In late October, we had packed up and ventured off to Montréal with a couple of friends. Our friends were going to see a concert, so we all thought we'd make an entire weekend out of it.
We left on a Friday morning, and arrived in Montreal in the early evening. Our friends headed off to the concert, while Cess and I spent the evening in Old Montréal. Having never spent any significant amount of time in Montréal, I could immediately see why everyone says Montréal has a very European feel to it -- it does. The architecture, the layout of the old part of town, and the overall atmosphere are certainly very reminiscent of European cities. We wrapped up our evening with a dinner at Garde Manger, a restaurant owned and operated by Chuck Hughes, of Chuck's Day Off fame. The dinner was excellent, albeit, a bit on the pricey side when you consider what type of food you're getting. Regardless, we had a great evening.
The remainder of the weekend was spent doing various touristy things. The two highlights were Pikolo Espresso Bar (awesome coffee and pastries) and Jean-Talon Market. The latter is one of Montreal's largest open air markets and is extremely impressive. In short, it puts Toronto's St. Lawrence market to shame. Jean-Talon is much larger, has a much better variety of products, and in most cases, the products are much better priced. Between the four of us, we loaded up on 10lbs of peppers, about 15lbs of tomatoes, and other various goodies.
It's safe to say that we would definitely like to go back again. Even just to experience the market!
Several weeks ago, we made plans to ride down to Pennsylvania with a group organized by BMW Toronto. This would be a Saturday to Monday trip. We were looking forward to closing out our riding season with some nice twisty roads and colourful scenery. We were going to ride down with a friend, Darlene, who we were also going to share our accommodations with. I made some chocolate pistachio biscotti and packed sandwiches for our lunch for the ride down. We were even going to surprise another friend of ours who would be travelling with the main group when we would all eventually arrive at the hotel.
We met up with Darlene on Saturday morning at a gas station near our condo. We filled up and headed to the border. It was a balmy 8C and the air was "wet". As we rode towards Buffalo, the wind picked up and it started to drizzle. Just after Grimsby, we stopped to put more layers on. We were freezing. As we layered up, we pondered continuing on or turning back. Although Darlene said she'd be fine with turning back, we decided to push on towards the border.
So we continued on. And it started to rain in earnest. The riding conditions just became miserable. Matt and I were ok with riding in wet weather, or cold weather, but not both. We stopped again when we were no more than 10 km from the border. We donned the rest of our rain gear and then we all decided that we were going to abort the trip. We knew the forecast for the rest of the day in Williamsport called for 90-100% probability of precipitation and would only reach a high of 11C. In other words, it would be miserable for the entire ride. Seeing as we do touring on our motorcycles to have fun, and this was definitely not fun, there didn't seem to be any point in continuing onwards. And Darlene agreed.
We turned around and headed to the nearest Tim Hortons to warm up. The Tim Hortons we arrived at happened to be just outside of Niagara Falls. It took us all a few minutes to take off layer after layer after layer once we got inside. I'm sure it was quite the amusing sight. Once we unlayered, we got ourselves some hot beverages. Matt informed the ride organizer by email that we had decided to turn around, and Darlene called the hotel to cancel our reservation. We were all prepared to pay a penalty for such a late cancellation. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that there would be no penalty at all. We joked that we should take the money we saved and go to the casino to try and make more ;) We didn't; instead, we stayed at the Tim Hortons long enough to warm up and then headed home to Toronto.
On our way home, Darlene parted ways with us as we neared Toronto. Since Matt and I live downtown, and she does not, there was no point in her following us all the way downtown. By this time our fuel reserve lights had been on for a while. Matt and I debated stopping for gas or pushing on towards home. Well, didn't I run out of gas on the highway. Matt had to leave me to fend for myself on the shoulder of the highway and continued onwards. He'd come back with some gas for me as soon as he could.
Lucky for me, I ran out of gas on a section of the highway that had a fairly wide shoulder. I parked my bike as far away from the moving traffic as I could. To kill some time, I snapped a few shots with my camera. Then I stood on the shoulder and ... ate a sandwich. Why not? I was hungry. ;) After finishing my sandwich, I stood near my bike and just watched the traffic go by. Not a single person stopped to check on me. But the weather had vastly improved since we returned from our trip to the border. The sun was shining and the wind had died down a bit.
