I thought I would chronicle my Wednesday bike ride to pick up Andrew. So, I'm taking the camera along in my pocket and we'll see what we see along the way.

First off, helmets are required, so I've got my trusty Sorelli one from the Warehouse. Also my magnificent reflective pants cuff holders. Don't leave home without 'em. And, a backpack, because we need cream and spaghetti sauce. I'll take a stop by the grocery before school lets out.






Guaranteed to get you heart beating is the hill right out of the driveway. Yes, I ride the brakes down, and I usually walk up unless I am feel like some kind of iron man.






The stretch you see below is the only time I am on the main road. I have a pretty good shoulder to the left of the white stripe, but it's still exciting when a logging truck comes by. That's a traffic circle up ahead. Not much fun for bikes but fear not I will take you up and over the bike bridge that skirts around the circle. That brown sign pointing into the bushes is where the bikes bail out.





There go the cars into the circle, but we are safely up and away on bridge #1. You can see the cycleway as it wraps around the other side of the circle.





Down the series of bridges and onto the railway reserve path, which I guess used to be a railway. It is nice and straight and on most streets bikes have the right of way. It helps to know which streets you don't.





I have figured out that if the cars have a bump, I have priority. If no bump, bikes stop. As I tell the boys, ("it's best to slow down and have a look regardless").

The railway reserve runs me all the way into the town square. This is not Nelson but an outlying village named Stoke. It's a small shopping square, but if you consider what is there, it pretty much covers all the essentials of what people want. There is a library and a fire station. A grocery. A veggie stand. A barber. Eyeglasses. Video rental. Bank. Drugstore. Hair salon. A couple of small eateries featuring hamburgers, pizza, turkish kebabs, and chinese. And most importantly there is a pub. Also a bike shop, as you will see on the sidewalk.

Here is the view from the New World, the older grocery in town. A new one has sprung up nearby that is more "big box." We go to both. Today I will be quick in and out at the New World. The school bell is ringing about now.

Riding back I cut up a side street to get onto the railway reserve and there is Andrew and Cameron. I will share with them some gummy worms.

It is getting into winter now. Temps are going into the single digits at night, but during the day it is the teens, which is the 60's, and when the sun is out it's really quite nice. Today it's a nice day. Here's a look off the path to a bike ramp and the mountains beyond.

Below is the hill where we lived for a few weeks right after we moved here.

Here is the entrance to the bike ramp up over the main road on the return trip. I think about the biking infrastructure here as I am cruising along. They have made it so easy. I know it would be hard to go back and retrofit a city like Houston, but shouldn't we be thinking about this kind of planning going forward? When the Katy Freeway was being expanded, couldn't we find room for ten feet off to the side as a dedicated cycleway? Or how about as rail expands around the city? Couldn't part of rail down Richmond include a cycle/pedestrian track? I know it is a big ask.

These bike rides are one of the small quality of life things I know I will miss just about anywhere else.

There goes Andrew down into the bush. He is scootering today.

And here comes Barbara home from the studio. She is the most consistent biker of us all, and looks keen in her fluorescent jacket. And she also brings in firewood!