Today is the day I have been waiting for since the winter school semester started. The Rideau Canal has opened for skating from Bank St to Ottawa U and I will be using it to get to and from school everyday. People that know me well know that I am dedicated biker and have been known to bike in everything from -20 to + 30 degrees Celsius in every kind of precipitation. So with that being said let me tell you about my route.
I live very close to Macdonald Cartier Airport in the south end of Ottawa and attend school at the University of Ottawa. The way I bike to school is more or less 8 km down Riverside Drive and then I join up with the Rideau Canal at Mooney's Bay and follow it for another 7km as it winds its way to my school. So each school day this winter I will bike down Riverside with my skates attached to me somehow, drop off the bike and glide all the way to class. I will leave my front door about an hour and a half before class starts to give me lots of time to really enjoy the commute and not feel rushed.
Now let me tell you a bit about why I choose this way to get school. First of all I detest driving in traffic, I swear, I talk and text and become extremely irritable and that does not even cover parking! Second of all the bus just does not do it for me I do not like rushing out in the morning, its not convenient from where I live and it is crowded. Now biking and skating replace two activities that I loathe with vigorous low impact exercise that at the same time allows me quiet time to think about my day and most likely some tricky math question my professors came up with. There is no such thing as being late becuase you got stuck in a bike jam or missing your bike and having to wait for the next bike in half an hour. So to sum up what I'm doing is:
- Replacing a frustrating sedentary activity with an enjoyable active one
- Finding time for quiet reflection
- Putting a silly grin on my face whenever I zoom by a bunch of cars bumper to bumper
- Enjoying the outdoors and the recreation facilities that my city provides
- Making the most out of winter
Hope this might help convert a white knuckle driver out there or at the very least help some of you understand what we crazy people are doing biking in the winter.
P.S. Flying is on the backburner right now because of school and the afformentioned winter so this is going to be more of an outdoors blog for now.
Posts to come:
-A primer on winter biking
-A trip report from the winter camping and backcountry ski weekend Dan, Brodie and I are planning in Quebec in a couple of weeks and hopefully another video
-A little more about me and what my goals for the blog are.
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