Short EZ(?) Ride To The Nest

This morning when we awoke we were greeted with a weather forecast for morning rain and they were right, it rained. We decided to delay our ride and settled in and watched the Tour de France (yeah Froomie!) and enjoyed  good coffee, oatmeal with blueberries, and waited for the skies to clear. 

We left around 10:30 and were blessed with cool temperatures with the sun occassionally breaking through. Margaret planned a fairly easy 25 mile ride not taking us not far from home just in case of rain. Wait a minute, did I hear EASY? So why were those 8% - 11% grades showing up on my Garmin from time to time? The good news is they were short climbs with associated downhills, but after all the fairly flat AZ riding, it was challenging to do several series of hill climbs. 

What is lovely about this area is that one can quickly pedal out of civilization. We roamed through farmland to the forests, right down to Esquimalt Harbor.

SHEEP!

 The harbor that offered scenic views of downtown Victoria to the east and a lagoon filled with a variety of birds on the west. (No photos here as we were too busy peddling).

We then peddled up some more hills and found ourselves in the middle of the forest, and yep, plenty of deer. One of which posed perfectly for me. 

We then headed for more riding on the Galloping Goose trail and The Nest cafe that caters to cyclists for a quick bite. We each just had a sandwich and will make this a definite stop for the Trilogy Bike Club event next year.

GALLOPING GOOSE TRAIL

After lunch we headed home as the skies were getting a bit darker and there was more rain in the forecast for the afternoon. After getting cleaned up we went down to a local bike shop and found they were having a killer sale.  I scored some cool arm warmers and a pair of Sugoi shorts both with prices reduced 75%!  

Tonight we head to dinner at Christopher and Hilary's house. They are Trilogy Bike Club friends and conveniently live around the corner from Margaret. 

This was overall yet another great day and I keep telling myself the climbing is great practice for our upcoming Rocky Mountain tour. 

Tomorrow Margaret, Hilary and I will do a city cycle tour of downtown Victoria and the waterfront. Margaret says not many hills...but that's what she said today, so I will let you know tomorrow if she can be trusted. 😉 🚴🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇸🇨🇦

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Bob will have another update tomorrow.