Urban Farming

Yesterday evening, we started planting our garden. To give 外公 and 外婆 something more to do that just watch Julie, we all went out and bought some plants and seeds to plant in the backyard. And... Front yard. The previous owner left the flower beds full of perennials so 老婆 and I did very little in the garden last year. We mowed the lawn and pulled a few weeds but little else. Late in the year, Mom bought us a raspberry plant and blueberry bush. Those each appear to have survived the winter and, we hope, will provide us with a little fruit later this year. 外公 and 外婆 come from a small farming village and had a little garden behind the school so we thought they might enjoy some gardening here during the summer.

Last night's planting session turned out to be quite comical. If you ever view my pictures over on Flickr, you can view a picture of our latest batch of cookies where instructions weren't followed. This trend continued yesterday evening. I cannot say much since I don't enjoy gardening and didn't help very much. Still, I was out there, reading the instructions on the back of the seed packets and watching for space to be cleared and rows to be dug. From all the arguing going on in Chinese, I think 老婆 was also wondering about the rows. 外公 did most of the work and ended up planting the seeds the way he wanted.

The picture above is our front flower bed. You can see four plants were planted there but, what you cannot see are the seeds which have been randomly scattered by 外公. Onion seeds to be specific. I thought the garden was going to be confined to the backyard but it seems we'll have onions, tomatoes and bell peppers growing in our front yard. We do have rabbits in the area so we'll probably be thinking of some way to defend our plants soon. In the backyard are carrots, lettuce, green onions, a second blueberry bush, blackberries and pumpkins. The pumpkins were my idea but the location where they were planted was not. I hope I can provide pictures of pumpkins in the middle of the yard later this summer as the strip of garden where they were planted is not very wide.

I guess we'll have to wait and see how this all progresses. Random spots have been cleared and planted and not all the weeds have been pulled. I would like to add a second compost and some rain barrels to this whole backyard project. I'll keep posting as the garden develops. Just for the record, 外婆 was a school teacher and 外公 was a projectionist turned head of the village so no one here has much gardening experience.

Midweek Mayhem 1

Tuesday marked the start of the Midweek Mayhem criterium races. They'll switch to cyclocross races in the fall but, for the next four months, it'll be crits at the UofC. This week's race was a chilly one. As I rode home from work, the sun was out and the winds were light. At the start of the race, all that had changed. The wind made the only interesting corner on the course much more interesting. On the northern straight, the road bends slightly to the left before making a 135° turn to the right. With a tail wind, I entered that corner at over 40 km/h on each lap.

The first time I did this race, it lived up to the Mayhem name with four crashes and one ambulance ride. The B race had none of that this week. The race was uneventful for me. I started near the back and the pack quickly strung out due to the high speeds and wind. Like usual, the weak were dropped off the back and left to form their own little chase groups. I rode almost the whole race with three other riders. We took turns pulling for a lap and just enjoyed ourselves. The only excitement was when we got lapped by the leaders while going through the only tricky corner. That broke us apart and I rode the last few laps with just one of the riders I had been riding with previously. Still, it was enjoyable and good training. I ended up covering 19.3 km in 34:30 for an average speed of 33.6 km/h. The tail wind pushed me over 40 km/h on each straight but the opposite straight meant a 30 - 33 km/h push into the wind.

Here's a map of the course with my speed zones. Orange is over 40 km/h and green is under 30 km/h.

Velocity Stage Race Report

It's taken a while to find some time, but here's my experiences from Velocity's road race which took place on 3-4 May 2008.

Saturday

Time Trial - just 10 km and I was hoping to be in the 16-17 minute range. It was a straight-forward course on rural roads to the Northeast of Edmonton with very little elevation change. In fact, my GPS reports 30 m of climbing. My race strategy was to keep my heartrate over 170 bpm and I did exactly that. Coming into the finish, I was up over 180 bpm and topped out at 184, which is one beat per minute below my maximum. I averaged 34.6 km/h. My GPS recorded a time of 16:34 but my official time was 16:03 or so. Since riders started every 30 seconds, I think there may have been an error in my favour. This was good enough to finish well down in the standings.

Criterium - I had never raced at the Alberta Research Park but I quite enjoyed the course. I warmed up on a trainer so I didn't know the twists and turns which awaited me. On the first lap, I started towards the back of the pack and was caught on the wrong side of a break in the peleton. I felt surprisingly good and tried to bridge but wasn't able. I was picked up after a while by a Bow Cycle rider. He was strong in a straight line and I hid behind him going into the wind on the front straight for a few laps but he couldn't go through the corners. On just about every corner, he would turn in, pull out of the turn and then turn in again. I didn't feel like making such an aggressive pass so far behind the leaders so I would sit up a little early and pull back any distance I had lost by going through the corners much more smoothly. He jumped in with the lead pack when we were lapped and I rode on at my own pace. A few laps later, I was collected by two ERTC team mates and we rode together until we were lapped again. I believe it was their first time being lapped. The instructions from the marshals was that they would pull off lapped riders and I was listening for my number every time I completed a lap but I was never pulled off. When I was lapped with my team mates, they gave themselves up and so did I at that point. The leaders were on their second or third last lap. I completed 12 laps for 15.7 km at an average speed of 33 km/h. I hit 43 km/h at one point on the flat course. My cheering section was out in full force and I could hear them as I completed each lap. The pictures they took are already on my Flickr page.

