The concluding remarks were that yes, we'd both show up at Cadence for the 10:30 departure, and that Jon had to be home near noon as a) his wife's brother and new wife (they got married last weekend) had just driven across Canada and would be arriving today to stay with them, and b) his wife is 8 and whatever months pregnant, so Jon should be on time with his arrival back home.
We (Dallas, Devin, Craig, Jon and I) met at 10ish, filled up on coffee, and rode south through the city, then decided to shortcut across the native reserve. Nice terrain, nice gravel roads, but the plan ended up being cut a little short when... well I guess when the natives found out.
Plan B was back to the city and out the normal way, with a slight twist Jon introduced. Unfortunately Devin flatted, so we spent a few minutes fixing that, which is when I also realized my gel bottle was half full of HP sauce still from the Water Valley mission. The last thing to check any time a tire is repaired should be zipping the saddle bag back up. We missed that step, so an assortment of tire changing tools is now in the bottom of mud puddles.
Devin and Dallas made short work of 85st southwest, Jon and Craig conversed, and I trundled along trying not to be too pathetic - the last few weeks sucked a lot of juice out of my body. My perceived exertion was a lot higher than the pace would usually make me feel.
After the guys raced the climb by the buffalo farm, then the climb off to the left on whatever magic bit of road that was, I decided to head home with Jon. Needless to say, he wasn't going to make it home on time, since it was already about 1:30.
We rode back slowly, which is all I could muster. Could have ridden a long ways at that pace, but speed just wasn't an option. We decided to attempt a shortcut, and found ourselves east of McLeod Trail on a gravel and mud road leading toward a wastewater treatment plant - heaven forbid we ride on pavement with traffic to finish the ride. We came to a gate, that said only "please close behind you" and nothing about "don't go here". We continued east, until we could see the Bow River valley, the new hospital, suburbs north in the distance, but no obvious route directly home. I think it's safe to say we were laying fresh tracks, not much of our surroundings indicated to me that this was an established bike route - we were "overlanding" as the Brits would say. At this point, navigation is left to Jon, and we're basically going by site through some fields, which was pretty smooth sailing. We were hoping to avoid fording the Bow River, although we saw that as one potential outcome.
We came to a barbed wire lined fence, and decided to give it a go. After heaving both bikes over, we tried to get as little clothing snagged as we could. Half way over, Jon's phone rang. When he checked his messages, it happened to be his better half. He called back to explain - yes it's late, I'm just climbing a barbed wire fence about 10k south of our house, we'll be home soon. And all that noise in the background? Don't worry about it. It's just 300 seagulls cause it looks like we just climbed into the back of the city of Calgary dump.
We mudbogged along a road that seems to run the perimeter of the dump, when suddenly I came to a stop. Our quick analysis told us a few things: a) derailleurs aren't supposed to go that way, b) a multitool won't fix that, and c) we'd better start walking and dialing the phone.
Crosstraining is good, so we walked out of the dump and into the community. Fortunately, Kelley is an understanding soul, who understands that Jon and his biking friends sometimes come home late, and sometimes need a ride to help make it home, even if she's really pregnant and has family moving in that afternoon. We can't thank her enough.
From there it was stripping down to our less muddy underlayers, taking a tour of the house, and chowing down on a few bagels. We carpooled up to Bowness to get Jon's truck, which also let me beg Bow Cycle near closing to quickly replace my derailleur, all while waiting for Tori to pick me up from Bow.
These are the kinds of weekends I miss when I'm working - finding a little adventure, just like kids, sure beats the pants off more Excel spreadsheets.
I don't have a proper derailleur hangar on my bike, but I've got some rigged up job that should get me through tomorrow - same time, same place - Cadence cafe.
I'm not a bikologist, but I am pretty sure a deraileur is not supposed to go like that. What you needed was Bear Naked Timmy to rescue you. Worked for me.
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