I decided to take the long way in to work today on bike. Wednesday was the day I previously scheduled for riding to work, and it definitely seemed like a good idea today. It was very hot, with thunderstorms scheduled for the afternoon.

To give my back a bit of a break I took my mountain bike wearing my backpack with my computer and a couple changes of clothes. Come to think of it, maybe the backpack has a bit to do with the back pain I've been experiencing on longer rides. Before Saturday's ride I've always worn my Camelbak, and on Saturday I had no back pain. On the way home today I was actually starting to get some tiredness already. Anyway...

I took my time getting there. I figured with the mountain bike I'd be slower anyway, so why try and rush it. I wasn't prepared for how much slower it actually is! I felt like I was crawling. It helped me being in my exploratory mode though, because I did take a couple trips off-road, and it's great climbing curbs and not caring where you go. It's nice when you're not prepared for the type of road conditions you're going to expect.

I stopped by D'Ornella's to have them look at my jumping chain. It was just a stuck link, which I easily corrected in the parking lot. I bought a flashing light (can never have too many) and a seat. I asked what they had, and the guy suggested this Specialized seat because it was the most like my road bike's seat. Let me just say that the seat felt great for the 10k until I got to work, but on the way back I felt like I was sitting on bare metal. I will never buy another Specialized seat again. This is the second, and I hated both of them. On further inspection it looks like my OCR2's seat is a Selle Royale (wish I looked at that before). Yeah, almost the same...

I've never had great service from D'Ornella's. I've never had bad service there either. I've just had... service. I bought my OCR2 from there, and I took Phil to get his bike from there too. It's not like I haven't brought them business. But I get this attitude from them that I'm just not really needed. I don't know. Maybe it's just me, and I'm being picky. I don't know. The shop I started spending money in was in Newmarket. The guy there was a great salesman, and I spent a lot of money there. But as long as I knew when to say no (which didn't happen as often as it should have), I knew I was being served by someone who was genuinely excited about what he was doing. He absolutely loved it, and when he sold stuff it was because he believed in it and loved it. A true enthusiast. I'm sure the guys at D'Ornellas were the same way at some point in their lives, just not now. Maybe I'm not so different at my work.

The ride back was much more leisurely. Saturday the ride took me 45 minutes. In the morning it was an hour. The way home took an hour and a half. I tried out some of the trails and recommended bike routes that run reasonably close to my route. One was the Gaineau trail. It runs through a hydro corridor, starting halfway between Midland and Kennedy, halfway between Eglinton and Lawrence. Easy to get to, right?

The trail sucked. It started off with a big walk up the stairs to get over the SRT and rail lines. I got to witness a fight between a couple which took place half on / half off the stairs. On the other side it went through a park which had four basketball half-courts set up. It was pretty cool to see everyone out playing. The trail continued down to Victoria Park, but it meandered a little too much. Then there were no crosswalks to get across the major streets, so I was left to my own wits to get across. Not cool (not because I don't have wits).

At the end there were some people playing cricket and others playing soccer. The cricket game looked a little pre-planned with equipment and stuff, but with the soccer game it looks like people just showed up. Maybe they do it regularly during the summer. I've never thought how things like that just happen. The trail ended abruptly and I made my way down O'Connor to give it a shot.

The trail was pointless. It isn't direct or safe enough to be a decent trail for commuters, and it's not pretty enough for people who live in the area to walk and enjoy. We had a trail like it in my part of Scarborough that nobody used either. It was in the Finch hydro corridor, and it suffered from the same problems. Maybe if they would have extended this trail on both ends it would have made much more sense. If it went straight to Thompson park in the east that would have made a nice connection to the Brimorton bike path. If the western part could be extended to even Eglinton it would have helped too. But now it's a bastard trail.

I grabbed some batteries for my new light and rode down O'Connor. I had no idea how bad of a street it is to ride down. No wonder the Cosburn bike path was needed so badly. Cars were coming pretty close to me, but they had no where else to go. Not nice at all.

I noticed a few more people honk around me. I still don't know if they're honking at me or not. I assume they are, but every time I look at them they don't make eye contact with me. Are they really honking at me? Because if they are I'm going to cuss them a new hole (for some reason I get violently defensive when I'm riding, must be "little man's disease").