Biking Archives - Carolyne J Montgomery

or

How to stay calm while monitoring the decline and fall of the American Republic from uncomfortable proximity.

(This may be too wordy for the title of a post)

It has been a great summer in the Comox Valley—long sunny days (but now rapidly shortening) days, a warm sea for swimming and brown lawns while the marrows establish their dominance in the garden.

The Denman Island Readers and Writers Festival

In July, the annual Denman Island Readers and Writers Festival. (Should there be possessive apostrophes?) Check out the DIRWF site for complete details of the authors.

After my wander to the Sunshine Coast last year for a visit to their annual Festival of the Written Arts, it was great to be back on Denman—so many familiar faces, members of my former writing group, current members of the Comox Valley Writers society and old friends. And due to the intimacy of the venue, a chance to make new acquaintances.

I treated myself to Caroline Adderson’s workshop, Ending it All. The salient points are there must be a a good beginning and middle to your work or you are doomed to have an Insufficient or Bad Ending. What type of ending will satisfy your readers?

Bill Engelson and I applied Caroline’s algorithm to our current projects to tease out improvements. My protagonist’s motivations (to avoid shame and regret) were not clear enough. And I’m grateful that with structured guidance, I can see that now. Even better, and I think I know what to do to fix it.

At the Festival, Caroline Adderson read from A Way to Be Happy (longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize) treating us to some fascinating details of her experience at the BC Archives, where she was able to review case histories and process documents from a lower mainland psychiatric hospital in the 1920’s–research that she used in the final story of her eight story collection—a commentary on the evolving practice of psychiatry, culture, morality, feminism, human nature and chance. Masterful.

Fiona Tinwei Lam, a Vancouver poet, presented her poetry videos. Her poems are animated with dynamic visual media. My favourite one was Plasticnic. https://fionalam.net/poetry-videos/plasticnic/ This session was followed by lunch, where I regretfully drank an iced latté served in a plastic cup.

The graphic novelist, Sarah Leavitt, who prefers to be called a comic book artist, presented her 2024 comic memoir, Something Not Nothing, created after the 2020 MAiD death of her partner.

It’s a tale of a loved one’s journey of living with a debilitating, progressive, chronic illness. It’s the tale of the decision to die by that loved one and the subsequent grief and recovery journey. It’s funny, poignant and honest. Importantly, it is self-compassionate.

Do you love Paris, gastronomy and don’t shy away from the stories of physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring nightly behind the two-way swinging doors of these kitchens? The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf is for you. Perhaps think of Ralph Fiennes in the 2022 film, The Menu. And Timothy Taylor cooks. Check out his blog for the restaurant, Noma’s soil recipe.

John Vaillant shared vignettes from interviews with firefighters, workers, and civilians who escaped the 2016 Fort McMurray fire, as described in his 2023 book, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast. If you haven’t heard him speak already, here is a link to his interview by Gaia Vince at the 2024 Royal Society of Arts and Commons. Definitely worth a listen.

When I read his book, two years ago, I was in awe of the humanity of the citizens of that town as they co-operated with the astonishing evacuation along the single highway leading them south to safety. The vibe was, “Nobody wanted to be that guy.”

The basic human right to breathe fresh air is in jeopardy. This is no longer a remote threat, affecting only the developing world or major urban centres; it is now an expected seasonal risk here in Canada as our dessicated boreal forest ignites.

A lot of sitting and intense thinking (three days) for this body and brain but I’ve been provoked, inspired, and challenged to get back at it, to improve my bad beginnings, saggy middles and unsatisfying endings in my current short story projects.

REJECTION

Meanwhile, in my writing journey, I continue receiving sporadic rejections of my short story collection (like the third minute of microwaving a bag of popcorn—the pops are fewer and the silence between them, longer)

And my favourite rejection so far—a lovely encouraging letter from Keagan Hawthorne, Associate Editor at Gaspereau Press. Soon, I must decide whether to pursue assisted publishing or post my work here.

SPORTY STUFF

The US Open

No rackets for me right now, but if you love tennis and the US Open it’s an exciting time. Nobody wants to be a “hater” but if you enjoy disliking Nole, check out this Substack, Sweater Weather, written by Brandon Taylor. Terrific writing and craft tips. Meanwhile, go Felix and Leyla!

On the Bike

Luck smiled on us for a four-day, supported ride from Jasper to Canmore. Ben of Mountain Madness was a great host. It’s a blessing that I can still complete these adventures. You can’t buy the weather, and it can be pretty random in the Rockies but we lucked out with four mainly sunny days. I didn’t want to push my luck by complaining about the mind-blowing headwinds at the Athabasca Glacier.

Thanks for reading. Please continue to get all your routine immunizations. Coming up for me this fall, influenza, RSV and Covid. Follow the science. Until next time, take good care of yourself and your loved ones.

A few weeks ago, I was part of a group of six cyclists on a self-guided cycling trip in Algarve, Southern Portugal. Why Portugal you ask? It’s been touted as a great tourist destination — naval history, Moorish architecture, seafood, wine (including port) and varied natural beauty all condensed into a country that is one-third the size of Italy or one-half the size of Great Britain.

