cove, took a short nap on a bench and then pushed myself home by dusk. I completed about 180kms that day which is more than an imperial century (the most common) and much more than I'd ever done. Now I am terrible at taking pictures, both at getting a good shot and actually remembering to take pictures, but here's a couple from Peggy's Cove:
And the route:
From that point on I decided if I was out for a ride (not just a commute) I would make that ride at least 100kms so then I decided to cycle from my mother's house to my house via the Meaghers Grant Rd and the Airport. The ride started out great, the weather report called for a chance of rain but by the time I reached the airport the rain was nearly torrential and very cold. After missing my turn off I stopped in a Hilton for directions where I had some free coffee and found out I would have to ride for a short time on the Trans Canada (110km/h highway). Mot of that was slightly downhill which kept me going at a quick pace but also made the rain feel like hail striking my face.
And the route:
And I also went out the other direction taking another route. I came across this little guy along the way in Preston:
My next ride was meant to be a double metric and ended up being 225km in total. The ride was from Halifax to Windsor to Chester to back home in Halifax. I had no camera for that ride but here's the route:
I then decided if I could do a double metric I should be able to a triple metric so I set out on a similar route from Halifax to Kentville to Chester Basin and back home. It was a difficult ride to keep myself going at points but had no major problems. The ride ended in the dark and I was on auto pilot mode. About 25kms from home a family of raccoons began crossing the road just a a car was passing me, the car hit two or three of them and when one turned back I hit it with my bike. I probably ran over its tail or paw as I stayed on the bike but I was too determined to get home to see how it turned out. The ride ended up being about 310kms and took about 12 hours total with about 10 and a half hours of on bike time.
I forgot to take any pictures but here's the route:
I then decided to try for some overnight trips. First a short one, 100km from Halifax to Bridgewater then back the next day. It was a very cold night and I didn't get much sleep which made for the 100km back to Halifax grueling. So the next weekend I brought warmer gear and decided I would have to build a ground cover under my bivy from branches, grass, or whatever I could find. I planned on doing a 600km brevet from Halifax to Joggins and back the next day. After getting lost in Truro and soon after having the wind and hills turn on me I decided to top for the night in Parrsboro after 240km. Had a much better night and woke up early to make it back to Halifax by 16:00 that day for totaling about 450km over the two days.
At this point I decided I could make the trip to Toronto.
