Looking east from Sidney towards Mt. Baker

This is one of those days when Islanders love to tease their friends and family in the Rest of Canada. While much of the country is under several metres of snow, we are out on our bikes, some of us [David B & Norm L.] are in shorts! Coffee was at Georgia Coffee - where a fellow cyclist was occupying the only outside table. Fortunately, he was very generous individual and offered the table to the Peloton. As it turned out he was from the same town in Scotland as Norm L - they were seen to have a wee "blether". A welcome visitor for coffee was David A who is on the injury list for a few weeks. David has been "signed up" [volunteered???] to provide an "escort" when undertaking another section of the Tour de Victoria.

A bike ride in today's weather is good for the soul! Especially when we can share with fellow Canadians just how good it is. The overall feeling of joy was such that riders didn't mind when one of their members cycled through horse manure creating a gentle "spray" in his wake. Whether at the coffee break, or along the way the usual array of world and local problems were solved - how to deal with IS, or solve the chaos in Ukraine, for example. The one problem we didn't solve was the name of an Australian native plant, 15 letters beginning with H! Sorry James.

Jim showed up the rest of us by starting from the Blue Bridge and cycling up to Lochside Park to join up with the rest of the Peloton. Form Lochside, we rode to Sidney, and return, except Jim rode back to the Blue Bridge - go here if you want all the details.

Meanwhile 7 riders did about 36 km from Michells Farm to hilly Lands End Road/ Chalet Road, coffee at Deep Cove Market on W. Saanich Rd, back via Patricia Bay, E Saanich Road (some took Lochside), etc back to Michells. Beautiful sunshine, especially in the backyard of the coffee shop. No hits, no runs, no errors as they say in baseball. Winter riding doesn't get much better than this!