Well, my first Easter in Canada now. It also marks the start of my cycling season. Having joined up to a local club last weekend the weather finally got good enough at a point when I had free time to coincide and I was able to sling my leg over the saddle and finally put the first miles of 2009 in. I headed out and rode the suburban roads of Mississauga and did about 33 miles or 53 kilometres before heading back. Felt pretty good actually and won’t be long before I’m up over 50 miles and further.

The only frustration on the ride was the traffic lights. Canada is littered with them and unless I ride North for quite a while to get into the country my entire ride is through industrial or residential areas. Granted the route I took off my new clubs website does stick to a lot of cycle routes and picks the roads with the least number of traffic lights, but you still come across them.

On a few occasions I came up to lights and being the only person on the side road would not be able to put a command into the loops on the road given that I wasn’t sitting on a car. The intersecting road was green, as was it’s green man crossing, and the countdown to red would get to about three before turning back to Green again. I was left with no choice but to wait for a gap and just to ride through the red light. Who is in charge of lights in Mississauga? Having worked in the traffic light industry for 4 years back in Belfast I learned a little bit about Traffic lights and these ones aren’t great.

Anyway, I suffered on and the majority of the ride I was able to get into a good flow. Not sure whether I’ll get out today again but if not I’ll at least put in my 1k in the swimming pool.

Happy Easter everyone

On the subject: Cycling, Easter | ALL SUBJECTS |

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