Eventually, a car did stop. But not to check on me. The driver got out and walked around his car, looking at it intently. He eventually walked over to me and asked if I had a cell phone he could borrow. He needed to call his office to let them know that he would either be late or not in at all; he needed a tow. Oh really? It turns out that he was drinking his coffee and somehow started choking on it. While this was all happening, he managed to swerve into the guardrail before regaining control of his car. I didn't go to inspect the damage to his car, but he certainly had fresh wet stains on the front of his t-shirt. I dialed his work for him and let him yell into my cell phone while I watched. It amused me greatly that he walked up to me, like I was standing on the side of a normal road at a bus stop, and asked to use my cell phone. After his call, he thanked me and went back to sit inside his car. By this time, Matt had arrived with some gas for me. He emptied the container into my tank and then we left.
While we were staying at the Penfield House, I found a magazine that featured the Penfield House ... and 3 other properties that were FLW designed and also available as rentals! We will probably attempt to stay at the other properties in the future.
Yes, we realize this is loooooong overdue, sometimes life keeps you busy though. We had a great time staying at the Penfield House. It was somewhat surreal to have a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house all to ourselves for a few days. You can't help but relax while you're there. The house is situated in a very quiet part of Ohio without any nearby distractions and the design of the house really promotes that state of relaxation. The huge floor to ceiling windows running the entire length of the house blur the lines between being inside and outside.
Other than the relaxation, we did spend a fair bit of time photographing the house and property. Here are a few of my shots.
Last year we rode to Bar Harbour for Labour Day weekend. This year we've chosen a different destination. Quite by chance, I found out from a friend of ours that we could actually rent a Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built house. Wow! Since Matt is a huge fan of FLW, how could we pass on such an opportunity?
We reserved the house and rented a car. We figured that since this would be a mostly photographic experience, it would be easier to just haul all of our equipment in a car instead of on our bikes. Unfortunately, we won't have internet access during the duration of our stay.
I guess you'll just have to wait and see after we return home!
Over the last few days, I have put the finishing touches on the restoration of my old Sears Free Spirit bicycle. Upon finishing the last bit of assembly (mounting grips, levers, cables, etc) I took the bike out for its inaugural ride. While I had to make some minor adjustments, the test ride was successful. Everything works!
So... how much did this restoration cost in parts and materials? Well, let's have a look.
Ouch! I can safely say that the project ended up costing a lot more than I had anticipated. Having said that, if I were to try to buy a bike similar to this (with parts of similar quality, etc) I'd have to spend well over $700...
So, would I do this again? I think so. Chances are, I will be doing this again with Cess' bike. The only thing I might change is to see whether I can have the frame proffessionaly painted at a reasonable cost ($200-$300 maybe?). While I'm happy with the results I have, I know a proffessional paint job would have a more durable finish.
Now, for pictures!
Graffiti alley:
More graffiti alley:
Distillery District:
Bike's front end including handlebar, grips, tires, etc:
In the last month or so, I haven't quite had nearly as much time as I would have liked to work on the bicycle restoration project, especially with the Colorado trip and all. Having said that, I've still managed to make quite a bit of progress. Here's a quick outline of what's been done since the last update:
Ordered and received parts that needed replacing (shift lever, brake levers, cables, and pedals)
Frame, fork, stem, and handlebar have all been painted
Restored the rims, including repacking bearings in the front wheel hub
Started re-assembly, specifically:
built and installed headset and fork
built and installed bottom bracket
mounted tubes and tires on rims
mounted wheels and kickstand onto frame (now that this is done, the bike can stand on its own which should make the rest of the assembly process easier!)
So... how about some pictures then?
New brake lever:
New and old pedals:
Painted and reassembled frame, fork, headset and stem:
One of the things we had planned while in Chicago was visiting the Dainese store (one of our favourite motorcycle clothing brands), so we'd checked the store hours and location ahead of time. The store is in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago. After picking up a rental car this morning, we set off for Schaumburg. Upon arriving at the store, we noticed a little sign on the door labelled "Summer Hours". Yup, the shop is closed on Sundays. In a classy customer service move the website is of course not updated with this information. Good going guys! Strike one.
Our other thought was to head over to Oak Park to check out some of the Frank Lloyd Wright houses that we'd seen several years ago. Of course, this isn't going to work either, it's been raining all bloody morning. Strike two.
We have now spent the last 45 minutes hanging out at a... Starbucks of all places. I thought I would lower myself and frequent a Starbucks to make use of their free wi-fi to get online and do some research as to what else we could do. It would appear that all of the local motorcycle dealerships are also closed on Sunday. Strike three.
So what now? Well, we may venture into a mall for a little bit and otherwise we'd decided that we'll just head to the airport and be there way early. In the grand scheme of things, it's a minor letdown. The rest of the trip was fantastic and more or less went off according to plan without a hitch.
