Ruth has been doing pretty well with her balance for much of the summer of 2009 and so we have been doing some more trips on our mountain bikes. We have also been doing some quadracycling and the contrast in uses shows where each vehicle's strengths are.
Yesterday the weather forecast was free of rain and so we planned an ambitious round trip of about 54 km from our house near South Keys to Lac Leamy and back. Lac Leamy is a beach in the heart of Gatineau, Quebec, near the casino of the same name. We planned to take a picnic lunch and lots of water as the temperature was forecast to reach 25C. The trip lent itself to bicycling for two reasons:
* We didn't need to carry much, so the pick-up truck capabilities of the quadracycle were not required.
* The route is not open to quadracycles.
The route was the key thing. It starts out on roads north to Mooney's Bay, but from there we are much better off on bike pathways, rather than the roads on a workday, with all the traffic that entails. The NCC's recreational pathways vary in width a lot and overall are too narrow for the quadracycle.
The route was the pathway parallel to the Colonel By Drive, over the Corktown Bridge and then down the western pathway to the bottom of the canal locks. Then traverse the top of the last lock to reach the pathway on the eastern side, up the pathway and onto the Alexandra bridge with its bike pathway. Carrying the 160 lb quadracycle over the canal was a non-starter! From there the route followed NCC recreational pathways all the way to Lac Leamy. An easy biking route, but not possible by quadracycle.
With some scenic lookouts and dawdling over lunch at the beach, some popsicles and such, we made it home in about six hours, a beautiful day well spent and really only possible by bicycle!
Today we did a typical quadracycle trip. This entailed using the Rhoades Car's considerable cargo capacity to do a run to Giant Tiger to get a quanity of milk, can goods and other groceries. The route is over quiet suburban streets - perfect for quadracycling. Completing the 6 km run, we were back home in 40 minutes, even given lots of time for shopping. This is really a mission that the quadracycle excels at - hauling loads.
I think this tale shows that both quadracycles and bikes have their advantages and disadvantages, but in the end, they are quite complimentary.
This mix is going to get more complex, however. Inspired by Gordon's stories about Catrikes and her own try on the Leitra velomobile trike, Ruth wanted to get a closer look at trikes. We made a trip to Gatineau to visit the local Catrike dealer, Bicyclettes de Hull. Ruth test drove a Catrike Pocket and was impressed enough to order a Catrike Trail model. It should be here in early September. Once she gets familiar with it we will be able to compare bikes with two, three and four wheels.
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 274 km
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