Le tour Nortel Networks, May 5, 2002

It was about 20km out there (with a detour around Pretoria Bridge under construction), 15km of tour-de-nortel ride, with the canoe on top, wearing life jackets, paddles strapped on visible, and my evil stoker-cum-gunner in the rear seat nailing cars with a super-soaker, extra points for SUVs with open windows. On the way back (another 20km), we got stuck in Sunday afternoon traffic jam in front of Parliament Hill (federal elected house) on our way to get gelato and pop into Re-cycles bike co-op. We couldn't really cut between lanes with *this* rig...

In the parking lot afterwards, one boy had a teeny-weeny bike that could be ridden underneath the tandem tallbike.

Mike Watson's tandem tall bike is amazingly graceful!

Mark Rehder reports:
Richard and Jody swung by my place a bit behind schedule, so we had to hoof it out to Nortel. We arrived just after the 15 km ride left, so we quickly filled out the forms and headed off. Since this was the ride for families, we easily caught up to people making their way up that long Corkstown Road hill. I was amazed at how many people (who weren't cycling with kids) were pushing their bikes up that gradual slope. 18, 21 or 28 speeds, and they don't know how to use them I guess.) We found Juergen along the way (who had quite rightly given up waiting for me to collect those fake tulips!), and then we stopped at the top of the hill to find Mike W. and his pals (Grant and Scotty -- ed.).

We met up with a woman on a SWB bent (Seanna -- ed.), made by a fellow named Fournier in Manotick (I've heard that he moved production to somewhere in Nepean, but is no longer making bents). In the parking lot at the end of the ride we met a woman riding a Ryan recumbent. Brett, I've forgotten her name (Ingrid -- ed.), but she said she was the one who inspired to to get your Ryan. Richard also chatted with a fellow who had a Tour Easy clone (Wilf, *real* tour easy plans and seat -- ed.).

Mike's tandem is quite the machine! (As you can see from the photos). Both riders made it look like an effortless event to get on that thing and get it moving. As for Richard's tandem, a certain stoker got rather rambunctious with his super-soaker and passing motor-vehicles (name withheld to protect the very guilty) [grin]. Some people were laughing so hard they had trouble cycling, though I don't think the people driving by with open windows were!

For me, I enjoyed being almost anonymous for once on my Linear! I was actually chuckling a bit to myself as Richard and Mike were ahead of me at one point, thinking "hey, I've finally found the weird-bike people of Ottawa!" [grin]. I knew you folks were out there, we just had to find each other. And perhaps it's not so much that we're all weird-bike people (are we people on weird bikes, or weird people on bikes- you choose!), but that we all like a good parade!



All photos (C) 2002 Richard Guy Briggs Email Web
Page last updated by Richard Guy Briggs Wed Apr 14 13:25:42 EDT 2004