Update on Sunday, July 24, 2011 at 11:11PM by
Cess
When in the suburbs, do as the suburbanites do: go hang out at a mall! We spent a few hours at Woodfield Mall. I admit I dragged Matt to the Sanrio store and the Lego store. I was disappointed that Sanrio had a very slim selection of Keroppi stuff. As for the Lego store: wow! Although we didn't purchase anything (our niece Kassidy is a little too young for Lego at this time), we had a great time browsing their wares. Some of the interesting things they had were architecture kits. The Fallingwater kit was nice to look at, but it was quite pricey.
We arrived at Chicago-Midway with a ridiculous amount of time to spare. We considered getting onto an earlier flight, but the service charge was a little to hefty for our wallets. The best part of coming home? Being able to walk home from the airport. ;)
Today was another lazy day. We only had 2 things on our agenda that we wanted to do: watch a Cubs game and visit Threadless. After enjoying a light breakfast at our hotel, we met up with our friend Jason who would be coming with us to see the game.
We took the local transit to Wrigley Field. Our train was packed with Cubs fans. Our train ride was probably about 25 minutes long. When we arrived at the station where the stadium was located, it looked like all the passengers vacated the train. Although there were many people lined up to enter Wrigley, everyone entered fairly quickly. Wrigley Field is one of the two oldest baseball stadiums in the U.S. We were a little surprised at how small the stadium was, but that meant that all the seats allowed the viewer to be close to the action on the field. Another surprising local feature was bleachers on the tops of adjacent buildings to the stadium. We enjoyed the game and the atmosphere. The attendance was close to capacity at 41,000. And an added bonus: the home team won!
After the game, we strolled over to Threadless. Apparently Jason did a bit of research before hand and finished his shopping and completed his purchase in 5 minutes flat. Matt and I took our time looking at the t-shirts on display and chatting with the staff. We both picked out a couple of shirts each. It turns out that Threadless brings in new shirts every week on Fridays. We get the feeling that Jason may be making more frequent trips into Chicago to check out their shirts. ;)
Since we didn't have anything else planned, we decided to meet up with a couple of friends of Jason and go out to dinner together. At Jason's suggestion, we headed to Carson's when the first place we tried fell through (they were just closing up). I think Jason picked the longest possible walking route to Carson's. By the time we arrived there, we were all famished and definitely ready to eat. Everyone ordered an entree that included ribs in some fashion. Very satisfying.
Today's weather turned out much better than we originally expected. We had expected rain, all day, all weekend. As it turns out, the rain only came down (like crazy!) from around 1 am until about 9 am. And then stayed mostly overcast for the rest of the day. We totally lucked out. We'll see if our luck holds tomorrow!
Thanks again, Jason, for being our pseudo-guide today. =)
Today was a sad day for us. We would be returning to Denver to drop off our bikes with Ben. After a quick breakfast, we packed up our bikes, closed up the chalet, and headed out. Our final ride with Bill and Jackie went by fairly quickly. We left Ouray around 8:30 am and arrived in Denver around 3:00 pm. At a couple of our gas and rest stops, Matt was asked by locals about his bike. Funny enough, this happens rather rarely. Most people ask about my bike and ignore Matt's. ;)
When we arrived in Denver, we were surprised to see that very few bikes had arrived before us. Although our bikes would be travelling home with 2 fewer bikes (2 people had alternate plans once the Colorado trip finished up), only 4 other bikes were there when the 4 of us rolled up. We quickly repacked our luggage and only took only what was necessary for our trip to Chicago. We said goodbye to our bikes again and watched as they were loaded onto the trailer. We also said goodbye to Ben, Jackie and Bill. What a fantastic adventure. We had an amazing time. =) Thank you to Ben for organizing everything so well. It was an awesome experience! Thank you to Bill, Jackie, and David for putting up with us for the week. Again, great company and great food. We will meet again!
We caught a hotel shuttle back to Denver International Airport. We had lots of time to spare. Luckily for us, this meant that we found out our assigned gate had been re-assigned. We were also able to get upgraded seats (more leg room for Matt!) for no additional cost. After we got all of that sorted out, we grabbed a bite to eat, got Matt a caffienated beverage, and then waited patiently at the correct gate. Our flight was delayed by 15 minutes because the previous plane was late on its departure. We were still able to arrive at Chicago on time. Despite the forecast of miserable weather (rain, rain, and more rain), there was no precipitation when we arrived in Chicago, and none when we arrived at our hotel. But: it is raining now. I guess this is a sign that we should go to bed.
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:56AM 
