First outdoor ride of the season!

(well, other than a couple times I basically just went around the block or tried to ride when it was still too icy out).

Unlike last year when it was quite warm (almost 20C IIRC), it was only about 7C and cloudy - would have been better to ride yesterday when it was sunny and marginally warmer, but we were both too tired from having woken up at 5 am in order to watch the Ronde Van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) live.

And unlike last year when I crashed at the end of my first outdoor ride of the year and needed stitches in my knee, no crashes this time. Though lots of gravel, puddles, and the trail we thought about taking from Laurier Park to Hawreluk Park was still covered in snow and ice.

Below, you can see Ed in his fine form as we did a bit of hill training - though the hill doesn't really look all that impressive in the pic (it curves around out of the photo and keeps going, 1.5 km total to where I time myself). I'm doing reasonably well considering we were on mountain bikes today.

RONA MS Bike Tour

Ed and I have signed up to do this Bike Tour June 9-10, from Leduc to Camrose and back (approx. 180 km total), as part of our preparation for our trip to France - and also to raise money for the MS Society of Canada. If you'd like to donate to help me reach my fundraising goal, you can do so online here.

Thanks!

Strange plants ...

Well, considering we got more snow just recently I suppose it isn't strange - but with our two "Christmas" plants that now appear to be blooming at Easter, not sure what's going on. I've read that to get poinsettias to bloom again you have to strictly regulate the light, expose them to sunlight only from 8 am to 4 pm daily for a period of a month or more - nothing like that going on, just random sunshine in the corner of our great room. And our Christmas cactus has always bloomed somewhat randomly ...