We settled on the touring company, Algarve Bike Holidays and chose a six-day tour of distances ranging from 40 to 70 km and the biggest day of climbing was 970 metres. Our route was a mixture of shoreline and ascents into the hills to Alte and Monchique.

What were the bike options?

My initial thought was to use their front-suspension touring bike option that was recommended for the mixed surfaces, that I was expecting along the shorelines. The injured knee in May and lack of training forced me to reconsider my bike choice as I paid the uninsurable balance of the trip in late July. Luckily, I did do some decent riding (for me) during August and September.

My e-bike experience prior to the trip was a spin around a parking lot on a buddy’s e-bike. Here in Comox, the e-bike has become commonplace, often mostly replacing the car for riders of all ages. Our friends at Comox Bike Company would be happy to sell me an upper mid-range carbon fibre Specialized road bike format, e-bike for about ten thousand dollars.

The tour company provided us with bikes powered by Bosch drivetrains. Of course, it would have been helpful to read some of this material before we went but…

As we travelled along the various routes and surfaces, our group discussed the Pros and Cons of e-bikes from the perspective of a group whose ages ranged from mid-50s to mid-70s and there was a broad set of athletic interests. One of us is committed to indoor spin classes three times a week and only rides outdoors on bike trips. Another was a former triathlete, IronMan (Person). We all have our shopping lists of various chronic ailments that require creative athleticism.

What I learned on the fly:

Our touring e-bikes were heavy, 25 to 30 kg. If you didn’t pay attention and are used to a light road bike, you would find yourself lunging to stop it from crashing onto the pavement as you fiddled about with your Garmin or phone. The kickstand was useful, possibly essential but then you had to remember that you’d deployed the kick-stand before you started off again. On the plus side, when you got the bike rolling, there was an incredible amount of momentum. Thank goodness for disc brakes.

There was a 5-square digital display on the handlebars depicting the amount of battery power remaining. For some of us, an estimated remaining range in kilometres was shown. Presumably, the scale was linear. This was a source of obsession on the first day as I had no idea how much battery power I was using or what distance the remaining four squares of power would support in terms of distance. I couldn’t find the range meter on my device.

Bosch battery range indicator — *Power and range indicator (Bosch website)*

The on/off control and power level indicator looked similar to this picture. There are five modes: Off, ECO, Tour, Sport, and Turbo each more powerful and using increasing battery power. Our advice during the orientation session was to leave the bike in ECO mode unless more power is needed. The feel of the bike in ECO mode is similar to a self-propelled touring bike, the power counteracting the heaviness.

By the end of the first day — mixed surface (tarmac/sand/hardpack/gravel) of about 62 km along the southern shore of the Algarve — I learned that I was fine in Off most of the time but ECO or Tour was handy to power through segments of soft sand. And I’ll add here that I was on 38 mm extremely knobby tires. The Ria Formosa nature park had frequent views of the Atlantic, the salt pans and various bird life. We saw white flamingos, storks and many other shore birds.

Another PRO of the e-bike was that you can load up the panniers. My pannier might contain all of the following: backup tool kit including the mysterious 15 mm wrench, the bulky and heavy battery charging pack, the power bar for plugging in all the bikes, the backup Garmin navigation device and a rechargeable AA battery system. Plus, my bathing suit. In addition to the grand hotel fancy pool swims, we had a lovely dip in the Atlantic Ocean at Praia da Rocha, the day of our descent from Alte after three pitchers of sangria (one white, two red if I recall correctly) in the delightful beach resort town.

The Recharging Routine

The routine at the end of each day’s ride was to plug in the bikes in the bike rooms of the various hotels and at Alte in the corridors and hotel rooms. This sometimes required creative bike, extension chord and power bar arrangements. My battery recharged from 4 to 5 bars within an hour. No one ran out of battery power while riding despite the two days that were mainly climbing. Theoretically, for touring trips, this means you can plan longer or more difficult days and see more of the country.

Riding Along

For the remaining 5 days, I toddled along in Off and ECO modes with no concerns about running out of battery power or exhaustion of personal energy should the ride get more difficult. For example, the big headwind we encountered as we turned south toward Sagres and the Southern tip of Portugal or unplanned extra kilometres due to dodgy route-finding. I’m thinking of you Hotel Alte Tradition.

It was comforting to know if my knee acted up, I was covered. I learned to treat myself to a few bursts of Tour or Sport on the steeper grades or soft terrain and on one tricky occasion both.

Everyone in the group was able to ride at their preferred personal energy output and use the battery power to stay with the group. The e-bike is a serious leveller for groups of riders with different experiences, fitness levels, abilities and goals. Everybody gets to go on the trip and everybody gets to have fun without being thrashed at the end of the day. This means more energy for port and wine tasting and eating the amazing Portugese tapas, seafood and salads.

So what’s the verdict?

Definitely consider an e-bike if your group has diverse abilities or your fitness is a bit wobbly for the requirements of the planned trip. By adjusting the level of battery support, each rider can still get the level of workout or assistance they want.

Would I rent an e-bike again?

Depends.

(trip photo credits to Alvin Nirenberg)

How I spent my summer vacation

or