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My mom's tricycle, tearin' up the streets in their Hamilton neighbourhood.

I bought the "Street Racer" license plate for her in Palanga, Lithuania, on one of the final days of last year's European vacation.

Jen and Coffee. We stopped at Alternative Grounds while out for a walk on Roncesvalles.

My August Long Weekend started off with a bang: I worked late on Friday and spent all day Saturday just puttering around at home and cleaning. Very exciting. But it got much better on Sunday and Monday when I rode my bike to Hamilton visit my parents.

I've done this ride quite a few times since moving to Toronto last year. I've taken three different bikes, and even combined my trips with the GO train when I was feeling a bit lazy. You'd think I might get bored of doing this ride....nope! It's always fun. I enjoy riding along Lakeshore Rd., and stopping at various scenic and tasty places along the way. This time I changed my routes a little bit too, just for some variety and to explore some new places I haven't ridden through before.

On the way to Hamilton, I decided to go the "long" way across the Beach Strip and then back across the east-end of Hamilton. The Burlington-Hamilton Beach Strip is a great place to ride, with some excellent scenery too. I'll have to take this route more often. Riding through the industrial north-east end of Hamilton isn't very appealing though.

On the way back to Toronto, I explored the Chedoke Rail Trail in West Hamilton. I also decided to cut away from Lakeshore for a little bit through Bronte and Oakville, and treated myself to some slower and more scenic trails right along the lake.

It was a perfect weekend for cycling. Great weather, a fun route, and of course it's always nice to visit my family in Hamilton too.

More details about my rides are in my photo galleries for Sunday and Monday.

I spent the Easter long weekend visiting my family in Hamilton. It was great to get away and relax for a few days, especially after having to work the previous two weekends. Plus, I haven't visited my parents much lately, so it was great to be "home" again.

Since I now have my Bike Friday folding bicycle, I was able to take a bike with me to Hamilton for the weekend without having to ride all the way there. It turned out to be a bit more of a pain than I expected, but still definitely worth doing.

Friday: After spending most of the day catching up on some housework at home in Toronto, I took off on my folding bike down to Union Station. It was a great day, so I was happy to be out riding. When I arrived at Union Station, I folded up my bike and put it into the "travel bag". Fitting it into the bag was a little trickier than I expected, but like packing it into a suitcase, it may require some more practice before I'm good at it. I lugged the bike and my panniers through Union Station, bought a ticket for the GO bus to Hamilton, then went to board the bus. I placed the bagged bike myself into the luggage compartment under the bus. I probably should have waited to bag the bike so that I wouldn't have to carry it around as much.

When I arrived in Hamilton, I upacked and unfolded my bike, then hopped on and rode to my parents' place. It's very close the GO station, but it's straight up the escarpment! This was my Bike Friday's first real hill climbing test, and I must say that it passed with flying colours. The gearing is excellent, so I had no trouble finding a low enough gear. The bike is also nice and light, especially when compared to my heavy recumbent.

Saturday: I slept in and relaxed on Saturday. It felt great to do that! In the afternoon I rode my bike over to my grandmother's place to paint Easter eggs. It's a tradition that I've been doing pretty much all my life. My cousin Bob was there too, and we had fun hanging out with my grandma and painting psychedelic Martha Stewart easter eggs.

Today Jen left to go back to Vancouver after visiting me here in Toronto for a little over a week. We had a great time together while she was here, and it's too bad that she couldn't stay longer. It'll be a few months before we see each other again.

Last Saturday we took advantage of this NON-winter weather to go for a long bike ride around the city, and to run some errands downtown. We decided to stay off the beaten path (Bloor St.) so that we could check out some of the other neighbourhoods along the way. Sometimes slowing down and taking detours is much better than a fast direct ride! We had one small destination to stop at before running our errands downtown: we had to visit the big elephant on someone's front yard on Yarmouth St. Very cool....not your usual garden gnome lawn statue! We also hit the usual downtown spots (MEC and Urbane), and had dinner in Chinatown.

Last Sunday we met up with Jen's parents and drove out to Unionville to visit Jen's grandma. After the visit and a delicious lunch we were dropped off at Scarborough Town Centre to take the TTC back into the city. The rest of the day's adventures involved exploring the east end around the Coxwell/Pape/Gerrard/Danforth area and going for some tasty Indian food with other bike/HPV fanatics.

Tuesday was, of course, Valentine's Day. Jen and I stayed in to cook up a delicious dinner and dessert.

Friday night involved another trip downtown, this time by TTC. We walked around Yorkville for a while, then found some food and topped off the night out by going to a story tellers gathering at the UofT.

Saturday was Jen's last full day in Toronto. We spent most of the day out in Brampton visiting with Jen's family and celebrating her other grandmother's birthday. We also had a great time playing out in the snow with Jen's two year-old nephew Thomas. It was nice that Jen was able to spend a good chunk of time with her family during this short visit back in Ontario.

Click the above links for more pictures and details of these adventures.

The fun weekends are really adding up this summer! For the August Long Weekend (technically, most of it was in July), Jen and I did a little bike tour down to the Hamilton and Cambridge area. Of course it is all photo-documented and posted online now. ;-)

All the details and photos are here:
Friday: Riding from Toronto to Hamilton
Saturday: Visiting family, and Bayfront Park in Hamilton
Sunday: Riding from Hamilton to Valens Conservation Area, mainly along the rail trails that go through Brantford, Paris, and Cambridge.
Monday: Riding back to Toronto from Valens Conservation Area

Hmmm...lately it seems that all of my postings are about riding my bike to Hamilton.

I went to Ottawa with Jen for the Canada Day long weekend. The nation's capital is, of course, the best place to celebrate Canada's birthday, while at the same time visiting family and the friends we both met during our many years living there.

We rode the Dirty Dog to Ottawa after work on Thursday night, and settled in to our friend Mark Rehder's place when we arrived after midnight. There was a note on the door from Richard to come meet him for some food when we arrived. What the heck, Richard is just a couple of blocks away from Mark, it's a weekend so it doesn't matter if we're out late, and there's plenty of good late-night eating in Chinatown. We ended up staying out until about 2:30 while we chatted over pho.

Saturday was a fun day! After sleeping in for a while, we went over to Jen's friends John and Anna's place for a bit of a Canada Day get-together. This was the first time we met John and Anna's newborn son, Dylan. John's brother Steve (who I met years ago through the Ottawa Perl Mongers), Kelly, Jody, and Henk were all there too.
For the evening, we headed back to Mark's place to meet up with some of the HPVOoO folks for food and crazy bike riding fun. Gathered up the bikes, lit them up, stuck Canada Geese on our heads, and went to entertain the crowds. More details in my Canada Day Photo Gallery, and in Richard's gallery.

On Sunday, Jen and I borrowed Richard's Greenspeed tandem recumbent trike for a ride around Ottawa. After touring around the city, we rode up to my brother Andrew's place to visit him, his wife Jurga and their daughter Agota. It was great to see them again for the first time since I moved out of their place in May. It's amazing how much a baby can change over two months. I took plenty of pictures of this day too.