It was -10°C with a bitter wind, but it didn’t feel too bad on the way out with the wind behind me. I even saw one other biker out by the lighthouse, on a tarck bike no less. There was a river of ice floating out into the great unknown, but we haven’t had any big easterly winds yet when it’s been cold, and that’s when we get the big waves and the interesting ice formations of shore ice. As always between November and March I could hear the old squaw ducks out on the water (they come from the subarctic, and overwinter here).

I aso thought I’d check out the state of the ice on the outer harbour. It looked rideable near shore (and even if it’s not, where I go it’s mostly over shoal water that’s barely deep enough to float a canoe) but I didn’t have studded tires and the soles of my bike shoes are lethally slippery so all I could do was look at it.

SPD shoes are just too damn cold for winter, even at a size too big with 2 pairs of socks. They’re all right when it’s wet or slushy but at -10°C weather all the heat just drains out the cleat. I was starting to get a tiny bit of phalangular frostbite so I went home, the next day I went looking at BMX pedals so I can ride in my snow boots.

I finally got my country road bike out on some real country roads, and picked up a bit of real country mud. Ride report to follow, eventually, maybe.

Last sunday at the cormorant beach (it used to be the heron beach before the pesky cormorants invaded it and killed all the trees). I don’t usually ride on sand on any bike I care about, but I reckoned it was OK just this once.

Things were still fairly green last week, at least by Lake Ontario, but now they’re oranger.

They said “tornado watch”, so I rode down to the beach to watch. I didn’t see any, but there was a tornado just outside town, about 20 crow miles away (and at least 3 others in Ontario)… and of course someone filmed it put it on youtube.

But I did see a really big puddle:

… and I wasn’t the only one out on a bike:

The Toronto Police marine unit was driving back and forth with the lights on

Afterwards, everything turned gold, then pink:

The camera mount is an Ultrapod II strapped to the seat tube.

Of course it isn’t even March yet and there’s still time for another big snowstorm or two, but this week got downright springy. I dug the ‘cross bike (and the blog) out of winter hibernation and took the long way to the grocery store in the melty goo. The Cross-Check would have been a great snow bike and winter commuter, but I didn’t want to get it all salty… I may have to get another one to build up as a city bike.

Out on the ice… don’t know how wise that is when it’s this melty.

I think I need to wrangle more fender clearance if I’m going to be using these tires in the mud.

Down by the docks.