Friday November 1 2013

Blow Me Down!
Cloud/Sun/Balmy

It showered all morning but the sun started breaking through around 1 in the afternoon, so after four hours of grading 38 metric tons of new 0-3/4" gravel on the driveway I called it quits and went for a ride.

It was so mild that a Tee-shirt was all I needed beneath my riding jacket and there were no complaints from my bare hands.

The gravel was crawling with dump trucks and they were making a nice soup of it so I decided to stay on asphalt.

  • Ayer's Cliff
  • Katevale
  • North Hatley
  • Katevale
  • Magog
  • Georgeville
  • Fitch Bay
  • Ayer's Cliff

It was all I could do to keep from being blown off the road by the cross-wind on the steep grade of 108 out of Katevale. Likewise, there were gale-like winds on the stretch of 247 between Magog and Georgeville. At least those were pretty much head on, but still had to keep pretty focused.

Chemin Sheldon (247) between Georgeville and Fitch Bay was undoubtedly the highlight of the day by virtue of the lovely (recently paved) smooth blacktop and magnificent top-of-the- world views up at the chicken farm.

Wanting to avoid the sloppy gravel I took the Fitch Bay Road back to 141. Mistake. There's a three-mile stretch along Lac Lovering that has been patched so many times it doesn't make sense. Road that rough takes all the enjoyment out of a ride.

As I walked back to the house from the Bonnie Castle I listened to the wind as it roared through the tree tops over head and watched the branches as they danced and clacked against each other.