Wednesday August 1st.
Today was a rest day to see the city so there was no concern about the MapMyRide application failing miserably as it has had a tendency to do since leaving Toronto. Yes I am going to slag them until I get some actual support for the product.
I decided to ride into the city since I was able to leave my bike at city hall with Georgie and I thought I might bike around the city after seeing parliament. Hindsight is definitely 20/20 since the city has a decent bus system and I had all sorts of problems deciding what to do with certain time constraints but my guardian angel Natasha saved the day. More on that later but riding on an off day just feels strange because you are not in destination mode where you knock back a lot of kilometers but you are still on a bit of a time constraint and need to lock up your bike way more often. On that note part, 7 or 8 kilometers in the ride I decided to take the bus. I stayed on until I got to Mountain Equipment Coop where I had the bike guys look at my front and rear rims to determine in they were true. It turns out that it was the tire itself that was not seated properly but the procedure involved a little time to over inflate them and then hope it solved the problem. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort and there was a crack in the complete circumference of the rear (probably because I had folded it) that was at risk of bursting during this procedure. After a quick brake adjustment I was happy and left the store with more chamois cream – for the arse!
China town Ottawa!
When the next bus came it didn’t have a bike rack so I just rode the remaining 4 kilometers rather than wait for the next one. Pulling into Ottawa was fun and though a somewhat busy city I didn’t feel the urgency in the traffic like Toronto or Vancouver where it seems people are fighting for every in of pavement. The first major sight I came upon was the Surpreme court of Canada which is having renovations on the grounds in front of the building. From the road it looks all fenced off but once you go into to the parking lot you can ride right on up to the building. Unlike Washington DC there is one police car in front and no barricades of any kind protecting the building. Of course I know this is probably not the case when the court is in session and I am sure there is a tonne of security that you can not see. I didn’t look around because I wanted to get to City Hall before I started going in out of buildings since I didn’t bring my bike lock which was another hindsight thing. It is so frustratingly apparent sometimes when you have poor planning. Normally this would not bother me but today would have been so much easier if I just bused in. Okay enough about that!
Supreme court of Canada.
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