So it was chillyish Saturday morning, with chores for the afternoon and rain predicted for Sunday. Once I determined I needed reasonably full cool-weather gear, with long fingers and ear warmers I decided to leave as early as possible. I decided it was a day suitable for 8 8.5x11" sheets of my 1980's vintage fan-fold printer paper. I keep the paper in pairs, which helps in manipulating it. Oh, and of course, my heavy tights. Fairly thick and with fleecy lining. Made by LG. Perhaps they use old short-circuited LI-Ion batteries to make the lining?
And wore my running jacket, which has extra pockets to take warmer-weather gloves and later put the other gloves and ear warmers and things. I took a precautionary stop in West Montrose on the trip north, and there was heavy dew on the ground, of the type which might have been frost a little earlier.
The horse was out in the field at Eighth Line, so I stopped to take a picture and of course the phone I first tried acted up. It's not a great picture, but it illustrates how modern technology can make something visible out of something which should really just be a blur of overexposure. The glare captures the morning feel nicely, I think. But the horse was very disappointed that I was not George. It was George who he really wanted to meet. (Er, probably she, I guess).
MiddlebrookHorse-1.jpg MiddlebrookOops-1.jpg
Comparing with record and normal segment times, the stop cost me at most 20 minutes, But between various factors, including a longish break, and the cold and clothing, I ended up about 15 minutes slower in riding time than my previous pace for the ride. And a break on the way up cost me time of course.
The trouble was when I got to Elora the steep hill down into the tourist trap area was closed for construction, and it made continuing to Fergus a more natural continuation than turning around there. Went across the narrowish two-lane bridge in the middle of Elora, and realized that the lane coming towards me had lots of automobile traffic, and there might be traffic coming behind me. So I moved left a bit until I had crossed and could move into a convenient lay-by of sorts before a short climb to the roundabout.
I switched to normal gloves and removed the ear warmers the second time through West Montrose, and didn't really begin feeling over-dressed until I was just getting into town. Though after I started undressing, I realized I was quite soaked.
Oh well, even with delays, my wife had only just got up when I got home and so, while the day's plans were decidedly late, they were workable and she was glad I'd got some good exercise.