Sunday

Road Race - The weather was nice leaving home but was cold and windy at the start of the race. The race started late and all the categories stood around in the staging area for a long time. Being the second last category to be started, we stood for about 30 minutes. The rolling start had a big tailwind and I was nicely positioned on the edge of the road. When we made our first turn, my position turned out to be very bad. The peleton put in a big sprint after the first corner which I was able to do but I was now caught pushing against a large crosswind. I tried to find some shelter but, as I wasn't able to stay on the wheel in front of me which wasn't giving me any help anyway, other riders came past my left side using me as their shelter from the wind. About 7 km into the race and I was already off the back. I was caught by two other riders and we worked together over the next lap. The bicisport rider didn't seem to understand drafting very well and that made life interesting when we were passed by Cat 2. We were just starting our second lap and were heading south with a crosswind from our right. Ideally, the leader should be riding on the very right side of the road and the best place to draft was on his left hip. The bicisport rider was riding down the middle of the road and I was second in line. As Cat 2 caught us, some started yelling for us to go left and some yelled right. Just as they passed us, they yelled for us to hold our position and they went around to both sides. I didn't feel like I was pushing very hard while riding. I dropped the other two in my little group when Cat 3 passed us and rode off on my own. It was nice to feel strong and be able to ride away from someone for a change. The only other excitement in my race was just before the start/finish straight at the end of my second lap. Someone let their Rottweiler out into their front yard but, out in the country, they didn't have their yard fenced. The dog decided to run out on the highway and chase the riders. Luckily, there was someone just in front of me and the dog had just turned off from chasing him as I rode by. The dog still decided to come after me and I put in a little extra effort to get past without incident. As I came on to the start/finish straight with one lap to go, I was thinking of another 50 minutes on my own, the long drive back to Calgary that afternoon and a left hip which was getting very sore. I decided to pack it in at this point. The drive back proved tiring and the hip pain was just a sore muscle which relaxed soon after I quit. All in all, I was on the bike for 1:40, covering 48.7 km at an average pace of 29.4 km/h. The wind was pretty fierce because I could maintain about 25 km/h going into it and about 40 km/h when it was at my back.

Little trouble in big China

I was in China for the last two weeks of April. 老婆 and Julie went two weeks before me because the plan was mostly to relax around 老婆's village. From what I've heard, 老婆 was pretty bored during her two weeks alone before I arrived. For the week I was in the village, things were still fairly boring. After the week, we moved on to Wuwei for four days and spent the last few days in Shanghai. Besides the following, it was an uneventful trip.

老婆's grandmother is 91 and in poor health. One of her daughters decided that the end was really, really near and summoned the family back to the village for the funeral. Reports of the grandmother's death were greatly exaggerated. The grandmother is aware of little around her but she knows that everyone is waiting for her to die soon. Countless times she's said she will not die any time soon and, if she does go, she's taking everyone with her. I hear she was very tough and stubborn throughout her life and it seems she'll carry these traits right to the end. I did get to see a few preparations for a traditional Chinese funeral though. Once she passes away, there will be a large procession with her body. Every family member is required to wear a cloth hat; the colour of which indicates your relationship to the deceased. As the grandson-in-law, I would get to wear a white hat. The hats are now made of small hand towels since you can get them in a variety of colours and you can pull out the stitches and use the towel afterwards. I would have enjoyed participating in and photographing a traditional Chinese funeral. I realize it's a bit of a weird thing to look forward to since someone has to die in order to have the funeral. There was one up side to 老婆's grandmother's poor health: there was a large family gathering to celebrate Julie's first birthday a little early. It was nice to see some of 老婆's family who were out for our wedding but have since moved away from the village.

The second bit of excitement was helping 老婆's parents move. They borrowed some kind of three-wheeled, electric wagon (pictured above) and I was the only one available with any kind of driving experience. 爸爸 rode along and pointed where I needed to go as we covered the 15 km between the village and Wuwei. The road near the village and the streets of Wuwei were fine but there was about 7 km worth of the worst potholed road I have ever seen in the middle. For that section, we slowed to a crawl and bumped along. At one point, a teenage girl riding leisurely on a normal bike passed us. I guess I could have gone faster but I didn't want to break the in-laws TV and dishes. On the return trips, we went a little faster but the bumps knocked the chain off a few times. I regret not getting a picture of me driving the thing. It was fun driving in Chinese traffic though. When you turn left, it's best to turn early and spend a little time in the oncoming bicycle lane before crossing over to where you should be. No one seems to obey traffic laws and there are all sorts of bikes and vehicles on the streets. My favourite was an old man on a bike riding slowly through a red light and in the middle a busy intersection while all the cars swerved around him. No one seemed upset by this either.

The other note of interest was the beds. At the school, 老婆, Julie and I shared a bed which was composed of five benches pushed together with a 3 cm thick mattress on top. During the day, one bench had to removed as it was needed for the students. In Wuwei, we had a proper bed but no mattress. We did have some blankets under us for padding but, on my side, they stopped progressively further from the edge of the bed. Since 老婆 and Julie are always trying to push me out of bed, the slope towards the edge created by these blankets made my sleep a little more treacherous. I usually pulled the top quilt over and tucked it under me to prop up that side of my body and prevent any rolling out of bed. My next bed was a folding couch at 姐姐's place. If I slept on my back, I had to sleep spread-eagle since I'm 1.76 m and the couch is 1.765 m between the arm rests. Add in a little bit of pillow and blanket on either end and there wasn't quite enough room for me. The mattress also folded flat but the seat and back weren't flat themselves. There was a comfortable groove to sleep in though. The last bed was actually two single beds in a hotel. They were a bit hard but the best beds so far. Julie slept in one and 老婆 and I shared the second. In the middle of the night, 老婆 brought Julie over for a feeding. Julie fell asleep like usual so we left her in that bed and moved to the other one.