Gravel Glossary: Prairie Shale

Hey, Manitoba, you've got shale!

On my recent trip to the Morden area, south of Winnipeg, I stumbled onto a couple of these weird shale-gravel roads near the town of Miami.They look more treacherous than they actually are. The thin plates of shale are so soft and brittle that they basically crunch apart like potato chips when a bicycle tire rolls over them.

T of A 2017

Photo credit: cyclingnews.com

Poor old Tour of Alberta. Canada’s only pro cycling stage race, which wrapped up Monday here in Edmonton, is hurting. 

This year’s edition shrank to a measly four stages (the first two years, 2013-14, it was five stages plus a prologue; in 2015 it was 6 stages, no prologue; and then last year it went down to 5 stages). (The only part of the Tour of Alberta that is growing rather than shrinking is the Velothon, the mass participation event held on the closed course in the morning of the final day. This was a huge hit last year and had even more participants this year.) Then word came out last week that government funding for the event is going to be cut even more. Plus, I get the sense that communities aren’t exactly lining up to pay the hefty stage-host fees that this kind of event counts on.

Dusty Lens: Lake Champlain Piano

The western shore of Lake Champlain, in New York State, is full of surprises. 

Windsock 100

 

Strava Jeff, inspired by a Velocity Cycling Club ride he'd heard about, came up with the idea of a day-long, all-asphalt ride around the edges of the Edmonton, visiting as many small airports as possible. He pitched it as a kind of Airports Gran Fondo, with a randonee component, where we'd take pics of ourselves and/or our bikes at each of the airports en route.

But seeing as how it was just him and me doing the thing, the "Gran Fondo" name seemed a bit of a reach. So we re-branded, as they say, and called this ride the Airports Century: 100 miles and 5 small airports to the north, east, and south of the city. By the time we finished, however, we'd come up with yet another name for this endeavor: the Windsock 100.   

Goldy

I've heard and seen pictures of winter bicycle-tire chains modelled on the style used on car and truck tires, but I'd never actually seen one in person until I visited Green Mountain Bikes in Rochester, Vermont. (This is a gem of a shop, by the way, a cool, eccentric space full of small wonders, including some fine bicycle poetry. It's one of those rare bike shops you just want to hang out in forever.)

On a neglected shelf in a corner of one of the many small rooms, I found this beauty: a gold-metal, wrap-over grip strip, designed to fit over a bicycle tire (mountain-bike tire, I think). Essentially, it's an ingenious tire-chain-like get up that is installed in one go, over a removed tire. Does it work? I have no idea.  

Judging by the dusty packaging, I'm guessing old goldy here has been on that shelf for many moons. I thought of buying it as a souvenir, stuffing into my already full pannier, but, in he end, I decided to leave it on that dusty shelf, for someone else to find. 

Maple State

Okay, Vermont, enough already about your maple everything.

I get that you have a lot invested in this, that your whole maple-identity is a lucrative business. I know that you are the United States’ leading producer of maple syrup, generating over 2 million gallons of the stuff in 2016, accounting for 47% of the entire nation’s output. I get that it’s a big deal.

But the proliferation of maple “products” I saw in Vermont was just silly.

Vermont Bike Ferry

The Island Line Trail, a popular 14-mile cycling path which runs from Burlington, Vermont, to South Hero Island, Vermont, is missing something—200 feet, to be exact.

Old Brick Store

Quarter past a boot. Tractor o’clock. Ten to the hammer.

I can’t help it. The huge clock on the exterior wall of the Old Brick Store in Charlotte, VT, invites such cornball jokes. And the grand old building invites visitors to step inside, and into a charming mixture of past and present.

Green July

About a month ago, when Val and Tando said, “Hey, let’s go ride our bikes around Vermont for 10 days,” I immediately thought of Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby in the 1954 classic film White Christmas, part of which takes place in the fictional resort of Pine Tree, Vermont. Kaye’s character says, in response to Vera-Ellen’s invitation to join her and her sister for a winter adventure, and again later trying to convince Bing’s character to go along, “Vermont should be beautiful this time of the year, with all that snow.” The only difference, in my case, was the last part of my response. “Vermont should be beautiful this time of the year,” I told the fellas. “All that . . . green.”